Death picked me up, produced a black-and-white polka-dot handkerchief from another pocket, and pressed it against the wound. He squeezed my shoulder in an attempt at reassurance, then gestured to the building directly opposite.
‘Welcome to the Agency,’ he said.
The four car drivers of the Apocalypse
If you’re imagining a Gothic structure with dark towers, flying buttresses, leaded windows and iron-bound wooden doors, forget it. There were no horses champing at the bit and foaming at the mouth, and no lowering clouds or flashes of lightning in the background, either. Death’s office was simply a two-storey corner town house with a converted attic and steps leading down to a cellar. Three unremarkable cars were parked outside, and the sun rising in a clear sky behind us suggested it was going to be a pleasant day. I registered my dissatisfaction.
‘Is that it?’
‘What more do you want? A fanfare? A great multitude in white robes? The whore of Babylon?’
‘I wouldn’t mind.’
‘It is what it is. No more, no less.’
We crossed the road and climbed a short flight of steps to the only visible entrance: a black, oak door studded with iron rivets. Death produced a ring of keys and selected the largest, oldest, rustiest one. He turned it in the lock, then hesitated.
‘Before we go in…’ he began. ‘In the main office there are four of us: myself, Pestilence, Famine and War. And there’s Skirmish, of course – he’s War’s assistant. He used to be an apprentice, like you. Don’t take him too seriously.’ He pushed the door open and entered a gloomy, stone-tiled hallway, where he propped the spade against the wall and tossed his grey scarf onto a hook. Above the hook were five bold, black letters: DEATH. I noticed two jackets on adjoining hooks, marked FAMINE and PESTILENCE, and an empty hook marked WAR. ‘Our work here is different from what you might anticipate. Most of our practical business is sub-contracted to appointed Agents – former trainees like yourself.’ He smiled, displaying twin rows of pointed, yellow teeth. ‘What we do here is mainly administrative, though we’re obliged to exercise our skills on the local population once a day.’
I nodded absent-mindedly. ‘Keeping your hand in.’
‘Precisely. Until the first blast of the Last Trumpet!’ He waved his long, bony arms in a ridiculous flourish, like an orchestra conductor assailed by hornets; then his whole body slumped suddenly. ‘Actually,’ he confessed, ‘I’m rather bored with the whole thing. Nothing seems to make sense any more … My heart’s not in it.’
* * *
At the end of the corridor there was a white panelled door. Death opened it to reveal a tall column of paper, wobbling precariously on a Formica-laminated desk: the top sheet almost touched the low, Artexed ceiling. He awkwardly side-stepped the pile and disappeared.
I followed him apprehensively. Things were happening so fast.
The office contained four similar desks arranged in a square: each faced a different wall, each bent to accommodate mounds of paperwork. There were sheets of paper scattered randomly on the floor, banks of paper leaning against the sides of filing cabinets, paper pyramids pushing against the windows and spilling from the sills, paper pinned to machines, paper blocking air vents, paper crushing shelves. The room was decorated from floor to ceiling with documents and files, contracts and memos, and in the midst of this paper world were three of the least normal people I had ever seen.
Death intercepted my approach and pulled me into the middle of the room. ‘Morning, all,’ he said breezily. No-one paid him the slightest attention. ‘This is our new apprentice. He’ll be helping me out for the next seven days.’
As if someone had flicked a switch, three heads revolved slowly and scanned me. This scrutiny was terrifying after the darkness of the coffin. It burned a hole through the thin layer of confidence I had created. It withered me. A wave of nausea spread from my stomach into my throat. I felt my jaw quiver, then drop – and I stood there with my mouth half-open, not knowing where to look or what to say.
* * *
Something about the intensity of their gaze reminded me of when I was alive, when I was a child.
I was often ill when I was young. My mother shielded me from contact with other children until I went to nursery school, and when she was finally, reluctantly, forced to let me mix with my peers, I spent two years reeling from one disease to another. Whenever I fell sick, she drew me back into the nest, and folded herself around me, protecting me until I recovered. For my part, I sought any excuse to return to her.
And though I remember one particular day and one specific memory so clearly, it could have been any one of a hundred such days and memories from my childhood. The picture is always the same. I am lying in my mother’s arms on the sofa, dressed in my pyjamas, a soft, white woollen blanket wrapped around me. I can feel the warmth and softness of her skin against my head and feet. I have a fever, but the heat from her body penetrates the crucible of my disease. She strokes my head, so gently, so softly, that I never want to leave this moment, despite the sick feeling in my stomach. I never want to leave as she rocks me slowly in her huge, soft arms, her fine hair hanging over my hot face. I want to remain, frozen in this heat, as she lowers her head and – so tenderly – nibbles at my cheek and soothes me to sleep.
But I have a question which must be answered before I yield. I want to know when the fever will finish, when this pain and pleasure will end. I turn my face towards her, ready to ask; and she instinctively draws me closer, ready to listen. But as I look at her the question sticks in my throat. I cannot speak – because I am burned by the brightness of the light in her eyes, blistered by the terrible intensity of her power and love.
Immense power; unwavering love.
* * *
Standing alone while my new employers inspected me, something of that power and softness filtered through and brought me comfort even after death. But I remained gripped by a physical paralysis until the middle character in this eccentric trio shattered the awful silence.
‘Could be worse,’ he said, licking his lips. He was a tiny, bald, sickly creature with string arms, stick legs and a head that resembled a pockmarked skimming stone. He wore black boots, black socks, black jeans and a black T-shirt embossed with a single white emblem: a pair of scales. On his desk, beneath a dozen documents all stamped URGENT, was a black flat cap.
Death patted me on the back encouragingly. ‘Considering how he died, we’re lucky he’s here in one piece.’
‘What’s his name?’ This was spoken by the youngest member of the party: a pimpled teenager dressed in a sharp pink suit and matching leather tie. He had the physique of a plucked chicken, and his voice was squeaky and irritating, like a child’s toy. It was obvious from the groans provoked by his question that he commanded little respect, and even less affection.
‘Look it up.’
The teenager scowled but returned to his work. Exhausted, I removed a couple of sheets of paper from the chair by the door, then sat down and made myself comfortable. The office was hot, and I began to sweat beneath Death’s coat. The sweat mingled with the smeared earth on my skin to produce a sharp but pleasant graveyard odour. I wondered when I would be shown the promised shower and suit.
Death looked around the room. ‘Where’s War?’
The answer came from the only member of the group who hadn’t yet spoken. ‘Busy.’
‘Ah.’
‘He said he’d be back on Wednesday.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘For the meeting.’
‘Right.’
I stared at the final stranger. He was dressed entirely in white: jeans, tennis socks, trainers, and a T-shirt featuring a small, golden crown stitched into the breast pocket. His arms were etched with scars: a geometric nightmare of ragged white lines and neat pink circles. His face was even more alarming: a mass of pustules and papulae, boils and blackheads. Buried under a mound of paper on his desk were several cosmetic items – foundation, face powder, acne gel.
On the wall above his head was a framed statement: YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE MAD TO WORK HERE, BUT I AM.
‘What are you looking at?’
He caught me off guard. ‘I—’
‘If you think my face is shocking you should see the bruise on my body.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Do you want to?’
‘No, really. That’s OK.’
‘It’s no problem. It’s just here.’ He pointed to his left breast, below the crown.
‘I’ve seen bruises before.’
‘Not like this one.’
And it was true. He lifted his shirt to reveal the largest and most disturbing contusion I’d ever seen. It stretched from his scrawny neck to the withered wall of his stomach, and from his left underarm to his right nipple – a giant sunflower of ruptured skin. Its colours shimmered as he breathed, cold and fiery like an eclipse, purple and blue-black at the dark heart, green and yellow at its border.
‘I’m experimenting with a new disease. It has no apparent symptoms until the client wakes up one morning – and then BOOM!’ He slapped his chest and laughed. ‘Massive subcutaneous bleeding, swollen limbs, maybe some internal damage – I haven’t made up my mind – and maximal pain.’ He laughed again. ‘I’ve got some other ideas, too—’
‘I’m sorry,’ Death interrupted quickly, turning to me. ‘I should introduce you to everyone. This is Pestilence.’ He gestured towards the bruised disease-monger. ‘We call him Pes, for short.’ Pestilence smiled sarcastically. ‘This is Skirmish.’ He indicated the pimpled teenager, who forced a sheepish grin and offered a tentative handshake. ‘And this is Famine.’
‘I prefer Slim,’ Famine quipped, bowing his bald head.
No-one laughed.
‘OK,’ Death announced cheerily. ‘Any mail?’
‘The usual,’ Pestilence answered, handing over a raft of envelopes. ‘Your schedule for the next three days, as discussed on Saturday. The Chief’s assessment of your reports from last week – it doesn’t look good, I can tell you. And precise instructions for today’s client: a rather easy number down at quadri furcus … Not even you can mess it up.’
Death gave him a sarcastic smile. ‘Any postal chess?’
‘Seven games.’
‘Excellent!’ His face brightened, and he brushed several sheets of paper from the desk in front of me to reveal a chess board in black and gold. Impatiently, he tore open one of the envelopes, read what it contained, then stared at the empty squares. For a few seconds he was utterly absorbed, recreating complex moves in his mind, tracing the paths of invisible pieces with his fingers. Finally, as if struck by the solution to a problem which had momentarily perplexed him, he nodded slowly to himself, dismissed the imaginary battlefield, and smiled kindly. Then, with an air of business-like efficiency, he tossed the remaining mail onto the board, removed my contract from his polo shirt and offered it to Skirmish. ‘Stick this on the pile in the Chief’s office, will you?’
Skirmish tutted, stood up slowly, and stuffed the contract grudgingly in his pocket. ‘I suppose you want me to put it in a folder?’
‘Of course … And after that, put the spade in the hall back in the Stock Room … And make sure you wash it first.’ At last, Death turned towards me. ‘Now. How about that shower?’
Terminations for special occasions
Death directed me back along the entrance hall to the first opening on the right. It was a flight of stairs leading upwards.
‘As I said, it’s mostly administration now. It used to be more of a challenge. We had stimulating conversations with the clients, several terminations a day, everything seemed fresh and varied. It was exciting back then. But now, the only thing I find interesting is the preparation.’ We reached the top of the stairs: a long, narrow corridor, with a floral burgundy carpet. ‘OK. A quick run-through. On your left, the Meeting Room; on the right, at the end, is the Lab. Behind us is the Stock Room…’ He waited for me to turn around. ‘… and down there, straight ahead, is the bathroom. Come back down to the office when you’ve finished.’
‘What about clothes?’
He barked a short, loud laugh. ‘There should be a suit hanging on the back of the door.’
* * *
The suit was electric blue, heavily spangled, and at least two sizes too small. I also found a pair of dark green, floral boxer shorts, a tight, lime-green T-shirt bearing the words RESURRECTION – IT’S A WAY OF LIFE, a pair of light green knee-high socks decorated with smiling flatfish, and a pair of white, slip-on shoes. The shoes fitted perfectly, and were easily the most comfortable footwear I had ever worn, alive or dead.
The shower washed the corpse smell from me. I hadn’t realized how accustomed I’d become to the sweet odour of dirt and decay until I stepped from the cubicle and dried myself. My new smell was alien, unwelcome. No cemetery in the land would have taken me in.
One more thing: as I dressed, I inspected my body more closely. I was missing three fingers (including one thumb), two toes, and one penis.
* * *
On the way back to the office I noticed a fifth door on the landing, just before the stairs. It was white, and shiny, and identified with a name on a small brass plate. I didn’t stop to examine it though. I was too busy thinking about the other remarkable feature of my body: my legs, arms and torso were criss-crossed with thick, black, surgical stitches.
* * *
The office was empty, except for Skirmish. He was sitting at Famine’s desk beneath the far window, alternately picking his nose and playing a hand-held computer game.
‘Nice suit,’ he said, without looking up. He grinned faintly, his fingers quivering over the controls. ‘It’s one of my old ones.’
‘Really?’
‘Yep. The one I was buried in.’
I changed the subject. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘Jobs.’
‘What about Death?’
‘Back soon.’
I sank into the chair by the door. I badly wanted to return to the coffin. I was surrounded by strangers. I didn’t know the rules. I felt exposed. I gazed at the chess board on the desk again, and noticed that several pieces now occupied the previously blank squares. In an effort to distract myself, I studied the position carefully. I had been a keen player when I was alive, and it only took me a couple of minutes to realize that with a queen sacrifice black could probably achieve mate in three moves.
I was examining white’s alternatives when I felt a presence at my shoulder. Startled, I turned around and saw Death looming over me. I hadn’t even heard him enter. He was gazing at the crown of my head with alarm, and before I had time to wonder why, he pulled a comb from his shirt pocket and ran it quickly through my hair.
‘You could use some of Pes’ make-up too,’ he observed. His gaze moved down to my jacket, registering an expression somewhere between mockery and sympathy. ‘Then again, I don’t expect anyone will be looking at your face.’
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘To meet our first client of the week.’
* * *
I followed Death down the corridor to another white panelled door on the left, opposite the stairs. ‘I need a couple of files from Archives before we leave,’ he said, checking his watch. ‘Can you give me a hand?’
I nodded, wanting to be elsewhere.
The room behind the door was narrower and more sparsely decorated than the office. Apart from a naked light bulb and a wide bow window with a view over the street, it consisted entirely of ceiling-high filing cabinets, lining the walls and clustered in the centre of the room.
‘Look in the A–Z index,’ Death said. ‘Under Falling. I’ll get the Life File.’
He showed me a large filing cabinet to the right of the door. Five drawers, all unlocked. With difficulty I opened the second, marked D–G. It was choked with paper, each sheet so thin and fragile it was almost transparent. I carefully removed a document at random. The page contained around a hundred lines of minuscule
type, beginning with:
DEATH:
Terminations for special occasions
Choking on a goat hair in a bowl of milk
(CLIENT: Fabius, 66275901748)
Drowning in a butt of malmsey
(CLIENT: George, Duke of Clarence, 4009441326)
Falling into a fireplace while attacking a friend with a poker
(CLIENT: Count Eric Stenbock, 28213124580)
due to an Incredible sequence of unfortunate accidents
(CLIENT: numerous)
Laughter at seeing an ass eat one’s figs
(CLIENT: Philomenes, 0504567722)
as a result of Stuffing a hen with snow
(CLIENT: Francis Bacon, 6176160339)
by Tortoise falling on head
(CLIENT: Aeschylus, 79113751126)
‘Have you found it yet?’ Death was standing on a stepladder holding a pale blue document wallet.
‘Almost.’
I flicked quickly through the other sheets until I located the document I was looking for. I removed it and read a random selection of headlines: FALLING DOWN A WELL, FALLING INTO AN UNENDING ABYSS, FALLING INTO A VAT OF BOILING OIL, FALLING OVER (GENERAL), FALLING OFF A CLIFF (VARIOUS).
‘Which reference do you want?’
‘Can you see Falling from a Great Height?’
I ran my finger down the page:
FALLING
from a great height
x-ref1: Diving, Dropping, Leaping (into, from), Plunging, Slipping, Tumbling
x-ref2: Aeroplanes, Buildings, Cliffs, Towers, Trees, Parachutes (Failure to Open), etc.
x-ref3: Accident, Murder, Suicide.
‘Is this it?’
Death took the sheet and nodded. ‘Just as I suspected. Completely useless.’ He tossed it away. ‘We’ll have to improvise.’
He showed me the thick folder he was holding. It contained around a hundred sheets of biographical information about the woman he described as our ‘client’. I scanned it briefly: age, favourite foods, changes in hair colour, sexual partners, medical records, likes and dislikes of all kinds.
‘This is the Life File,’ Death explained. ‘Read as much as you can as we go along.’ He smiled pleasantly and patted me on the back. ‘It’s a routine start to the week. A rather formulaic termination. But we can make it more interesting.’
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