Messengers of the Afterlife

Maria stood at the bedside of her dying husband Juan. As he breathed through tubes going into his nostrils, she watched his chest rise and fall lightly. With eyes tired of crying, and the weight of sadness upon her chest, she went to sit on the couch. A few moments later, she doze off and fell asleep.

A half hour passed and Maria woke up to the sound of hooves clapping on the sidewalk cement. She rose from her nap and looked out out the screen door. Nothing was there. She went back to her couch to sit down, thinking she was dreaming. But as silence settled back in, she heard the sound of hooves even closer than before, in her cement driveway. Looking out the screen door again, nothing was there.

The weight of sadness became overwhelming, and tears filled her eyes. She turned around and saw her husband's chest rising and falling, but at even longer intervals than before. She ran over to his bedside, panicking, and the sound of hooves were clapping around in her garage, as if invisible horses were walking in circles.

Looking toward the garage, in fear, sadness, and panic, she covered her husband with her body. Crying in grief, she laid her head on his chest. His heart stopped beating. His chest emptied with his last breath, and he was gone. Maria wailed with deep sadness, and she heard the hooves clap out of her garage, down her driveway, and down the sidewalk. The sounds growing more distant as if they were going farther away.

With deep loss that seemed to never end despite the tears flowing out of eyes, she knew that the hooves were the horse and carriage of Juan's parents. Their spirits had come to take Juan to the afterlife.