Vitality (Vitality Series #1)

Chapter 28 Don't Fear The Reaper pt.2

The fire flickered and danced calmly to their side. Eyes were out on the waters, washing endlessly beyond them and the dark velvet sky overhead. Ava lay back against Layton like a ghost to the world, only knowing the vibrations coming from his chest as he quietly sang, a dusky humming of words that absorbed her and whispered along her nerves. She tilted her head slightly to have him in her sight, all his mysteries slowly gnawing her alive, a galaxy to an astronomer.

It could not go on forever like it was. They were still only strangers. Every new moment, her patience was a little less, and it was just about time for something to give in order for them to continue any further. Could they make it?

Layton lowered his precious lips close to her ear, nudging her more into him as he sung of not fearing a reaper, and she went further away with him into the endless beyond. Even with only a maxi skirt of dark cotton, a sheer sweater over a spaghetti-strap top, and bare feet dug into the sand, she was not chilled in the biting air, next to the fiery heat. Layton was not chilled either, being in the embrace of her body for so long.

After a minute, or a day, or a year, he had stopped singing and released a breath held back in deep contemplation. "If only we were all made to better accept the transient nature of things, we might hold onto things with less maddened desperation..." His fingers flexed covetously in their hold on her. "The birth of fear, all suffering born. Fear in death. Fear in death of things... The pain experienced from loss is the greatest paradox to life."

"...How so?"

"Because it teaches us what is important to our lives, and yet, it can be unbearable to live with."

Ava turned to Layton with a studious gaze, deeply wanting to know where this would go, and even more hopeful that it would reveal more of him that she longed to know. He raised his knees for her to rest against as she sat up to face him, just as well to keep her close, an unspoken and unthinking language they shared.

"People have always searched for meaning, searched for more to their life... What they're really searching for is absolute fulfillment, more peace than they realize, to feel no strife, no pain, no fear. They do not understand they will never be content in that search — only death can offer that; they race for the end.

"To cling to life, is to live. But to cling to death... well, death, it's not something to fear... Death is only unkind to those left behind, who linger in the shadow of its absence, where fear rots like the plague. We let it consume us and we consume everything else. We do not get satisfied. We'll always want more as long as we live. The thing we long to swallow disappears in the consumption of swallowing itself. We are bottomless pits because we are meant to grow. If we get to the point we want no more — then we are already dead."

"You think we strive for death our whole lives?"

"I think we lose sight of life in the wake of death, pain, and fear."

Ava thought deeply about that for a moment.

"When I was very young," he began while weaving his fingers into hers where they lay on her chest, "I was taught by a revered philosopher that happiness was more than just an emotion, but a state of being. It wasn't simply the absence of strife either, as one might think, you see. And that the conduit to happiness was flourishing — healthy growth — and virtue. I believed happiness, love, and growth were the meaning of life. But that comes with so much pain and fear as well... that of which stirs us to growth, teaches us perseverance to survive, meaning... but just as often overgrows and overshadows us if we let it. We alone give it the strength to become The Reaper."

His face was difficult to read, hard and closed off now.

"Is that what you meant when you told me to be careful treading in the dark when we were above Lithium?"