A dead mother and a dead father once gave birth to a living girl. She was a pretty little thing but when you are dead and you birth a living thing, you do not know how to care for it. Everything you do for it will be smeared with rot and you will probably name the thing something sad like Grief.
The dead mother and dead father lived in a dead city run by Death herself and so they swaddled their living thing in blankets, uprooted a dying flower and took their living girl to Death’s doorstep. Death knew exactly when they arrived for a light bulb flickered on and stayed on. She took the girl as well as the now living flower the dead mother and father had left for their living thing. There was only so much Death could do. She did not name her Grief. She named the living thing Yellow. Like the lightbulb that stayed on.
The living thing grew and so did Death. Death no longer always smelt like wet mushrooms and despair. On a good day, Death smelt like a moss and release because she knew now that she could be comfort to a living thing.
Death loved her living child despite their existential differences and Yellow ran to Death for everything; help, comfort and Death knew exactly how much of herself to give without hurting her living child.
Yellow grew some more and so did Death but Death knew she could not keep her Yellow. That someday, her child would have to die and stay in the dead city with the other dead people. Even though Death ran the city, the dead people could not be with Death for they had already died and everyone knew, Death only ever had business with the living.
One day, Death wrapped a blanket around her Yellow and gave her the bulb that always stayed on. They walked to the living city and like Yellow’s real dead parents, Death dropped her at the door of a living mother along with a note.
The note said this living thing had only ever learnt to exist with the dead but there was no life with the absence of life. The living mother knew exactly when Yellow arrived because a plant sprouted from her kitchen floor as Yellow was more alive than any other living thing. Yellow learnt to live with the living as easily as she learnt to live with Death. She grew and grew some more, visited other living cities and fell in love with living people but Yellow always felt Death lurking. She felt her most on the days pain found her, she felt her when she birthed her first living thing, her second, her third. She always felt Death lurking but Death never showed up.
Yellow was the most alive living thing and Death let her live until the living city could no longer harbor Yellow. Until Yellow became too old to do the things living things did and Death had no choice but to come. When Yellow saw Death for the first time since she arrived in the living city, Death still smelt like moss and release and as Death took her, Death bloomed yellow flowers and the bulb that wouldn’t go off finally did.
The living city knew when Death came for Yellow because all the yellow flowers curled up into themselves and never opened up.
And the dead city, they knew when Yellow arrived again for she brought yellow flowers with her.
