Reaper Man

by Terry Pratchett

  In fact the ornaments almost concealed the furniture, but this was no loss. Apart from two chairs groaning under the weight of accumulated antimacassars, the rest of the furniture seemed to have no use whatsoever apart from supporting ornaments. There were spindly tables everywhere. The floor was layered in rag rugs. Someone had really liked making rag rugs. And, above all, and around all, and permeating all, was the smell.

  It smelled of long, dull afternoons.

  On a cloth-draped sideboard were two small wooden chests flanking a larger one. They must be the famous boxes full of treasure, he thought.

  He became aware of ticking.

  There was a clock on the wall. Someone had once had what they must have thought was the jolly idea of making a clock like an owl. When the pendulum swung, the owl’s eyes went backward and forward in what the seriously starved of entertainment probably imagined was a humorous way. After a while, your own eyes started to oscillate in sympathy.

  Miss Flitworth bustled in with a loaded tray. There was a blur of activity as she performed the alchemical ceremony of making tea, buttering scones, arranging biscuits, hooking sugar tongs on the basin…

  She sat back. Then, as if she had been in a state of repose for twenty minutes, she trilled slightly breathlessly: “Well…isn’t this nice.”

  YES, MISS FLITWORTH.

  “Don’t often have occasion to open up the parlor these days.”

  NO.

  “Not since I lost my dad.”

  For a moment Bill Door wondered if she’d lost the late Mr. Flitworth in the parlor. Perhaps he’d taken a wrong turning among the ornaments. Then he recalled the funny little ways humans put things.

  AH.

  “He used to sit in that very chair, reading the almanac.”

  Bill Door searched his memory.

  A TALL MAN, he ventured. WITH A MUSTACHE? MISSING THE TIP OF THE LITTLE FINGER ON HIS LEFT HAND?

  Miss Flitworth stared at him over the top of her cup.

  “You knew him?” she said.

  I THINK I MET HIM ONCE.

  “He never mentioned you,” said Miss Flitworth archly. “Not by name. Not as Bill Door.”

  I DON’T THINK HE WOULD HAVE MENTIONED ME, said Bill Door slowly.

  “It’s all right,” said Miss Flitworth. “I know all about it. Dad used to do a bit of smuggling, too. Well, this isn’t a big farm. It’s not what you’d call a living. He always said a body has to do what it can. I expect you were in his line of business. I’ve been watching you. That was your business, right enough.”

  Bill Door thought deeply.

  GENERAL TRANSPORTATION, he said.

  “That sounds like it, yes. Have you got any family, Bill?”

  A DAUGHTER.

  “That’s nice.”

  I’M AFRAID WE’VE LOST TOUCH.

  “That’s a shame,” said Miss Flitworth, and sounded as though she meant it. “We used to have some good times here in the old days. That was when my young man was alive, of course.”

  YOU HAVE A SON? said Bill, who was losing track.

  She gave him a sharp look.

  “I invite you to think hard about the word ‘Miss,’” she said. “We takes things like that seriously in these parts.”

  MY APOLOGIES.

  “No, Rufus was his name. He was a smuggler, like dad. Not as good, though. I got to admit that. He was more artistic. He used to give me all sorts of things from foreign parts, you know. Bits of jewelry and suchlike. And we used to go dancing. He had very good calves, I remember. I like to see good legs on a man.”

  She stared at the fire for a while.

  “See…he never come back one day. Just before we were going to be wed. Dad said he never should have tried to run the mountains that close to winter, but I know he wanted to do it so’s he could bring me a proper present. And he wanted to make some money and impress dad, because dad was against—”

  She picked up the poker and gave the fire a more ferocious jab than it deserved.

  “Anyway, some folk said he ran away to Farferee or Ankh-Morpork or somewhere, but I know he wouldn’t have done something like that.”

  The penetrating look she gave Bill Door nailed him to the chair.

  “What do you think, Bill Door?” she said sharply.

  He felt quite proud of himself for spotting the question within the question.

  MISS FLITWORTH, THE MOUNTAINS CAN BE VERY TREACHEROUS IN THE WINTER.

  She looked relieved. “That’s what I’ve always said,” she said. “And do you know what, Bill Door? Do you know what I thought?”

  NO, MISS FLITWORTH.

  “It was the day before we were going to be wed, like I said. And then one of his pack ponies came back by itself and then the men went and found the avalanche…and you know what I thought? I thought, that’s ridiculous. That’s stupid. Terrible, isn’t it? Oh, I thought other things afterward, naturally, but the first thing was that the world shouldn’t act as if it was some kind of book. Isn’t that a terrible thing to have thought?”

  I MYSELF HAVE NEVER TRUSTED DRAMA, MISS FLITWORTH.

  She wasn’t really listening.

  “And I thought, what life expects me to do now is moon around the place in the wedding dress for years and go completely doolally. That’s what it wants me to do. Hah! Oh, yes! So I put the dress in the ragbag and we still invited everyone to the wedding breakfast, because it’s a crime to let good food go to waste.”

  She attacked the fire again, and then gave him another megawatt stare.

  “I think it’s always very important to see what’s really real and what isn’t, don’t you?”

  MISS FLITWORTH?

  “Yes?”

  DO YOU MIND IF I STOP THE CLOCK?

  She glanced up at the boggle-eyed owl.

  “What? Oh. Why?”

  I AM AFRAID IT GETS ON MY NERVES.

  “It’s not very loud, is it?”

  Bill Door wanted to say that every tick was like the hammering of iron clubs on bronze pillars.

  IT’S JUST RATHER ANNOYING, MISS FLITWORTH.

  “Well, stop it if you want to, I’m sure. I only keep it wound up for the company.”

  Bill Door got up thankfully, stepped gingerly through the forest of ornaments, and grabbed the pine-cone shaped pendulum. The wooden owl glared at him and the ticking stopped, at least in the realm of common sound. He was aware that, elsewhere, the pounding of Time continued none the less. How could people endure it? They allowed Time in their houses, as though it was a friend.

  He sat down again.

  Miss Flitworth had started to knit, ferociously.

  The fire rustled in the grate.

  Bill Door leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling.

  “Your horse enjoying himself?”

  PARDON?

  “Your horse. He seems to be enjoying himself in the meadow,” prompted Miss Flitworth.

  OH. YES.

  “Running around as if he’s never seen grass before.”

  HE LIKES GRASS.

  “And you like animals. I can tell.”

  Bill Door nodded. His reserves of small talk, never very liquid, had dried up.

  He sat silently for the next couple of hours, hands gripping the arms of the chair, until Miss Flitworth announced that she was going to bed. Then he went back to the barn, and slept.

  Bill Door hadn’t been aware of it coming. But there it was, a gray figure floating in the darkness of the barn.

  Somehow it had got hold of the golden timer.

  It told him, Bill Door, there had been a mistake.

  The glass shattered. Fine golden seconds glittered in the air, for a moment, and then settled.

  It told him, Return. You have work to do. There has been a mistake.

  The figure faded.

  Bill Door nodded. Of course there had been a mistake. Anyone could see there had been a mistake. He’d known all along it had been a mistake.

  He tossed the overalls in a corner and to
ok up the robe of absolute blackness.

  Well, it had been an experience. And, he had to admit, one that he didn’t want to relive. He felt as though a huge weight had been removed.

  Was that what it was really like to be alive? The feeling of darkness dragging you forward?

  How could they live with it? And yet they did, and even seemed to find enjoyment in it, when surely the only sensible course would be to despair. Amazing. To feel you were a tiny living thing, sandwiched between two cliffs of darkness. How could they stand to be alive?

  Obviously it was something you had to be born to.

  Death saddled his horse and rode out and up over the fields. The corn rippled far below, like the sea. Miss Flitworth would have to find someone else to help her gather in the harvest.

  That was odd. There was a feeling there. Regret? Was that it? But it was Bill Door’s feeling, and Bill Door was…dead. Had never lived. He was his old self again, safe where there were no feelings and no regrets.

  Never any regrets.

  And now he was in his study, and that was odd, because he couldn’t quite remember how he’d got there. One minute on horseback, the next in the study, with its ledgers and timers and instruments.

  And it was bigger than he remembered. The walls lurked on the edge of sight.

  That was Bill Door’s doing. Of course it would seem big to Bill Door, and there was probably just a bit of him still hanging on. The thing to do was keep busy. Throw himself into his work.

  There were already some lifetimers on his desk. He didn’t remember putting them there, but that didn’t matter, the important thing was to get on with the job…

  He picked up the nearest one, and read the name.

  “Lod-a-foodle-wok!”

  Miss Flitworth sat up in bed. On the edge of dreams she’d heard another noise, which must have woken the cockerel.

  She fiddled with a match until she got a candle alight, and then felt under the bed and her fingers found the hilt of a cutlass that had been much employed by the late Mr. Flitworth during his business trips across the mountains.

  She hurried down the creaking stairs and out into the chill of the dawn.

  She hesitated at the barn door, and then pulled it open just enough to slip inside.

  “Mr. Door?”

  There was a rustle in the hay, and then an alert silence.

  MISS FLITWORTH?

  “Did you call out? I’m sure I heard someone shout my name.”

  There was another rustle, and Bill Door’s head appeared over the edge of the loft.

  MISS FLITWORTH?

  “Yes. Who did you expect? Are you all right?”

  ER. YES. YES, I BELIEVE SO.

  “You sure you’re all right? You woke up Cyril.”

  YES. YES. IT WAS JUST A—I THOUGHT THAT—YES.

  She blew out the candle. There was already enough pre-dawn light to see by.

  “Well, if you’re sure…Now I’m up I may as well put the porridge on.”

  Bill Door lay back on the hay until he felt he could trust his legs to carry him, and then climbed down and tottered across the yard to the farmhouse.

  He said nothing while she ladled porridge into a bowl in front of him, and drowned it with cream. Finally, he couldn’t contain himself any longer. He didn’t know how to ask the questions, but he really needed the answers.

  MISS FLITWORTH?

  “Yes?”

  WHAT IS IT…IN THE NIGHT…WHEN YOU SEE THINGS, BUT THEY ARE NOT THE REAL THINGS?

  She stood, porridge pot in one hand and ladle in the other.

  “You mean dreaming?” she said.

  IS THAT WHAT DREAMING IS?

  “Don’t you dream? I thought everyone dreamed.”

  ABOUT THINGS THAT ARE GOING TO HAPPEN?

  “That’s premonitions, that is. I’ve never believed in ’em myself. You’re not telling me you don’t know what dreams are?”

  NO. NO. OF COURSE NOT.

  “What’s worrying you, Bill?”

  I SUDDENLY KNOW THAT WE ARE GOING TO DIE.

  She watched him thoughtfully.

  “Well, so does everyone,” she said. “And that’s what you’ve been dreaming about, is it? Everyone feels like this sometimes. I wouldn’t worry about it, if I was you. The best thing to do is keep busy and act cheerful, I always say.”

  BUT WE WILL COME TO AN END!

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Miss Flitworth. “It all depends on what kind of life you’ve led, I suppose.”

  I’M SORRY?

  “Are you a religious man?”

  YOU MEAN THAT WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU WHEN YOU DIE IS WHAT YOU BELIEVE WILL HAPPEN? “It would be nice if that was the case, wouldn’t it?” she said brightly.

  BUT, YOU SEE, I KNOW WHAT I BELIEVE. I BELIEVE…NOTHING.

  “We are gloomy this morning, aren’t we?” said Miss Flitworth. “Best thing you could do right now is finish off that porridge. It’s good for you. They say it builds healthy bones.”

  Bill Door looked down at the bowl.

  CAN I HAVE SOME MORE?

  Bill Door spent the morning chopping wood. It was pleasantly monotonous.

  Get tired. That was important. He must have slept before last night, but he must have been so tired that he didn’t dream. And he was determined not to dream again. The axe rose and fell on the logs like clockwork.

  No! Not like clockwork!

  Miss Flitworth had several pots on the stove when he came in.

  IT SMELLS GOOD, Bill volunteered. He reached for a wobbling pot lid. Miss Flitworth spun around.

  “Don’t touch it! You don’t want that stuff! It’s for the rats.”

  DO RATS NOT FEED THEMSELVES?

  “You bet they do. That’s why we’re going to give them a little extra something before the harvest. A few dollops of this around the holes and—no more rats.”

  It took a little while for Bill Door to put two and two together, but when this took place it was like megaliths mating.

  THIS IS POISON?

  “Essence of spikkle, mixed with oatmeal. Never fails.”

  AND THEY DIE?

  “Instantly. Straight over and legs in the air. We’re having bread and cheese,” she added. “I ain’t doing big cooking twice in one day, and we’re having chicken tonight. Talking of chicken, in fact…come on…”

  She took a cleaver off the rack and went out into the yard. Cyril the cockerel eyed her suspiciously from the top of the midden. His harem of fat and rather elderly hens, who had been scratching up the dust, bounded unsteadily toward Miss Flitworth in the broken-knicker-elastic runs of hens everywhere. She reached down quickly and picked one up.

  It regarded Bill Door with bright, stupid eyes.

  “Do you know how to pluck a chicken?” said Miss Flitworth.

  Bill looked from her to the hen.

  BUT WE FEED THEM, he said helplessly.

  “That’s right. And then they feed us. This one’s been off lay for months. That’s how it goes in the chicken world. Mr. Flitworth used to wring their necks but I never got the knack of that; the cleaver’s messy and they run around a bit afterward, but they’re dead all right, and they know it.”

  Bill Door considered his options. The chicken had focused one beady eye on him. Chickens are a lot more stupid than humans, and don’t have the sophisticated mental filters that prevent them seeing what is truly there. It knew where it was and who was looking at it.

  He looked into its small and simple life and saw the last few seconds pouring away.

  He’d never killed. He’d taken life, but only when it was finished with. There was a difference between theft and stealing by finding.

  NOT THE CLEAVER, he said wearily. GIVE ME THE CHICKEN.

  He turned his back for a moment, then handed the limp body to Miss Flitworth.

  “Well done,” she said, and went back to the kitchen.

  Bill Door felt Cyril’s accusing gaze on him.

  He opened his hand. A tiny spot
of light hovered over his palm.

  He blew on it, gently, and it faded away.

  After lunch they put down the rat poison. He felt like a murderer.

  A lot of rats died.

  Down in the runs under the barn—in the deepest one, one tunneled long ago by long-forgotten ancestral rodents—something appeared in the darkness.

  It seemed to have difficulty deciding what shape it was going to be.

  It began as a lump of highly-suspicious cheese. This didn’t seem to work.

  Then it tried something that looked very much like a small, hungry terrier. This was also rejected.

  For a moment it was steel-jawed trap. This was clearly unsuitable.

  It cast around for fresh ideas and much to its surprise one arrived smoothly, as if traveling from no distance at all. Not so much a shape as a memory of a shape.

  It tried it and found that, while totally wrong for the job, in some deeply satisfying way it was the only shape it could possibly be.

  It went to work.

  That evening the men were practicing archery on the green. Bill Door had carefully ensured a local reputation as the worst bowman in the entire history of toxophily; it had never occurred to anyone that putting arrows through the hats of bystanders behind him must logically take a lot more skill than merely sending them through a quite large target a mere fifty yards away.

  It was amazing how many friends you could make by being bad at things, provided you were bad enough to be funny.

  So he was allowed to sit on a bench outside the inn, with the old men.

  Next door, sparks poured from the chimney of the village smithy and spiraled up into the dusk. There was a ferocious hammering from behind its closed doors. Bill Door wondered why the smithy was always shut. Most smiths worked with their doors open, so that their forge became an unofficial village meeting room. This one was keen on his work—

  “Hallo, skelington.”

  He swiveled around.

  The small child of the house was watching him with the most penetrating gaze he had ever seen.

  “You are a skelington, aren’t you,” she said. “I can tell, because of the bones.”

  YOU ARE MISTAKEN, SMALL CHILD.

  “You are. People turn into skelingtons when they’re dead. They’re not supposed to walk around afterward.”