There’s never any time to react. Like when you’re on the catamaran, laughing with the new love interest, and out of nowhere, a 16-foot Great White shark tears out of the water, sinks its massive teeth into your side, and yanks you into the murky below.

Youth, of course, is a liability; but whatever the lesson, it’s always more death. Because next it’s your face in the fifty-car pile-up, shot through the windshield into oncoming traffic. Distraction? Bad luck? You’re still mulling that one over when you overdose at the frat party five minutes in, your lifeless body opening onto a scene of the Lead’s opportunity for reassessment and growth—never yours for the taking.

Yours is always stabbed by the masked killer; poisoned by the demented office manager; the guy who falls off a cliff, drowns, gets caught in the crossfire. Listed in the final credits no one sees: Teenager 2, Third-to-appear friend, Restaurant patron, Bartender, Face in crowd… Always you’re in the shadows, never the spotlight. The message, the warning, the innocent bystander mourned for as long as it takes to dig into the popcorn and move on to the real story.

You wonder if you’ve learned anything from all the catastrophic failures and while at the local dog park, trying to sort it all out, get sucked up by a tornado.

So much death. Does it never end?

Maybe it’s self-sabotage. Or the circumstances into which you were born. Because you can never seem to catch a break, pivot in time, recall the old man’s cryptic warning. Always there’s a fire to put out. Always, life is killing you.

Sure, you bounce back, gather yourself up with gritty determination. But the bruises don’t heal overnight. Regeneration takes time. And time is not infinite. Eventually, you’ll run out.

You try to see the bigger picture. Is it that life isn’t supposed to be like the Lead’s? An unspooling of carefully timed events, an elegant arc with just the right amount of tears shed ushering in the happily ever after…

You wonder where happily ever after goes and are surprised to face an empty screen, glaring lights, a dazed audience gathering their belongings, sliding into a mundanity you’d barely noticed you were so hypnotized by the Lead. The Lead, who, you imagine, now sits poolside with the love of his life, beautiful-yet-quirky family, vindication, admiration, self-satisfaction for eternity, feet frozen into patio tiles like a statue.

Your feet are never at rest. You note this while fleeing through a forest from a hatchet-wielding doomsday cult. And as icy branches claw at your face, the howl of murder at your heels, you wonder if maybe that’s a good thing. Living in the shadows has its perks. Freedom to do what you want without all the scrutiny of the Lead. The Lead who must adhere to perfection. Whose ever-present fear of death means forever outrunning it.

You’re not afraid of death. You know this with absolute certainty as the first ax lodges into your skull. You’ve experienced death so many times it’s become second nature. As painful as it can be getting your throat slit, collapsing from a stroke, turning blue from cold, you know you’ll survive. And with every survival you become more relaxed. Because when you aren’t dying, you are, in fact, living.

Maybe, then, it’s not about avoiding death. Perhaps, you wonder, as the plane you’re in screams into a nosedive over the choppy Atlantic, you’re lucky if it’s 50/50. Because it’s true that with every death you appreciate life more. And it’s possible you are learning because you never experience the same death twice. As you crouch into position, bracing for impact, you survey all the bodily scars from a lifetime of death. And you realize how fortunate you are. Because unlike the Lead who lives only one life, you’ve lived dozens upon dozens. And you know that you’ll survive this death, too. The pain will pass, you’ll swim to the surface. And you will savor and bask in the next life with the gratitude of stardust, because you know, deep in your battered bones that have withstood so much and served you so well, that death is always with us.

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Michelle Wilson’s words have appeared or are forthcoming in Wigleaf, Bending Genres, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Rejection Letters, Maudlin House, Litro Magazine, 50-Word Stories, Flash Fiction Magazine, Potato Soup Journal’s Best of 2021 Anthology, and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, among others. Her story ‘Fish Brain’ was nominated for Best of the Net 2022. She lives with her partner in Washington, DC.