“Sorry.”
“Whoa there, what happened? Lost your mojo? You gotta jump right in there and get back into the groove.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK, it’s OK. No worries. Let’s just get on with it. Time to erase… you know what…”
Aloha pointed his finger at Cabbage and began humming a cheerful tune.
“I won’t do it.”
“Huh?”
“I said I won’t do it. I won’t make cats disappear.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. I’m serious.”
I looked at Aloha’s surprised expression and couldn’t help laughing.
“What’s so funny? You’re gonna die, man. Are you sure about this?”
“Yes. I’m OK with that. I’m not going to make any more things disappear.”
“But you can live a lot longer.”
Aloha looked disappointed.
“Yeah, but just being alive doesn’t mean all that much on its own. How you live is more important.”
Aloha retreated into silence. Then after staring at my face for a long time he opened his mouth to speak.
“Well… looks like I’ve lost to God again. Man, humans! Can’t do anything with them.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing… forget it. It’s my loss. Go ahead and die if you want to!”
“Hey, that’s not nice! Although of course, I am going to die.”
I laughed, and then Aloha started to laugh too.
“Well, I guess we’ll be going our separate ways now, huh?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Strangely enough, I’m kind of sad.”
“Yeah, me too. You were a really interesting guy.”
“You too… a real funny devil!”
“Don’t get me started!”
“By the way, what does the Devil normally look like?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, actually, I don’t really have any one specific form.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Devil only exists in the hearts and minds of humans. Then you humans express that in lots of different forms. It’s kind of random. Like with horns and a pitchfork, or in the form of a dragon.”
“Ah, I see now.”
“Though I take particular exception to the horns and pitchfork—I mean, give me a break! It’s just bad taste, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, you’re right about that one.”
“I don’t like that look at all.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“So you see, the form I take all depends on your imagination. The devil in your heart looks just like you.”
“But your personality is totally different to mine.”
“Hmmm, yes. But I think that’s the important bit. In other words, I’m the person you could have been.”
“In what sense?”
“It’s the side of yourself that you never showed. You know, cheerful but shallow, wearing flashy clothes, doing whatever you wanted without worrying about what other people would think—saying whatever you want, no matter how inappropriate.”
“Yeah… the total opposite of me.”
“Right. I’m made up of all those little regrets in life. Like, what if, whenever you reached a fork in the road in life, you’d gone the other way? What would have happened? Who would you have become? That’s what the Devil is all about. It’s what you wanted to become but couldn’t. It’s both the closest thing and the farthest thing from who you are.”
“So… do you think I turned out OK?”
“Hey, I’m not exactly the best person to be putting that question to!”
“I wonder if I’ll have any regrets when it comes time to die.”
“Oh, of course you will. You want to live, right? You might even beg the Devil to come back! Humans tend to regret the life they never lived, the choices they never made.”
Those who know they will die tomorrow live to the fullest in the limited time they have.
That’s what some people say, but I tend to disagree. When a person becomes aware of their impending death, they have to make a compromise between the life they wish they could have led, and the reality of death. Sure there are all the little regrets, the broken dreams, but you have to go easy on yourself, and be flexible. Having had the chance to make things disappear from the world in order to gain just one more day of life, I’ve come to realize that there’s a certain beauty in those regrets. Because it’s proof of having lived. I won’t eliminate anything more from the world. And I may regret it at the moment I actually die, but that’s OK with me. No matter how you look at it, life is full of regrets anyway.
I was never able to be completely myself or live my life in exactly the way I wanted to. I’m not sure I ever even figured out what exactly “being myself” really meant. So I’ll die with all those failures and regrets, all those unfulfilled dreams—all the people I never met, the things I never tasted, the places I’ve never been. But that doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m satisfied with who I am and how I’ve lived. I’m happy to have been here at all. Where else but here could I have been?
The last week has been so strange—first finding out I didn’t have long to live, and then the Devil appearing, and making things disappear from the world in order to give me another day of life. It’s kind of like the apple that was offered to Adam and Eve, a bet between God and the Devil. Maybe what God was really asking me to consider wasn’t the value of the things I was making disappear, but the value of my own life.
God created the world in six days, and in the same number of days I went and made things disappear, one at a time. But I couldn’t bring myself to make cats disappear, and instead I decided that I would become no more. And soon I’ll have my day of rest too.
Seeing me deep in thought like this the Devil laughed at me.
“In the end you came to know exactly how wonderful life is. You became aware of who the most important people to you are, and the value of lots of other important, irreplaceable things. You traveled around the world you live in and saw it anew. And you found that despite the boredom and routine of that world, there is a real beauty in it. That on its own makes my having come here worth it.”
“But I’m going to die soon.”
“Probably so. But one thing’s for sure. You’re happy now that you’ve realized that.”
“I wish I would have realized that sooner.”
“Yeah, but no one really knows exactly how long their life will be. It could be another few days or it could be a few months. It’s the same with everyone. No one knows exactly how long they’re going to live.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“So there’s really no such thing as too late or too soon.”
“That’s a nice way of thinking about it.”
“Don’t you think so? Anyway, I just thought I’d throw that in as an extra freebie since this is the last time we’ll be seeing each other. Make sure the last thing you do is done with passion. Go all the way! Well, it’s time now. Goodbye!”
Aloha said goodbye in his usual complete lack of seriousness, he gave me a wink (that is, his poor imitation of a wink) and then he was gone. Cabbage let out a sad-sounding meow.
Then I began to get my affairs in order. I was preparing to die. First I cleaned my room and threw away anything unnecessary. I got rid of embarrassing diaries, out-of-date clothing, and photos I hadn’t been able to part with until now. Fragments of my life appearing and then disappearing. I wondered whether Aloha would have given me an extension on my life if I had thrown away things like this. But anyway, I had no regrets. I was relieved now that I didn’t need to make anything else disappear. I threw away all kinds of things that brought back memories while Cabbage did his best to get in the way. By the time I was done it was evening.