A Love Affair with Death

March 2024 Web Feature by Brandon Ligon

Brandon Ligon is an Arizona-based writer and composer with passions in soundscapes and the surreal. Dreams, night, and nonhuman narrators are major inspirations for his work, constantly blurring the boundary of accepted reality. His art strives to reveal the hidden nuances to our daily lives.

This piece was originally featured in our Fall 2023 issue and chosen as a web feature for March 2024.

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A Love Affair with Death by Brandon Ligon

Death was a Frenchman when he came to me. He wore a thick black cloak that rained down the entirety of his body, and a dark hood covered his head and shrouded his face. 

He was gorgeous when I saw him, despite the enigma of his heavy dress weighing under the summer sun. Never did a word leave his mouth, but his shadowed lips curled and smiled politely at my embrace. Occasionally, a flash of unrecognition would sweep across his face, but the familiar geniality and tenebrous love would resurface as Death repossessed the man’s body. 

Truth be told, I was in love with the Frenchman. We met in that quiet part of Phoenix where we could sit and watch the mountains. A cool winter night was descending on the valley, but neither of us had any obligations (or at least ones we cared about), and there was no point in leaving our cozy spot on the bench. Once the red twinkles appeared in the sky, glittering off the tips of the mountain’s radio towers, I leaned in to kiss him. At that moment, he seemed cold, put on his cloak, and Death became him—we kissed anyway.

There is a grave misconception about Death: I’ll be the first to say that Death is not dead. He is a living, breathing, loving being who doesn’t have to harm or kill. I’ve been asked how I knew it was Death and not the Frenchman, but I just knew it was. I felt it in the way he leaned in, wrapped his arms around my shoulders, yet remained ever so careful to keep his cloak clutched tightly across his body. 

Another reason, I would tell my friends, is that Death is inhumanly polite. The Frenchman would peel back the cloak and say a few words in French. I’d tell him to speak kindly or to speak not at all, but he would say français est la langue d’amour, n’est-ce pas?, and my ears would hear “French is the language of mort,” to which he would shake his head and avoid me until Death repossessed him. 

And when that happened, oh, such a glorious moment! He would pardon his French, turn cold, and with such care and delicacy, bring his finger to his mouth and grin. Once, I slapped him because I didn’t believe Death was truly taking over at that moment, but he didn’t budge. I think he wanted to say how he would never betray me like that, but he remained silent, as Death always does. Perhaps he was afraid of killing me, that the sacred breath of life could be stolen merely through the word of Death. I even asked the Frenchman whenever he stole back his body if he remembered what he had been doing. He’d say, “Oh, I was at the marché,” not acknowledging that he had returned home days before.

Yet, Death was becoming concerned. We were in bed together, his body cloaked as usual, and I felt him falter in his embrace, the first time he had ever rejected my love. It had been difficult for us to be together because the Frenchman was fighting back, and his vigor had taken a toll on Death’s health. There was perpetually that bit of him focused elsewhere, keeping himself in the Frenchman’s body, keeping my ex-love out of his own body. I could no longer restrain myself—I vowed to Death that I would keep the Frenchman at bay, and we could be together, just me and him. 

“You’re hallucinating. Qui est Death?” The Frenchman had returned, curling his fingers beneath the cloak’s thick fabric, threatening to tear it off his head and body.

            I hurled my fists into his face and knocked him out cold. I thought that maybe Death would resurface, that we could finally be free of the Frenchman’s reign, but he did not reappear. 

I panicked and shoved myself into his cloak so I could be closer to him, determine if he was alive and well. A large number of feathery, puffy things tickled my chest and prickled my chin, but I didn’t want to let him go, not yet. I tried reaching for his belly, but Death pulled me out, and yes, it was Death himself! I was overwhelmed in my delight, but I could not have foreseen a sadder expression on his face. I helped him stand up and, wearily, he motioned me toward the balcony. 

I must at least credit the Frenchman with having a tranquil, second-floor balcony overlooking the mountains. And such a beauty, only a murmur of traffic far in the distance, the whispering of breezy grass. 

If not for this, I would have never loved him. 

Before I knew Death, François and I would listen to the desert and gently suck in the muggy air, bringing our lips close together and exhaling into the others’ nostrils. I’d say the few words of French I knew. He would smile, remain quiet for a time, then compliment my attempt at speaking his language before teaching me a new word by saying it into my mouth. That was before he fell completely silent, and in his amorous expression, there was Death.

Now, at the balcony, I thought he was going to speak. He began to peel away at his cloak, with a calm and gentleness inherent only to him. At the precipice of dropping the heavy shroud entirely, he opened his mouth, and began to speak. 

The cloak fell. Yellow and orange puffy birds whizzed out his throat, and they all said, “I love you.” Each cry was another punch to his gut. Once the last small bird sang its shrill proclamation of love, there was no one left in front of me, and Death, his cloak, had fallen onto the dusty landscape below.