I cannot tell you the first time I met Santa Muerte. Maybe it was that I was too naive, or maybe it was that my eyes were not yet attuned to the shadows. But it was on an overcast afternoon, that I came to realize she knew me, intimately. The skies had been gray, but somehow there seemed to be a twinge of dark forest green to them. The air was crisp, and it kissed all the exposed skin I had, like tiny shards of glass whispering: I am here. Even though the world was exploding in sound, the blackhole that day by day expanded in my core, muted everything. I was drowning in the emptiness, and I still do not know how I ever put one foot in front of the other, or how I got to that busy intersection.
I felt and saw the world as if I were at the bottom of the ocean, and if it meant that I could stay under, I would gladly allow the water to drown my lungs. I was waiting for the crosswalk to turn green as cars zoomed past me. It was hypnotizing to see them, one after another. I wondered if my body would explode in pain if I were hit by one, or if it would be so fast that my mind would have no time to register it before I fell unconscious from impact.
But impact from a car could mean I would have to wake up again one day. I turned my head to the right to see down the busy road and there in all its glory, barreling towards me, was a massive bus. My body begged me to step forward.
“Hello child.” She stood in front of me, standing exactly in the space my body wanted to occupy once the bus was close enough. Her skull was adorned with a veil, and at the top was a crown made of bright red roses. Her body was covered by a brightly colored dress that enshrouded her body. The color was so vibrant, that it was hard to believe such colors could exist. I stared into the darkness of her eye sockets, not at all surprised to see no eyeballs where there should have been. After all, it was a skull that did not seem like it had ever been encased in flesh. The cars drove through here, one after another, in a loop.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
“I have many names; you humans assign names as if I cared to be defined or abstracted by the likes of you. In any case, it doesn’t matter; I know you.” She extended her bone hand and pointed at me.
“I don’t understand.” At my statement, she laughed.
“That is one problem with you humans, you think you need and can understand everything. We met the day you were born; I was with your mother. You are much older than her now, than she was then.”
“Is that why she had to be resuscitated?”
“No, you guys are made of fragile meat sacks. I was there to receive her when her body was brought to its breaking point. She fought for life that day because of you, and like you, I knew her soul as well as I know yours, so I helped her stay.”
“Are you here to shame me, to judge me, to make me feel guilty for not being brave like her?”
“No, what use do I have for your flimsy and effervescent emotions? I am here to receive you, just as I have received each and every single loved one you have known, or never known.”
“I have never seen you before.”
“You do not have to see me for me to see you. I do not have to be visible to you in order to be. I was with you the first time you held a dead baby in your little arms. I know how fast your little heart was beating as you gazed upon your stillbirth cousin’s little purple lips. I felt the dread that curled in the pit of your stomach at feeling the dead weight that you cradled with your young arms. I was the one that was there to receive him, as his little lungs never filled with the oxygen that would allow him to greet you in the realm of the living. I was there to numb your aunt’s mind with the fog of my realm so that she could bear every single painful second after seeing her first child be born dead.”
“You are here then, because the bus is coming.”
“Yes. Although, I am not sure you appreciate the journey I have had to take in order to be here. You are far from home, and I will have to make reparations to the beings of this land, of these humans, because of the choices you will make today.”
“Reparations?”
“What my dear child, do you think will happen, when your body splatters on the windshield of the bus and all over the road? Do you think your body will be cleaned off of the pavement by magic? Are you so self-centered that you cannot conceive the nightmares you will create for all those that will be forced to witness your decision? Do you think these people are so callous that they will not be haunted by your memory until Tooni receives them as I have come to receive you?”
“But I am a stranger. I am nothing, no one.”
“I never took you for stupid, but I guess, given the hole in your heart, I should have expected the diminished oxygen reaching your brain would take its toll. You are not no one, a stranger yes, but you are you. Being a stranger in foreign lands, who do you think will have to identify you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who do you think will have to come and collect what little remains of your body so that you can have a closed casket funeral?”
“My family.”
“Yes, but not all your family, right? It will be your little siblings. The very same ones you swore at their birth to love and protect. The little same souls you have cared for and have loved with every fiber of your mind and heart. I wonder what that long flight to come here will be like for them.” My heart constricted, and my mouth dried.
“Will they be okay?”
“Why should you care? The bus is coming, and have you not decided that your breath is too much of a burden already? Besides, what will it matter, once you are in my realm, the realm of the living will be far gone. Your burden will no longer be yours; it will be theirs to carry for you.” Slowly she began to walk towards me, until she was in front of me. Her bony hand pushed the hair around my face and moved it behind my ears. She caressed my cheek, and the pain of her truth dulled. Slowly she took my hand and began to pull me towards the intersection. “Come child, this is the easiest part of it all. I am here to walk with you.” As I felt my body begin to shift into movement, I felt the adrenaline begin to pump into my bloodstream. The noise which had been so muted came alive all around me in excruciating volume. I began to hear the screams, the sobs that I would set in motion mixed in with that of the traffic. I felt the emptiness, the pain, begin to ready itself in order to flow into their next hosts, the people I loved and those around me. My legs locked.
“I can’t.” She laughed at that, loudly. Her laughter boomed like thunder.
“But who can understand you humans? You will not carry this burden for yourself, but you will carry it so others won’t have to? Why do you love yourself so little?” I tried pulling my hand from hers, but her grip became tighter, her bones like steel encrusted with diamonds.
“I can’t.”
“You can’t today, or you can’t not ever?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“Because I love them, even if I cannot love me. I cannot fathom how I will bear surviving today, much less the rest of my life. But it pains me to know that someone will have the sordid task to clean up my body. I cannot break the promise I made to my family; to always be there for them. But maybe later, maybe later I will have disappeared enough that I will no longer care. Maybe that day is around the corner waiting to take the last pieces of me that still remain.”
“That day will always come, if you search for it. The more diligent you are, the sooner it will find you.” With those words she let go of my hand. With her index finger she began to cut a piece of her veil. When she had finished, she gently wrapped me in it. With it, numbness and the sweet cold enveloped me.
“Then how do I make sure it never finds me?”
“By resting child, snuggle into my veil, and let it engulf you, so you may rest. Once you are ready, begin searching for the day where you love yourself. Survive what you must so that you can find the hope that will take a bit of the burden off of life.”
“Will I see you again?”
“Yes. I will not burden you with the knowledge of who I will come to receive soon. However, rest assured that one day I will come to collect my veil from you, and walk you to my realm. Do not think you must always wear my veil, when you are ready, you may just keep it close, just in case. Until we meet again, lost child.”
I watched as the bus sped past me. I waited for the crosswalk to turn green, and when it finally did, I put one leg in front of the other. Life had taken so much from me, but today, it had gifted me, time.
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