Ben used the cherry from his burned-down cigarette to light another one. From the bench where he sat, he could see most of Sandow Park, all the people taking advantage of a warm, sunny day. As for Ben, there was nothing special about this particular day. Unless the weather was bad, Ben sat at this bench every afternoon. He’d watch the people pass by as he chain-smoked and sipped on black coffee.
Ben took a drag of nicotine-rich smoke. He was sixty-one years old and had been a smoker since he was fifteen. As he blew the smoke out, he panned his gaze across the wide open grassy area in front of him. He saw a man and woman jogging. He saw a little boy playing with a brown puppy. The next thing he saw, however, was much different. Standing two-hundred yards away, beside a massive oak tree, was a figure draped in a black robe and hood.
Ben lowered his head and shook it. He took another drag, this one deeper than the first. When he looked up, he spotted the dark entity again, only now it was standing roughly seventy-five yards closer. Though there was only a black void where the thing’s face should have been, Ben knew it was looking at him.
Ben, now becoming agitated, turned his head and sucked on the cigarette again. He kept his eyes fixed in that direction for a moment, watching two lovers suck face on another bench several yards away. When he finally turned forward, he saw that the figure was now standing only twenty yards in front of him.
Ben shook his head. He tilted back and looked directly above him. In the tree limbs he could see two squirrels chasing each other treacherously on thin branches. He drew on the smoke and watched the playful critters for a moment and then, knowing full well what he’d see when he lowered his head, returned his gaze forward. He was right, as the black character now stood a mere two feet away.
Ben rolled his eyes and hit the cig yet again. Then, the dark-clothed man lowered his hood. Ben saw that the head that had been revealed was a mirror image of his own. The only difference, however, was that this version of Ben’s head was ghastly blue. The skin was pulled tight against the bones and the eyes were coated with a thick, yellow film.
The thing then extended a skeletal hand palm-up. Ben, having had all of this pestilent creature he could stand, took in his biggest drag of smoke yet and stood up. He blew the smoke into the thing’s pallid face, Ben’s own dead visage, and strode away as Death himself stood there with an extended arm and no soul to claim.
Meanwhile, a man down the street who’d never touched a cigarette in his life lay on his deathbed from lung cancer. Death, knowing his efforts here were futile, lowered his arm and vanished. The man down the street would have to suffice.
