the divine appointment

a speculative short story

Jul 30, 2026

Article voiceover

0:00

-10:11

Sand was carelessly tracked across the wood floor of the ancient chapel. Fading evening sun streamed through small windows, illuminating the trio adorning the space. Airy particles fell downward, surrendering to the ever growing detritus on the ground. The desert church was torn out of a larger page. A scrap in time. It was silent, save for a few breaths that could be heard only if one closed their eyes.

The man stood near the woman at the altar. She had madder red hair and irises the color of half-cooked egg whites. He wore raven’s feathers on his skin as an adornment. In one of the decrepit pews sat what could be described as a shadow in the form of a human, but it was misshapen at all angles. Anything resembling a limb was bent, and there were more than four. An anomaly. The place of worship smelled of molded antiques. Of corn husk dolls long dried out. No one spoke a word. The man and woman were pausing together, feeling each second pass with the weight of two sinners caught in a debauched act.

The woman broke the silence. Her utterance pierced the void of speech like the first bite into a ripe apple.

It’s been years.

Time passes quickly for us.

I’ve missed you.

Why do you say that?

Because it’s true. I’ve tasted decades. Millenia.

And what did you find on your tongue?

The lack of you. The impermanence of humanity is a bitter flavor. I’ve grown exhausted from shedding tears.

Everything must die.

Yes, but we do not.

Our bodies do not decay, like theirs. But we can experience fatality.

Have you?

Once.

Did you enjoy death?

I felt peace in equal measure with unease and despair. I could not answer you with a single word. You would have to die to know what I mean. And it is not your time.

Is it ever anyone’s time, as you say?

Yes.

I find that troublesome. Time can be stolen.

Why? You have been doing this for a long while. The way of the world is a cycle. The old must make way for the new.

I’m getting weary. Can I not have questions for God? And if each is appointed a time to die, what’s the point of it all?

These divine appointments are assigned to them. We provide a hand to guide. It is not evil. It is mercy, to be given the relief of death.

What you view as a blessing may be another’s curse. The woman paused and looked at the shadow. Sunlight hit the water spilling from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks. I’ve carried babies across the threshold. Children. I’ve held the hands of weeping mothers. Do not tell me death is always mercy.

The man’s face remained the same. This work is not always pleasant, but it is necessary. To be faced with the truth of their existence in each moment held by the scales of judgement. Righteousness and sin.

I’m not arguing the work is not needed. But what about tenderness? Must I lack feeling when carrying souls? May I not mourn them?

Mourning is for the living. Remember your place.

Your callousness is abrasive. You’re not the same as before.

And you said you missed me.

I didn’t lie. I remember what was.

There must always be change. What you call callousness is wisdom. Do not get attached to the dead. They go where you cannot follow.

If hardness is wisdom, I need not gain it. I will resign as a fool before I allow the work to desensitize me.

You have not walked this path long enough to understand.

Understand that I must change myself to cope with the work? That our job requires a lack of love? To know that life after death is more meaningful than the moments they breathed before? She gestured to the shadow. It slowly oscillated from side to side in the pew. It had eyes, once, but neither the man nor woman were certain where it was looking.

It is duty. We have a heavenly task at hand. It requires sacrifice and fortitude. Maybe, you are not fit for it.

And what of their fates? Eternal life?

That is not for us to know.

Perhaps I need not walk any further.

What are you saying?

Did you know each one has a texture?

What on Earth are you referring to?

The soul. Each person has a specific feeling, one intrinsic to them. I’ve never met two of the same. She walked over to the shadow. They held the distance of a breath between their bodies. Its chest rose while hers fell. She put a hand on one of its bent limbs carefully. Softly and tenderly. This one reminds me of spring leaves. Barely unfurled. Still moist from the bud’s womb. Delicate green flesh. It was taken before its time. Plucked off the branch to be burned.

The shadow peeled the shade off its body. Tore the cloak from its frame. Fleshy rips of moist skin and muscle and cracking bones were an orchestra of life. Underneath the shadow stood a warm body growing cold whose face had been caved in. Smashed and crushed into submission of death. Where a nose would have been was mangled skin. It once had a jaw which opened and closed on hinges, but was broken off. The shadow couldn’t recall the memories of forgotten anatomy. The shadow looked at the woman through its empty eye sockets. It did not know where it was. In this space between here and there. She gazed at the shadow with a tenderness and mercy akin to God’s and felt closer to the Divine in that moment than all others before.

You will face consequences for this decision.

Maybe. But they are mine to make and carry.

I’ll miss you.

She held out a hand. One of the shadow’s bent limbs reached out and touched her skin. It was bony now, the blood and flesh had all but fallen away. Time had picked off the rest of what had remained. She directed her eyes at the man in the raven feathers with bright orange topaz pupils that dilated outward and inward with the beat of her heart. He walked backwards into the darkness and shifted into his other form, flying away through a window into the night. She knew the end, but smiled and glowed like a prayer candle in the darkened hall of the chapel. She held the cold, skeletal hand of the shadow in her warm one as they walked toward the exit. Their footsteps drew lines in the sand on the crumbling wood floor. They stood in the outline of the door and beams of light attempted to penetrate their forms. She held its collapsed chin with devotion. She put her forehead against its skull, whispering words into its soul.