A Very Beautiful Flower from the Other World

I did not have much life left.

An incurable terminal illness was eating me through — though it never, on any single day, took a sharp turn either way. I spent my hours in a pure-white hospital room, gazing absently at the sky, waiting to greet the death-god as he closed in slowly, slowly.

Then, one day — as if a final indulgence — just once, I was permitted outside.

Arms thinned in ways I had never imagined.

Legs that shook under their own weight.

Spurring such a body on, I decided to walk a slow lap of the hospital's wide garden.

Well — this, too, is a kind of life.

At the start there had been regret. By the time this last walk was permitted, even that regret had quietly gone from my chest.

Of the two questions, what came after death was now the more interesting one.

"…Hah."

Two slow circuits of the hospital garden. Taking in the unchanging view once more, I finally decided to head back to the room.

And then.

"That's…"

In a corner of the lawn-covered garden, a large tree stood serenely. Beneath it, a pale-purple plant I had never seen before had, of all things, popped up.

What kind of plant is that?

Back when I had still had any willpower left in me — even after I could no longer move properly — I had spent time leafing through plant- and animal-encyclopaedias, on the premise of learning even a little more of this world. Even in those memories, of this plant there was nothing.

Possibly I just didn't know it. But the plant caught my attention and would not let go; I asked the attending nurse to help me carry it back to the room.

The young nurse, however, kept tilting her head — which one? — until, in the end, I scooped it up myself.

Back in the room, I packed an unused jar with soil and moved the plant in.

In the days that followed, until I died, I watched that plant — growing visibly day by day, in contrast to me — and the days passed quietly.

---

Some five days more.

"— Yo. Nice to meet you."

I woke from one of many shallow sleeps, and the death-god was standing beside the bed.

"I've come for you."

Long grey hair. An androgynous beauty far too composed.

That this was a man, I knew — the voice carried a comfortable low note.

"…Right."

The death-god was dressed in something neat and clean, ill-suited to a hospital room.

But the hands and feet were half-transparent.

"Anything left undone?"

"No."

"Any regret in this world?"

"— No."

A lie.

If only. I had wanted to see this plant flower…

That pale-purple plant had, by now, set buds — about to bloom any moment.

A plant I had picked up by chance, raised through to my own final hour. Honestly — I had wanted to see its flower.

Just when I had thought I had set everything down, at the very end, a new regret had sprouted.

"It's all right. The flower is going to bloom now. In just a little — a matter of seconds."

As if reading my heart through, the death-god, on a gentle smile, said it.

"When the flower blooms — that is the moment of your departure."

The death-god stepped close and touched the bud, almost tenderly.

Then he turned back to me, a gentle smile on his face.

"Right. …Yes. If I can see the flower, that's enough."

"Then — let us wait, together, for the flower to bloom."

A short silence followed.

The clock's hand kept time, quietly.

The body that had been heavy began, gradually, to grow light.

I narrowed my eyes against the brightness of the sunlight.

And finally — the moment came.

The bud stirred.

To bloom, or not to bloom — as if undecided, it swayed itself back and forth.

Go.

No voice came any longer.

Push through.

Even so, I willed it, hard.

One last time — show me your flower.

And the flower —

"— Bloomed."

It cast a very beautiful, pale light —

Truly —

Beautiful —

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