Death doesn’t knock.
He screeches a shrill metal bell worse than an authoritative fire alarm and wakes one from what was once deemed a “dead sleep.”
He laughs in the face of disorientation and panic evoked in His victims, and sips on the sour tang of their fear before drawing nearer.
Around the corner, but never seen.
Heard like foreboding footsteps tromping up creaky staircases, yet remains a mute.
When logic and reason swell, drowning out irrational anxiety and vigilance, Death strikes again.
His razor claws fillet open safety nets, shredding to bits the sanity previously—painstakingly—scraped together by unlucky individuals.
He shows no remorse.
Death comes for those worthy few—those who should have had the world eating out of the palm of their hand; those ripened and enriched by decades of stories, many more than they should have been permitted; those whose karma tipped back after erasing one too many lines in the sand.
He eats them all for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Tuesday is His cheat day.
He doesn’t sleep in on the weekends.
Currently, He is the only one never reprimanded for getting overtime every goddamn day.
Worst of all, Death knows the effect He has on people.
The window to the soul is circular and petite. The size of a chickpea and blurry like frosted glass. Heart attacks spurred on by adrenaline fueled fear are corporeal. Uncommon, but no less lethal than clogged arteries.
Death roars raucous laughter and hopes—knows—that this will be the gust of wind to blow out candles.
No emotion appeases Him; terrified begs, remorseful sobs, righteous fury that rivals the gods, they all vanish in wisps of smoke on the wind in His presence.
He relishes in the regard accompanying His name.
Death does not knock.
When one’s time comes, He has a shrill metal bell to usher them home.
Paytan Douglas 
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