Passenger

Life was cheap. Sin came easy.

The earth unravels beneath me in a green-brown blur, fields and forest slashing past in streaks of color, treetops clawing at my boots like the desperate fingers of a world trying to pull me home. Rotor wash howls like a wounded god, slapping my clothes flat against my skin on one side, shredding them to wild flags on the other. The machine hums with violence, metal fury transmitted through my soles into the core of my bones.

Fear becomes a narcotic. The void below stretches out endlessly, turning earth into abstraction. Distance is no longer reality, just theory. Gravity becomes a question, a negotiation whispered between flesh and sky.

Each tilt of the bird shifts the axis of the universe. The horizon smears and slants across my eyes like wet paint. My stomach floats inside me, a phantom unmoored, while blood drums inside my skull, rhythmic and relentless. Pulse as percussion. Breath as prayer.

Ass in the wind. Wild-eyed grin aimed straight into the sun.

And Death, my only passenger.

I breathed in a ticking sky, soaring in the slow countdown that makes the air taste like grace.

At altitude, rules are suggestions. Commandments dissolve in thin air. Down below, the world clings to order. Up here, you're dancing with physics, gambling with God.

Her name is Thalia, or Eleni. Or maybe it isn’t. Time has taken that piece from me.

But I remember the curve of her hip in that sunset. The way the light worships her skin, slow and deliberate, like it’s tasted every inch of the world and still chooses her. It drips down her body in molten gold, pooling in the hollow between her waist and thigh, casting her in honey, flame, and something dangerously close to divinity.

She moves through the tide like it knows her, like the sea itself rises to meet her steps. Water coils around her ankles, clinging like a jealous lover. Each motion is a promise, a provocation, a rhythm I’m about to learn.

And I follow, breath caught somewhere between reverence and hunger, knowing I’ll never move the way she does, like the ocean belongs to her. Like the world does.

I don’t remember our walk back to the taverna. But I remember the burn of ouzo. And the taste of it on her lips.

We drink by candlelight, shadows flickering across stone walls. I remember the steak. Charred crust giving way to tender, glistening pink. A mouthful of rosemary, sea salt, and sun. Fat melting like forgotten butter on a windowsill, golden and slow.

Her legs fold beneath her like poetry. We raise our glasses to no one and nothing. And still, still, I catch myself lifting mine toward the corner, toward the shape that always sits just out of reach.

Death, polite as ever, nods back.

Another day survived. Another night borrowed.

The news doesn’t come all at once. It never does. It slips in through static and sidelong glances, clipped phrases over a scrambled channel, and then just stillness. The kind that folds around you and doesn’t let go.

Another crew chief. Another bird. Another blast. Somewhere far from here, but close enough to tear something open in me.

I laugh with him before the flight. Stupid jokes, half a cigarette, the kind of banter that means we’re fine, we’re still here. He adjusts the strap on his pack like he always does. Grins without looking at me.

That’s the last time. The last breath I don’t know is a goodbye.

Later, I stand on the tarmac with the sun hammering down, waiting for the familiar thump of rotors that never comes. The sky is too blue. The wind, too quiet. The silence stretches out like a goddamn wound.

No flag. No coffin. No last rites. Just absence.

Like someone has taken a hot knife to the reel of our lives and spliced him out.

His bunk stays untouched. His gear stays packed. His voice echoes in the wrong places. Behind me, in dreams, in the corners a laughter that doesn’t belong to anyone anymore. I keep thinking I’ll see him rounding the corner, bitching about the food, boots too loud, grin too easy.

But he doesn’t come back.

And in the edge of my vision, always, without fail, Death is there.

Not dramatic. Not cruel. Just waiting. Watching. Leaning against the hangar wall, folded into shadow like he’s always belonged there. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak.

But when I look his way, he nods.

As if to say, You knew.

And I do. We all do.

But knowing doesn’t make it easier. It just makes it real.

Death isn’t who people think he is.

He is painted as a monster. Cloaks and scythes, fire and brimstone. They call him evil, like he takes pleasure in the taking. But they don’t see him the way I do.

He doesn’t arrive with fanfare. He doesn’t steal. He just waits.

He’s there in the dark, sure, but he’s there in the light too.

I’ve felt him sitting beside me in the quiet after a flight, when the ringing in my ears fades and I’m still breathing. I’ve seen him perched across the bar while I sip something strong, watching the condensation slide down the glass. He’s leaned against the sea wall while a woman laughed and leaned into me, her skin smelling like salt and sun, the moon carving two shadows into one.

He’s there for the good moments, the real ones, the ones that make the clock stop.

And sometimes, when it’s quiet enough, he leans in and says:

“You’ll remember this.”

Not to haunt me. To mark it.

Death, he’s not here to take meaning away. He’s here to give it weight.

He’s the one who reminds me that none of this lasts. That every perfect moment is burning down, even as you hold it. That the kiss, the laughter, the breath, that’s the miracle. Not because it goes on forever. But because it doesn’t.

When my time comes, I know he won’t drag me.

He’ll just stand, same as always, like he’s been standing all along. One hand outstretched. No fanfare. No judgment. No fear.

Just a quiet invitation to come home.