The Strawberry Fields

The Strawberry Fields

Death did not make friends easily. It came partly from being extremely shy, and partly from the fact that he was never allowed out without his keepers.

Death had many keepers and they guarded Death jealously.

But sometimes Death slipped his leash, and he was able to move about the world the way that he had done when the world had been young. February was his favourite time to run. He could slip away quietly while his keepers complained of the cold weather as they were wont to do, and join the strawberry children in the fields.

In the strawberry fields, Death could hide under a big straw hat and in a pair of dirty overalls. He could fill his belly with sun-warmed fruit, and laugh with the children who had skipped school to help with the harvest. He could sing old songs that he had learned over the years, songs about being a child, songs about being a man, songs about drinking, and merry-making, and living life. He knew a lot of songs, and he taught them to the children of the strawberry fields, and from them, learned new songs.

Death did not like things that were sad. He didn’t like songs about war, or talk of lost loved ones—all of whom he’d met, once and only once. When Death was his own man, he did his best not to be reminded of how fickle and short human life could be. He strove, instead, to smile, to enjoy the way his muscles stretched beneath his skin as he worked, the way they cramped.

In the sun, in a field of green and red, amidst laughter and smiles and full tummies, and songs about how wonderful it was to be alive, who would think to look for Death?

They would find him before long—in March, perhaps, or April—in the produce section of a grocery store, wondering which of the strawberries he had picked.