Lovely death

"How long are you going to hang around?" she asked quietly, her voice weak. "I thought you would have gone already. Don't you have other things to do?"

She was an old woman. She had celebrated her one hundred and third birthday just a few weeks earlier, and the party was long over, yet he had not left her side in that time. He had been with her for some many years now, hovering over her shoulder, merely keeping her company and observing her actions. He did not speak to advise or discourage, but was simply a presence in her life. At first it had been uncomfortable for her, but with time she had grown to welcome it. But she was growing old and tired, and she knew that she was a weight on the shoulders of her family.

"How many things have you missed because you have spent your time with me? And why? I have a hard time believing that we would never see each other again if you were to leave. That is what you do after all, isn't it?"

He had missed many things in the years that he had been with her. But when he had arrived, despite her age, there had been a spark in her still that he had not seen in others he had visited in some time. It made him curious - curious to know what it was that gave her that life that she still held onto. And in the time that he had spent watching her, trying to learn where that spark came from, he had found himself oddly fond of her. And so he had stuck around and continued to watch. And he had grown closer to her. But this was not the first time she had spoken to him like this.

"I don't know why you're still here. You never speak to me. You can't even hold a pen to write anything. Maybe you're incapable of talking? I don't know, but it makes this difficult, you realize. But look at me. I am a hundred and three years old. I am well past my prime. Is that not why you came here in the first place? Is that not your purpose? It is time. Well past time."

Without a word, finally, he nodded. He was well aware. More so than she was. Holding out his hand, the scythe slithered into existence, and he gripped it solemnly. This was his purpose. This was his job. Even if he had come to love her.