My Personal Demon

16:42

It's time that Charles Noble gets the proper rest that he deserves. He can't live as a pile of ashes on my bed stand any longer. I'm sure his ghost is bored of watching his wife have sex with a demon, especially since he can no longer write about it.

I carefully wrap the pottery of his remains in tissue paper, making sure that it won't shatter in the suitcase. I would finally go to the place he talked about most: Spain.

I spoke with his mother about it. After a shouting match, she finally agreed to honor his wishes.

"It's what he would've wanted," she said, finally relenting. "You were, after all, what he wanted."

I would be lying if I said her words didn't give me any satisfaction. As much as I hated to admit it, a part of me craved her approval, especially in the early days of my marriage to him. I wanted someone who understood what it was like to love him to bless our union especially since my own mother disapproved. Pity that I had that now, months after my husband's death.

Jesper has invited himself on my journey, miraculously summoning first-class plane tickets.

"You won't be doing this alone," he said.

There was one hurdle I had to overcome to get to Spain. As I put my suitcase into the back of the car, I dreaded the fact that I would have to drive to the airport. It was hard enough getting behind the wheel some days. It was even worse with him back in the car with me.

As I twist the key in the ignition, a familiar anxiety crept back into my chest. What if I make the same mistake again with Jesper?

"Can you die?" I didn't want to hurt him.

"Not in the way humans do. It takes more than a knife to get rid of me."

"What about a car crash?"

He gives me a perplexed look. "Murderers don't usually announce their crime."

"I'm not planning to kill you, it's just–"

Jesper grabs my hand. "You won't hurt me. You can't even come close to killing me." Then, in a lower voice, he added, "I'm not him. You will never have to worry about that."

We make it to the airport without the car turning over.

But my anxiety doesn't ease when we board the plane. As we take off into the air, I imagine a million ways that this could end in death. The plane could be caught in a terrible storm or smashed to pieces by a tornado. A patient who escaped from a mental asylum could hijack the plane, taking us hostage. Maybe the pilot flies off course and we enter a war zone.

The possibilities are endless.

I swear I don't have aerophobia. I like flying and going to places that I could never reach on foot. I'm only marginally afraid of heights. If I don't look down or think about it too hard, I won't feel the vertigo. But I can't help but imagine all the ways this could go wrong. I've been denied inner peace for months, wrecked by Charles's death. Why would the clouds part now?

Because I'm not alone anymore. Haven't you noticed that life doesn't feel as empty?

Jesper squeezes my hand as if he heard my thoughts. "Is something wrong?"

I shake my head. "Not at all. It's just that I'm finally putting him to rest. He's getting the peace he deserves."

"And so will you. He won't haunt you any longer. You've kept his ashes on the bed stand for far too long. It's time that you both move on."

I hope so. After all the tears I've shed, a part of me is starting to believe that I deserve a happy life even if it's a life without him. I was more than his wife and infinitely greater than my sorrow. Or so I kept telling myself. One day, I'll believe it. And that day will come when I wake up without the thought of him.

The next morning, we visited the small town where Charles spent his college days. We rented a small cottage near the mountains, a few minutes away from his favorite hiking trail. After packing a bag, I set out for the path with Jesper following me.

It wasn't easy to find the lookout point where I was supposed to scatter his ashes. We got lost a few times, walking off on trails that only brought us further from our destination. The mountains had changed since he was last here, with new paths being paved. There was a chance that the lookout didn't even exist anymore, but I refused to give up.

The lookout was here, somewhere under my nose. I look at the foliage. Then, it clicked. Of course, he would take the road less traveled.

The branches scratch at my clothes, but the pain was nothing compared to what I had suffered for the past few months. As I made my way around the plants of the overgrown path, minding the bugs and the dirt, I had a gut feeling that I knew where I was going. It was like his ghost was guiding me, leaving little hints of himself along the road.

I knew Jesper had his doubts, but he continued to follow me, ready to go back once I'd come to my senses. It wasn't until the leaves parted that he finally believed me.

The giant blue expanse of the sky sat before us in all its glory, towering over the mountains beneath it. I instantly knew that Charles had been here before, writing all of his initial works in the peace of the valley.

I gently lifted the pottery from my bag, opening the lid. Then, I went to the edge of the lookout and poured his remains over the cliff. For a moment, I swear that I see him standing next to me with his face tilted up at the sky.

"Goodbye, Yvette," he said. His blue eyes pierced my soul for one last time before he vanished.

I don't even notice that I've fallen to my knees until I feel the dirt beneath my palms. Every speck stands out to me, their smallness magnified by the intensity of my emotions. I suddenly felt sorry for the ground beneath me and the millions of pieces of dirt that would languish here for eternity, slowly being broken up into even tinier crumbs. We were no different than these specks, helpless to the heavy, slow-moving waves of time. If I stood still for long enough, I could feel it pass through every atom of my skin.

It's inevitable that I would have the same fate as him. One day, I will be a pile of ashes returning to the earth. The eternal destiny of mankind. No matter what we strive for or the mark we leave, we are all fundamentally just piles of dirt. Even though Charles could write better than most people and made books that have touched the lives of hundreds of people, he could not escape being dirt.

That is one thing Jesper will never understand. We must have seemed so small to him, a demon that has lived thousands of years. Even though he was once human, how long has it been since he understood the inescapable fate of death? He existed beyond that, but here he was, trapped in the solemn mundane.

He should laugh at me for my sorrows. I can't fathom where he gets the compassion to still comfort me and cradle my feelings. Wasn't I just like the dirt to him? That was the hierarchy that I had in my head, from the bottom to the top: dirt, humans, and demons.

He existed in many realities. Death was nothing more than a door to him between here and there, whether the 'there' was the flaming pits of Hell or the dull gray walls of my house. That fact alone made his life more colorful than mine and filled with infinitely more dimensions.

But what did I envy, really? His near-immortality? The mind-boggling supernatural nature of his existence? Could he ever experience a fraction of the pain and love that I held for Charles? Did he know what it was like to care for something so fragile knowing that you could break in the same way?

Like a child, I wondered if he could feel as I did. When he holds me tenderly, I believe he does. He's so human when he tries to soothe me with his touch.

But I only need to look into his eyes to shatter that illusion of softness. There was that feeling again, the one where he seemed a million miles away even as he pressed his cheek to mine.

In this brief second, time stands still and I cling to the sliver of him that I know. Because if I really think about it, I doubt that he can really feel at all.