CHRISTOPHER'S STRONG LEGS

Coming home from work I went a different way. I was bored with my normal route and I turned off the avenue, slipped through a perpendicular arcade and ended up in a part of the city I'd never seen before, where the black buildings loomed and shadows stretched from street corner to street corner. I was drawn towards one of them. Well, not drawn towards - not like I saw it and was compelled. More like I'd been headed there forever. It was tall and carved in stone with one big door in the middle. I wandered inside and there, reclining in a seat, was Death. "Are you here to kill me?" I asked him. He was surprised. 

"No," he sighed. "But I've been meaning to kill your son." I have a son, a kind and happy lad of eight who giggles and has strong legs. "Why would you do that?" I asked. 

"He's just unlucky," Death told me. "That's how it goes. Not everybody good is lucky, and not everybody lucky is good. Wouldn't my job be easier if they were." 

I'm not a courageous person by nature. I'm indecisive and dislike confrontation. But I was there, and I love my son, so I said: "Can't you just take me instead?"

He thought about it for a moment. "People always say that. They always say why not me, why him, why can't you take me. When I'm out for the taking, it's not so easy to change. But since you're here I guess I could. You sure?"

"I'm sure," I said. 

Next morning I woke with a terrible headache. I knew what it was. I canned work and went to the hospital for an X-ray. The doctor looked so sad when he told me. "A few days," he said. "That's all." 

I called my wife and told her the news. She sobbed uncontrollably while I explained, "This is good - if it wasn't me it'd be Christopher." She didn't understand, of course. She couldn't. It's not usually how things work. I accepted that. I was given powerful drugs and experienced almost no discomfort. I spent plenty of time with Christopher and my wife, who put her hand inside my shirt to play with the hairs on my belly, as she had when we first met. It was a little self-conscious but I enjoyed it. At times her and Christopher's sorrow rubbed off on me and I had to remind myself that this was a vastly preferable arrangement that almost no one else in the history of humankind had ever had the good fortune to make, though so many may have howled for it on their darkest nights, pleading for the plot to turn their way, and the reminder never failed to cheer me up. For each sunrise I was joyful and serene.

On the second last day I sat in the park with a blanket around me and asked Christopher to run as fast as he could between two thickets of trees. As he ran I cheered him on. Such strong legs! He came to me at the end, smiling proudly. "Did you see?" He panted. "I was faster than usual then."