The Dance of Death

My disease worsens, my days grow fewer, my life drains away…

And still they dance, whirling around me faster and faster, in a horrible travesty of joy, in a grotesque parody of celebration, faster, ever faster!

They are horrible, the dancers. They are clothed in burial shrouds, rotting flesh hanging from decayed bones, faceless horrors returned from the grave. They sing, in horrible low rasping voices, calling me, beckoning me, summoning me. I know that in not so long I will have to follow them, and it is that, not the idea of death itself, that frightens me so.

I know that my life will only last as long as I do not sleep, as soon as my eyes close I will belong to the dancers. I have not slept since I first saw them, but I grow weary, I will not be able to resist much longer.

The doctor came to see me again today. He has nothing new to tell me, my condition worsens, I must soon die. I find him a great fool, he tells me nothing that I do not already know. But it is not this disease that will kill me, no. I will be killed by my own nature, by the human need to rest.

The days fade slowly into nights, and I barely notice the rises and settings of the sun. The figures dance, twirling ever faster, hollow voices laughing gently, mocking my frail hold on life.

I have grown steadily worse, so much so that my parents telegraphed the priest before the doctor. The doctor arrived first, however, and told my parents that I had a few days left…for the moment he would give me a medicine to make me sleep.

I screamed when I heard this, screamed in mortal terror, for the faceless things reached toward me and their laughs grew louder, more like shrieks of pain…

The doctor comes closer, holding the bottle of poison that he calls medicine, and I writhe, lash out at him, anything to prevent a drugged sleep…but to no avail. I am too weak to physically hurt the man, and he will not heed my desperate pleas for mercy, he thinks that I am delirious. The circle of dancers draws closer.

“Hold her,” he orders my family, and they do, mother, father, brother, all helping to kill me. The spoonful of death draws closer, closer, I will not open my mouth. The doctor’s hand closes strong on my nose, I cannot breathe. As long as I do not sleep, I think, and keep my mouth closed, but my body does not want to die, and as soon as my vision begins to go dark I gasp, and my mouth is full of bitterness.

Taken by surprise, I swallow. Immediately I could feel the drug spreading silent through my veins, although it would be several minutes before the medicine took effect. Everyone left the room, leaving me to die alone in the dark. Slowly, slowly, my half hour of life trickles away, the song grows louder, the dance faster, the figures come closer, ever closer, arms outstretched.

One dancer in particular draws near, featureless face shadowed by a black hood, carrying a scythe, laughing. His smile widens, arms spread as if to embrace me. My pale hands weakly rise towards him, trying to push him away, but the drug grows stronger, tugging at my consciousness.


He comes closer, closer, the dancers laugh, and I give myself over to Death’s cold embrace, thankful, at the last, for nothingness and the absence of fear.