He sat up in a hurry, holding back the urge to spew all over the living room. 'Manky FUCKER!'
When he got up, he completed a simple morning routine of finishing off last night's beer and tying his shoes. The laces danced in front of his face, nothing would stay still, he swallowed his sick, he didn't chance that fart, he wasn't doing well.
~
At the front door, Tom fought the lead onto Paddy's collar. 'Listen mate. Go easy on me, alright? Y'had your laughs. Funny mutt with the deepthroating tongue, very good. Fuck off with it right? We're goin' for a nice walk around the park, you empty yourself, and we come home so I can empty myself, and then we can put a film on and go to sleep. With me? Stay still, look at me. We good?'
The dog hadn't listened to a single word Tom said.
Off out they went.
Paddy hauled Tom around The Whirl at an uncomfortable speed. The sky danced around, soaking them.
It was a Saturday morning.
Kids were out - they laughed.
Tom couldn't handle it.
Everything moved too fast.
Sadly, Paddy wouldn't go defecating absolutely anywhere. He'd wait until he got to the patch of grass in the park where he always did it. Amber Park, again: a sober ten minutes away, a drunk thirty and a labrador's three.
In three minutes, Tom swallowed his sick three times and each step became a wet fart he clenched to hold in. The whole walk was an exercise in revenge for the lab, who'd only barely dried out from his trip home last night.
'Slow the fuck down, Paddy - hng - come on!'
The rain did nothing for Tom's condition. He left his coat behind because he thought the weather would cool him down, but it only made the sweat, chunder and slippery farts more uncomfortable. The rain coaxed a fever out of him. His guts twisted. He tried to stop and compose himself on a lamp post for just a minute.
Paddy said no. He had to shit too. He lunged forward, yanking Tom along.
The shock definitely let something into his jeans.
In the park, lovely couples enjoyed their Saturday morning walks. They were appropriately attired and sheltered by umbrellas, unaware that a smelly zombie trudged among them. His beer-gut spilt out from under an old t-shirt that barely fit him when he had the muscle to justify it. He wasn't wearing underwear or a belt, and his jeans wouldn't sit high enough to hide the entirety of his pubic hair. One of his shoelaces came undone. His zip let in a breeze. People stopped talking when he passed.
They reached Paddy's ideal grass patch.
'Oh thank fuck,' Tom wheezed, leaning over on his knees.
He let go of Paddy's lead and tried to get his shit together. Rain bounced off him, heating him up. Just another ten minutes, he thought. Paddy would be done, and he'd be on the toilet and over a bucket. He wasn't well, but he could handle it.
He straightened up.
Paddy was pouring out a soft shit the size of a new-born child.
Tom retched. Tom swallowed. Tom shook his head.
Paddy glared at him the whole time.
'S'not happening.'
Tom got the smell.
He took a few steps back from the horrific mess. He swallowed again. The taste poisoned his mouth. He'd never been more desperate for a glass of water.
And then Paddy turned around and ate the shit.
Tom emptied his stomach all over the place. A column of regurgitated spicy chicken, donner meat, lager and old Chinese food splattered to earth at a rate of knots, distorting the gentle pitter-patter of the rain.
Tom staggered forward, retching and forgetting that his shoelaces weren't tied.
He tripped and fell to his knees, into the sick. More came. He struggled, heaving and kicking with such ferocity that those farts he'd struggled to contain poured into his jeans.
From both ends, Tom launched streams of bodily fluids, twitching and flinching.
Paddy licked his face, shitty breath and all.
It triggered more. Tom shoved Paddy back and kept going.
When he stopped, an eternity later, he rolled over and lay in the rain, surrounded by his own filth.
He wanted to die.
A few hours later, The Reaper showed up at his door.
~
Six
A Class in Responsibility Avoidance
Derek also got drunk on Friday. I guess I'm the only one who didn't.
To be fair to Derek, he didn't want to be drinking; Judge Rabbit forced his hand. It was a stressful affair, a whir of whisky and absinthe and a boat and David Bowie music.
It started - like most of his days in 2016 - with a yawn, a stretch and a big, broad smile.
In 2016, Derek always woke up smiling.
He was rich as hell and living the dream in his own perfect corner of Rabbit Manor.
After his shower, he grinned into a large mirror, big enough for his whole face. He brushed his teeth until they glowed white and took a straight-razor to his jaw, nose, monobrow and ears. The morning poured in through the window and bathed him in rare Winter warmth.
Being Derek was good.
He swaggered back to his room (he had added a swagger to his repertoire of walks) and took his little pill. He washed it down with a glug of the best water in existence and curled his toes into the best carpet in existence. The fabric coiled in between each little tootsie, massaging the excessive walking his job entailed right out of them.
Being Derek was good.
His walls were cream, and the furniture was old, oak and gorgeous. On the wall to the left of his bed were a dumb-waiter and an intercom. The intercom connected to every other part of the mansion, but Derek only ever called the kitchen. It made anything, twenty-four hours a day, and the dumb-waiter delivered it right to his room.
Being Derek was good.
He approached his balcony.
Yeah, of course he had his own balcony.
He opened the doors wide and strolled out into the rain - the soothing rain in the dim glow of the sun. He looked out over the grounds and admired the surrounding woods, a tight-knit but broad thatch of trees, browned by Winter, sitting with Rabbit Manor atop Alisonhill. At the bottom of the hill was The Wilson Whirl, a collection of tall sandstone buildings and council-built shops, spun in a tight circle. Beyond that and past the grey waters that rippled beneath the rain, was the sky-high wall of vibrant metals, glass and concrete that made up mainland Hadleigh.
Derek absorbed the view, as he did every morning, feeling truly blessed.
He shut his eyes.
Being Derek was good.
Back indoors, a massive fireplace overtook a wall of his room, carved from the trunks of fallen trees grown from the graves of a thousand soldiers or something. Derek couldn't remember, he didn't have to, he didn't care. He never used the fire for fear of the stuff, it only acted as a pedestal on which to keep Daddy (the irony of which was lost on him). Upon the mantelpiece, in a specially crafted stand, the truncheon sat, smiling at him.
Daddy would be proud of the work he did for Judge Rabbit, he knew it. In spite of the actual nature of the work itself, which was often repetitive, demeaning and horrible, he did it like a professional.
Judge Rabbit's happiness was his duty.
It was hard, obviously. A job for an unlimited supply of money should be hard. That said, Derek found a way to make it substantially easier.
Before he came along, Judge Rabbit cycled through a cast of failing man-servants. Derek almost immediately saw how. His unsavoury 'initiation,' for a start, scared a lot of them away. Those who passed fell at one of a hundred hurdles that could have been avoided by setting a few rules.
The first rule - and one that had a lot of former employees shown the door in spite of its simplicity – was that a good man-servant should always have a flask of The Judge's favourite whisky on him. Always. It can't be stated enough, The Judge liked booze at all times of the day and for all occasions. A man-servant to Judge Rabbit should never leave home without whisky.
Secondly, a man-servant to
Judge Rabbit had no opinion unless he's asked for it. If asked, he should provide his opinion just once, and if The Judge doesn't agree, it should never be mentioned ever again.
Third, and finally, nothing The Judge did should ever be treated as unusual. The Judge was the most reasonable person, doing normal things, all the time. Never should a Judge's desire to see a hedge trimmed into a perfect semblance of a native American girl being chased by a flying shark ever be frowned upon.
Oh, and as a fourth, Derek-specific, rule: he was never allowed to alter his appearance in any way. His hideous face got him hired, and he would be a less diligent man-servant without it. It was Derek's least favourite rule, but every morning he awoke in paradise. He looked at his face every day - his whole face - and grinned.
‘All that matters is what you do…’ Derek said to the truncheon, with a smile. ‘Good morning, Daddy.’
~
Equipped with his professional walk, a full flask of whisky, and dressed in his Friday suit, Derek left his room. Judge Rabbit floored the manor in high-quality laminate, and the walls were lined with photos of him doing important things: standing next to a formula one car, eating a steak, defusing a bomb, slaying a dragon - important things.
The Rabbit family prided themselves on extravagance, so Rabbit Manor was huge. Derek had lost a substantial amount of weight just walking from his room to The Judge's every morning. He strode through impossible corridors decorated in rich burgundies and gold detailing, up a wide staircase and through to the lobby of Judge Rabbit's room. No, really; The Judge's room had its own lobby - with a chandelier, a permanently unmanned reception desk, and its own dumb-waiter. The Judge's agenda sat waiting for him in a clipboard rack by the door. He had a busy day ahead of him. There were a few last-minute arrangements to be made for The Judge's party the following night.
Gala, Derek corrected himself with a shake of his head.
The Reaper's Gala was a grand event for the Court staff and - even though the Court indefinitely cancelled the event following some newspaper coverage of awful behaviour twenty years prior - Judge Rabbit was hosting.
There was, however, something much more important to be dealt with that day. More important than the planning of a technically banned, extravagant and unnecessary party.
A new Reaper for Wilson's Well needed chosen.
Only Judge Rabbit could make the selection. The job could not be delegated, and it had to be done by Saturday morning at eight.
Judge Rabbit didn't want to choose.
Derek sighed as he collected the documents from the holder, and then he opened the dumb-waiter to receive The Judge's requested Pop-Tarts. He put the agenda under his arm and took the tray from the hole in the wall. He balanced it carefully and approached the doors to The Judge's room. These doors were salvaged from a fire station. They were big enough to fit a truck through, polished and varnished to a shine. Within the right door was a smaller, regular-sized door through which Derek would step once The Judge granted him access.
With his free hand, he buzzed the intercom on the right.
Without a response, The Judge let him in.
Judge Rabbit slept in a little corner of a massive bed slap-bang in the middle of the room, and he sat up when Derek entered with his food. His hair stuck up a bit, but his moustache sat perfectly.
'Good morning my friend!' he cried, remarkably alert.
'Morning, sir. I hope you're well.'
'Are you as excited as I am for the Murder Gala on the morrow?'
‘Reaper's Gala, sir.'
'What did I say?'
'Murder Gala, sir.'
'Again?'
'Yessir.'
'Odd.'
Derek placed the tray on his lap. The Judge wasted little time ripping into his breakfast.
From his mobile phone, and with his best impression of Trevor McDonald - who to The Judge's mind, was the only man who should ever read the news - Derek read him the headlines. He brushed over the story about the missing teenagers from Wilson's Well, because while the articles on the subject had shrunk recently, The Judge hoped they would be gone from his morning routine entirely by now.
Afterwards, he moved onto the agenda for the day. He ran through the outstanding tasks for The Reaper's Gala which included a fitting for a new shotgun, a meeting with the tour guide for his library, and arranging the gentleman's entertainment for the evening.
The Judge nodded along with him as he spoke, all the while tearing through his Pop-Tarts.
Derek noted the energy and enthusiasm and then crushed it when he moved on to the selection of a new Reaper.
Judge Rabbit stopped nodding and rolled his eyes, moaning. 'Oh, Derek, that's today? Are you quite sure?'
'Quite, sir.'
'I must have more time, surely.'
'I'm happy to double-check the dates, sir. I may be mistaken.'
'Do, Derek, and try not to upset me so without checking your facts in future. Anything else?'
'That's all for the day, sir.'
'Grand!' The Judge stuffed the last of his breakfast into his face. 'Let's get started then!'
Derek wasn't wrong about the date. He had been counting down to it with increasing panic since the Court set the deadline. The Judge didn't at all want to deal with the selection process.
Derek had at first blamed laziness, but he corrected himself when he heard about Judge Rabbit's best friend.
Reapers are as immortal as they like, and they'd been around since the end of World War II. Death himself had sent sixty-million ghosts to their afterlife and then decided he'd had enough and fucked off to live on the moon.
~
Seriously.
~
In his wake, he left a few selected people with the power they needed to take over for him. The Court of Reapers was quickly formed, and with them came the first line-up of Judges, Writers and Reapers across the planet.
One of those Judges was Judge Rabbit's Father, and one of those Reapers was assigned to Wilson's Well. That Reaper became a close friend of the family and best friend of Judge Rabbit Junior, who'd taken to referring to him as Wilson. He had been the only Reaper on Wilson's Well, yet to be replaced even once. The Rabbit family kept Wilson close, kept him comfortable, and for over seventy years he sent the souls of the island without fuss.
In 2016, he gave up.
He broke Judge Rabbit's heart.
Nobody would be able to replace his Reaper, not really. He didn't even want to try.
But unfortunately, he had to. The Reapers of neighbouring islands could only pick up the slack for so long. The Judge had been given a deadline, and Derek was responsible for that deadline.
Just before lunch, David, long-standing Writer for the Court and a bit of a sarcastic dick, phoned him to check on progress.
'It needs done today, Delboy, as much as I'm sure the Court would love to have the unsent getting lapped into Purgatory by-'
'It will be done today, David, I assure you.'
'I'm not taking the sack for this, alright? And we will take the sack for this. And I'd like to think you're acutely aware of what a termination means in our circle, Delboy.'
A lump developed in Derek's throat. 'More aware than most.'
'Get it done. Today. Now.' David put the phone down.
Derek sat on the edge of his bed and felt his heartbeat quicken. He took a long slow breath and a glance at his pills on the cabinet.
~
Judge Rabbit strutted around his bedroom with a diamond-encrusted shotgun on his shoulder. On repeat, he swaggered towards the mirror and back with a model's sneer on his face.
The fitter - if he could be called that - gazed at him, each time repeating, 'oh, yes...'
Derek stood at the back of the room, quietly sweating until he plucked up the courage to remind The Judge of the selection. 'Sir, if I may-‘
'Derek, my boy, have you an opinion? Is it diamonds, rubies or sapphires? I just cannot decide.'
Deflated, Derek cho
se the sapphires.
'Of course, it's the sapphires! Bring me the sapphires again, would you?'
The fitter handed the sapphire-encrusted shotgun to The Judge in exchange for the diamonds, and the catwalk restarted for another hour.
Derek tried to bring it up again while The Judge showed the guide around the library. The library was an ambitious project of The Judge's. He had an extension built at the back of the manor to hold every book ever written, but he scrapped the plan after some issues attaining a first-edition copy of the bible. Parts of it were grand, but areas around the back quadrant were left empty, and the smell of sawdust had drifted around for years, mingling with the air of old books.
As the guide followed him around, taking notes, he directed her towards a deep alcove in the room. 'Over here is my collection of Garfield novels, every single one ever released is in this nook.'
Derek watched the guide raise her eyebrows in a questionable display of wonder.
'Go on, take a look, the guests must see this!'
'Oh, they will,' the guide confidently replied, scribbling away on her notepad.
Derek approached his boss with a shaky clearing of his throat. 'Sir?'
'He does love his lasagne...'
'Yessir. Now if I may again broach the subject of the new Reaper. I double-checked, sir. The deadline is today.'
'Derek, have you ever been compared to Jon? The Garfield's owner? Such a sad, sad little man. I see the resemblance, I do. Jon is better-looking, though.'
And that was that.
Judge Rabbit had a meeting with the man who ran his favourite strip-club up next, but he requested it rescheduled until the following day. He was exhausted.
Derek found himself again clawing at bravery around supper time.
The Judge grazed on a meal. He wasn't hungry but had enjoyed himself six whiskies while the plate got cold. Six whiskies was The Judge's tipping point.
'Sir, I apologise for bringing it up again, but-'
The Judge took a mighty swig and destroyed his drink. He planted the glass on the table and grinned at his man-servant, who dreaded his next words.
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