Upon the summit of a pasture hill,
passed the mother of an anguished boy.
Her care for him had never wavered or faltered,
her body and soul were his playthings.
To claim a wolfpup's clump of fur, well,
no lupine mother could permit this.
While his arm bled profusely, it would heal;
her fingers, though, were lost.
Infection found her before they could think,
and soon the candles blew;
the Master of Death had come to claim his servant.
But the boy pleaded, cried, prostrated, wept;
was he not to have but even the chance to bid farewell?
Few things may hope to sway Death;
a mother and child forever separated, nought but memory?
Not even Death could resist the pity in his immortal heart.
"Here," the Reaper commanded, "Take a set of cards.
I shall play you. If you should win, thou shall have thine time for farewell."
But such an opportunity presented a challenge of its own.
What if he should fail? It would be a waste of a chance.
The boy retrieved his mother's cards, as well as his own dishonesty.
And the Reaper perceived at once; fury welled within Death,
indignity and humiliation. But the Reaper knew patience above all.
Victorious was the boy, and teary-eyed he pleaded once more.
A deal had been struck; now was Death's part of the bargain.
And the Reaper stood. And the Reaper spoke.
"I promised thee thine farewells. I did not promise thee they should come at once."
Vengeful Death summoned the awful scythe of souls to his side, and conjured.
From the realm of Death came a chair, black as night even in the sunlight.
Not a weapon on Earth could hope to chip, much less destroy it.
And the Reaper commanded the boy to sit. And he explained,
"Thou shalt have thine reunion when this pasture hill has gone,
weathered by the sands of time. When this chair no longer sits upon the pasture,
but within a valley, then thou shall wait for it to fill with a river.
When that river has eroded the chair to dust,
thou shall be allowed to join thine mother in Death."
And the boy was privy to sit; and his eyes rose to the Reaper.
Such time would pass, he said, that he would turn to dust,
and be born again, many times over, before such a thing would occur.
And the Reaper swung his scythe, and the boy found himself enlightened;
like Death, he, too, was immortal.
And Death cackled with glee; "For you have insulted Death,
so now he shall tantalize you with the thought of him."
And thereafter, the boy sat. And his heart was filled with a terrible longing.
So sinned had he, that he was now a prisoner of his own life,
not to be reunited with the mother he'd loved,
until such time as the very Earth had become unrecognizable around him.
And this longing consumed him so, that soon he retreated unto himself;
nought but an empty shell, with a mind locked away,
fleeing from its own misery,
its own mortal folly,
all thereafter.