Elio Caitlin Kuang ‘24

ELIO

Caitlin Kuang

[ 1 ] Vera was young when I rst saw her, not yet in her teenage years. Dressed in a white gossamer dress, she looked like someone who would be portrayed in neoclassical paintings, and I could not help but wonder what thick brushstrokes an artist would lay upon the canvas to trace out the chestnut curls draped across her shoulder.

In her arms was a porcelain doll. She had no intention of straightening the unkempt laments of the doll’s hair and instead silently observed her surroundings with wide eyes. For a moment, our eyes met. Hers, full of childish innocence and curiosity, and mine, already lethargic from what I have seen of the mortal world.

Death approached her, and she greeted me with a smile.

[ 2 ] at day, I took an elderly woman and gazed as her spirit drifted away in the halls of the hospital, evaporating like a dewdrop under the zenith of the midsummer sun. Only when I turned around did I see her by my side, carrying her doll. I inclined my head with the slightest move, my eyes tracing her frail gure from the hem of her dress to her eyes: untainted pools of innocence.

She did not inch.

For long, I have wondered what Death’s gaze looked like, what my gaze looked like. Indi erent, callous, devoid of warmth. is pair of eyes, like the su ocating depths of the sea, once brought warriors to their knees and kings to the brink of tears.

But they seemed to have had no e ect on her.

“What? You want to leave with me?”

My voice was shards and daggers and fragile ice, not softened by the slightest for her sake. Death has not softened for anyone, ever. Death knows no clemency.

She continued staring, not moving an inch, only shaking her head almost imperceptibly as a soundless reply. For a moment, there was only silence.

No one wants to leave with Death.

I icked my wrist as an attempt to chase her away, but she unexpectedly spoke. Her voice was soft, timid, reminding me of a fawn that knows only to run wild in the groves, but not to ee from headlights.

“Will you stay with me?”

A contemptuous laugh escaped from my lips, echoing in the blended realities of the mortal world and what came after. A smile emerged upon my lips, bereft of humor.

“I’m always by everyone’s side, dancing with all,” I replied, sparing a glance away from her and instead towards the now-empty hallway. e woman’s soul had dissipated into the realms of afterlife, without a single indication that she once existed. I danced with her as well, some time, some day, until she fell at my feet, as all would.

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“What’s your name?” She spoke again, tilting her head in inquiry.

You know what my name is, girl, I wanted to say, but swallowed the words before they reached my lips. For some reason, they felt wrong, and tasted as bitter as hemlock.

So instead I answered: “Death.”

It was her turn to be overwhelmed by silence this time. I wondered, was she afraid? She was not trembling, nor weeping, only standing as if deep in thought, gaze drifting o towards the emptiness behind me.

After eternity, she shattered the silence.

“Can I call you Elio?”

Bewilderment ashed across my irises, closely followed by confusion, permeating my gaze like wafting mist. I did not understand. rough the evanescence of time, through the collapse of dynasties, why did so many try to give Death a name?

ey still resist, still fear, still greet me with tears, do they not? A name does not make Death more welcomed. “Why?” e single syllable forced its way through.

Perhaps it was the hostility pervading my words that startled her into recoiling, yet that moment of fear was short-lived, for soon she began explaining, although slightly timorously: “Death sounds so ...... sinister.”

To that, I did not respond.

Death had been called the Reaper, anatos, Anubis ...... But never Elio.

[ 3 ] Vera was an unfortunate one. She met me, and from then on, her destiny and mine were entangled in a fatal tango. e second time I met her was a few years later. She was thirteen at that time.

Her parents were in the o ce, conversing with a doctor. Vera did not know of the dire news that was being delivered. e young girl was still carrying the blonde doll, sitting on the bench in the detergentscented halls. Nothing had changed: the oor was spotless, walls polished to the point that they were gleaming, doctors rushing between rooms with vibrantly-colored clipboards and constant airs of urgency.

Except there was one di erence. She was leaning on me. It was an ironically tting metaphor for the fate arranged for her. Death’s body was cold, like a corpse’s, but she did not seem to mind. She ran her ngers through the golden strands of her doll’s hair absent-mindedly, thoughts roaming in a world beyond this one.

“Why Elio?” I asked abruptly, glancing towards her.

She looked up, gently set her doll besides her. “Elio’s a character, from a book,” she explained, toying with

ELIO | Caitlin Kuang (continued)

Elio.

I recalled a conversation from merely a few months ago that seemed so distant. Vera, she believed in the dragons soaring across the rmament and the miracles in fairytales. She yearned for those miracles, for they were her only hope.

Because the cells in her body are gnarled ends, depriving her of life. Because something had formed within her, and that something had corroded her reality. Because she could die, and she could not nd the hope that she desperately needed.

“My mother wants me to stop reading this.” She sighed, perhaps hearing my footsteps or feeling the chill. She looked back, her eyes drained of energy and now glistening with only tears, so fragile in a way that bewildered me.

Should I tell her that her mother was weeping in the car, her head pressed against the steering wheel,

the delicate locks of her own hair, curling them around her ngertips before letting go, repeating these useless movements tirelessly. “He can y.”

She lifted her gaze, smiling at the thought of a hope that would never be ful lled: “I want to y one day.”

But you never will, I silently added, squeezing out a weary smile. Tentatively, I reached out, placing my hand on hers, and spoke with a voice so gentle that it did not sound like my own:

“I can teach you how to y, if you come with me.”

A shiver ran through her body, as if she had been shocked by electricity. She widened her eyes and stared at me almost helplessly, refuting without much strength in her voice: “But I also want to dance-”

“With me, perhaps.” I interrupted nonchalantly, but still she did not move. An unnoticeable breath of frustration escaped me. Her death would come eventually - why not now? Why do mortals try so keenly to escape the inevitable?

“And I want to sing, to sing to children just like me!” She continued, her voice strengthening at the mention of children as prone to illnesses as she was. Stars glimmered in her irises, the light of the universe converging within those minuscule yet in nite shimmers.

I could not bring myself to tell her that where I came from, there were many just like her.

[ 4 ] A month later, I met Vera again, a heartbreaking gauntness overcoming the stars in her eyes. Her complexion was pallid, caused by either sorrow or sickness. She knelt beside the trash can, holding a book. Its cover was composed of warm splatters of paint that formed gures dancing through roses, through reality and then transcending it.

And on the rose-colored hardback cover, the gilded letters were so conspicuous, burning with the incandescence of the lights in the room.

ELIO | Caitlin Kuang (continued)

blaming herself for her outburst against her only daughter, who she could lose within weeks? Should I tell her that her father was out looking for books and cures, anything that could help her, just to see the light return to her eyes? Should I give her hope when it could disappear so easily?

So I knelt beside her, and clumsily brought her into my embrace. She was shivering like an embattled autumn leaf, and that last line of defense within her soon broke. She collapsed into my arms.

“Are you tired?” I murmured, earning a weak nod and a sound like one a wounded beast would make.

“I don’t want the medicine, I don’t want the procedures, I don’t want to lose my hair and I ......” Her voice, sti ed and powerless, faltered into a choke as her hands gripped my clothes with what little strength she could nd within her.

But she wasn’t crying, I noticed when she stared up towards me. She was suppressing her tears, trying to hide them, trying to pretend that they didn’t exist.

“I want to read and dance in the rain and play outside!” Her words intensi ed into shouts. e passing patients and doctors paid her no attention. Perhaps they have grown accustomed to the screams, to a point that they were numb. ey knew that hysteria was a side e ect of dying.

“Leave with me.” I pleaded, “Leave with me, and you’re free.”

I can take you ying, or dancing, or do all the things that you’ll never be able to do. Death can give you what life cannot.

But she shook her head.

Obstinate, determined, and still hopeful, despite everything.

[ 5 ] e next year, I did not see Vera, but knew that she survived. She persisted, and fought, and survived.

Knowing this, I smiled. It was a forced but content smile.

But Death returned to her side when she was fteen. I brushed past her shoulder, and took someone from her support group. A boy, only thirteen, and one of Vera’s best friends.

e news struck her hard.

I came to her in silence, and sat in the seat next to her, a seat that once belonged to the boy I took. I did not know what to do, and could only hold her shoulder, stating: “He’s gone.”

Hemlock and nightshade and all the poisons of the world lled all my insides with searing toxins when I uttered those words. For the rst time, I felt what it’s like to die, from the inside.

Vera nodded, staring at me with a forlorn gaze. ere was no regret, no anger, just a numbness. Somehow, that was worse. Her gaze, empty as it was, was like a dagger that someone stabbed into my chest, tearing apart the still heart and twisting in the cold esh.

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I shouldn’t feel pain, but I did. “He was a friend?”

“Yes.” Her voice was coarse and raw with tears, as if she was dying, even when she wasn’t. As I spared another glance towards her, I realized that she was dressed for mourning. Black, like night, like death. She had always wanted to wear these exquisite products of silk and lace. She believed that she would be beautiful.

And she was, heartbreakingly and miserably beautiful, adorned by grief and melancholy. A marred smile was etched upon her face, the opposite of what I had seen years ago. Her hands shook; she made no attempt to suppress the quivering. e steaming co ee in the paper cup she held spilled upon the new dress.

And I felt as if I was burned.

I did not want to see her like this, but what could I do? It was my duty to take his life, as it would be my duty to take hers one day.

“Do you want to go with him?”

Our eyes met, and in her gaze, I saw the innocent twelve-year-old her, the fearful thirteen-year-old her, and nally the fteen-year-old her. e fteen-year-old who was forced to grow up too fast, who had her last innocence stolen by me. She parted her lips only to choke upon her voice. On her second attempt, she was able to utter the unbelievably calm words.

“I will live, and do for him what he wasn’t able to do.”

[ 6 ] “Vera!”

Someone was screaming her name.

An ominous presentiment enclosed me as soon as I heard the name. Worry clogged my throat, su ocating me. Time slowed down as I appeared by her side, catching one last glimpse of her blue eyes before they closed. Like a marionette with broken strings, she fell to the ground and did not rise again. I called her name, knelt by her side, stroked her pale face, but received no response.

“Vera, Vera.” I spoke, pleaded, again and again. She was like the porcelain doll that she once had, limp in my arms, her body frail and her complexion pallid.

Is it time?

Never could I have imagined the dread brought forward by the thought of taking her.

[ 7 ] Vera woke up to familiar uorescent lights and polished walls. She hid beneath the sheets and squeezed her eyes shut, as if this was all a nightmare that would go away soon. Her heavy breaths were the only sounds in the room as she shook with a fear that she desperately tried to suppress.

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I was the one to lay a hand on her back and give her the crushing news. “It came back, Vera, worse.”

A sharp intake of breath followed by a sob was the response I received. She pulled back the sheets and peered towards me with begging eyes, as if hoping that I would tell her this was all a terrible joke.

I could only shake my head with regret and evade her eyes. at was her death sentence.

“If you leave now, there will be less pain.” I whispered, sitting down on her bed. She hesitated for a moment, before using all her strength to hold herself up. I caught her right as another wave of fear swept past and that strength abandoned her.

Just like that, Vera leaned onto me, uncontrollably rocking with tears. She looked so helpless, so lost, so heartbreaking; so feeble, so anguished, so miserable. I saw in her the shadow of the girl who used to be, only without the hope that she once had.

She’d been through too much.

“I...I want to live...” She confessed with a quavering voice, only to be interrupted by another sob, “I want to live, to dance and ride horses and do so many things. I want to live, Elio, I really do!”

I was silent, holding her tightly. I didn’t want to and could not lie to her. I did not say to her “You will live,” nor did I make any attempt at dissembling.

“I really want to live ......” She repeated, every syllable impaling me with feelings I have never felt before. Sadness, regret, pity, and pain, too much pain.

In the end, I could only answer: “I know.”

A single tear slid down from the corner of my eye.

[ 8 ] Days after Vera’s seventeenth birthday, I saw her again, for the last time.

She was in her sickbed, or maybe deathbed, tears staining her cheeks, clothes permanently tainted by hints of vomit. Her breaths were accompanied by rattling noises, as if someone was dragging a dagger through her throat. She stared at the ceiling and swallowed hard, eyelids twitching as she fought to stay awake, ipping the nonexistent storybook in her hands.

“You came, Elio.” e tears hit when she said my name.

“Yes.” I con rmed and approached her bedside, my steps di cult in ways I wouldn’t have understood years ago. I held her hand once again and spoke softly: “Come.”

She was silent for so long, I almost thought that she intended on resisting again. If she did, I didn’t know if I would be able to force her to come, even though her time was up. After the everlasting silence, she nally turned her head, struggling while doing so. Her eyes welled with tears as she murmured: “You’ll be with me?”

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I nodded, holding her up with careful movements, and picked her up from the bed. She was light, like a feather, emaciated and wan.

“I promise.”

Vera nodded subtly in relief, laying her head upon my chest trustingly. Perhaps she could hear the revived heart palpitating within my ribcage, or maybe all my pain was merely a phantom wisp of humanity, and I remain as dead as ever.

“Elio, I ......” Her voice faltered as her light blue eyes met mine one last time. A weak smile pulled at her lips.

I know.

I replied with a wistful, melancholic smile, silent for a moment, before I spoke again:

“Sleep, Vera.”

Like a docile doe, she closed her eyes. Her chest ceased rising and falling in steady rhythms, like an ocean nally calmed. Her breaths softened until they stopped, and I knew that, like all others I took before her, she was gone.

I laid her body upon her bed, tucked the sheets in, and smiled.

A translucent gure peeled o her body, like a thin veil of mist. A young soul appeared at my side, dressed in the white gossamer dress she wore when we rst met, her steps light and livelier than ever before. Her skin was pristine, without tears, emanating radiance. Stars that would never burn out spiraled within her clear irises, which contained a universe of whim and fantasy unlike anyone had ever seen before.

Our ngertips touched, blazing evanescence bursting from where they met, emotions blossoming in our hearts. In that supernovae moment, I held her hand and allowed black wings to slowly unfurl behind me, starlight strewn between the gleaming obsidian feathers.

Together, we ew towards the heavens above, towards the light blooming in the distance.