When Death Came to Call

by Leslea Newman

NOVEMBER 11, 2007 TAGS: SURVIVOR, TESTIMONY, NEAR-DEATH COMMENTS (4)

Death, like a furry brown bat with a wingspread as wide as a pterodactyl’s, shrank Himself to the size of a quarter and slipped in through the crack underneath my front door.

It was a cold New England morning and I was alone in the apartment. My roommate, newly in love, had spent the night at her boyfriend’s house. I didn’t really want to crawl out from under my warm down quilt, but hunger inspired me to get up and wander into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. The refrigerator’s contents were hardly inspiring: a half gallon of milk, my roommate’s special strawberry shampoo, a stick of butter dusted with toast crumbs on a white china plate, and two leftover baked potatoes lying on the second shelf side by side like a pair of animals with their legs tucked underneath them. They looked old, earthy, innocent. I picked up the one on the right and didn’t hear Death chuckling with delight behind me.

Home fries on a December morning in Vermont, with the sun streaming in through the window and a fresh snowfall glittering like diamonds outside. What could be cozier? I got out a cutting board, a knife, a frying pan, the stick of butter and began preparing my breakfast. As the butter melted in the pan, I lifted the knife. The potato sliced easily, each section an almost perfect circle. Without thinking, I popped one in my mouth, and that’s when Death jumped up and down with glee.

I couldn’t breathe. Could. Not. Breathe. That round disk of baked potato had landed on top of my esophagus and sealed it shut. Imagine the hose of a vacuum cleaner. Imagine putting the flat of your hand on top of it and turning the vacuum cleaner on. The seal you have just created is airtight. Not one molecule of oxygen can go in. Or out. That’s what it was like.

I had the good sense to turn off the burner on the stove as I began to choke. But this was not the kind of choking I’d ever done before, when something “went down the wrong pipe” causing me to cough until my eyes teared up and my nose ran. That kind of coughing can be cured with a glass of water, and afterwards I’ve always been able to gasp, “I’m all right,” and continue eating as if nothing happened. But this new cough was music to Death’s ears. I wasn’t coughing really, so much as ... what? There are no words to describe the desperate, rusty hinge-like sounds I was making as I reached for and failed to attain that most taken-for-granted necessity: air. Now I knew that Death was in the room, as He stepped up beside me and placed His long bony fingers around my throat, happy as a child hugging a favorite toy. It would not be easy to make Him to let go.

Lodged somewhere deep inside my mind was the knowledge that the Heimlich maneuver can be performed on oneself. I pushed everything on the counter aside — the knife, the crusty butter, the cutting board with its potato remains — and bashed my belly against the Formica ledge. Nothing happened. I tried again. Again, nothing. Death merely laughed when I tried once more, thinking a third time could be the charm.

Bizarre as this sounds, I left the kitchen, and still making horrible wheezing nonhuman noises, I sat down on the living room sofa, hugged a pillow to my chest and thought, all right. Now I’m going to die. I was surprisingly calm as Death sat down beside me and moved in for the kill. I could feel His fingers tightening. I could hear him whispering, “You’re mine.”

And then, through no conscious decision on my part, my body flew off the couch, ran through the apartment, flung open the front door, raced into the hallway and started pounding on my neighbor’s door. Death was right behind me, muttering curses under his breath. I pounded harder. I knew my neighbors — three young college students — were home. I could see their cars, plastered with bumper stickers urging us all to save the whales and kill our televisions, outside in the building’s parking lot.

Finally I heard footsteps. “Who is it?” someone called. Frankie, Linda, or Allison, I couldn’t be sure. And I couldn’t answer, except for the scratchy, gasping noises sputtering from my throat.

I heard some discussion inside the apartment, and then a decision was reached and the door was opened. A chorus of shrill, “Oh my Gods!” rang out. I was pulled inside and Death shadowed me, while my neighbors ran around like Keystone Cops. It would almost have been comical, if Death wasn’t standing so close beside me.

At last Frankie stepped up, nudged Death aside with her hip, and hugged me from behind. She made a tight double fist with both hands and squeezed my gut in and upwards once, twice, three times until that piece of potato flew out of my mouth, landed against the wall with a splat! and slid down to the floor.

Instantly the room grew silent. The noises I’d been making ceased and I took a sweet gulp of air. And then another. Inhale. Exhale. It was remarkable. One minute Death and I were intimate as sweethearts; the next moment He was slinking out the door, like a naughty puppy with His tail between His legs.

Frankie got me a glass of water, Allison made me sit down, Linda put the kettle up for tea. “Are you all right?,” each of them asked. I nodded.

“We almost didn’t let you in,” Frankie said, sitting beside me. “We thought there was a monster outside the door.”

There was, I wanted to tell them. A monster named Death, but He was gone now. At least for the moment. And hopefully He wouldn’t call again for a very long time.

Illustration by John Cuneo

Lesl�a Newman, the poet laureate of Northampton, Ma., writes frequently for Obit.