[Mrs Death clicks her fingers. The attic room is transformed into Shakespeare and Co in Paris. Wolf is transported there, bewildered, baffled and thrilled. Wolf spins around, mouth wide open. It really is the most beautiful bookshop in the world . . .]
Look! Here you are, here is the debut book by Wolf: Mrs Death Misses Death. Oh, OK, nice cover! A shocking sexy picture of Mrs Death looking a bit Grace Jones and gothic, sinister but smoking hot. Love the cover. No, I really do. I have no clothes on. The perspective is mad. They think I am at least nine feet tall. But I am black and beautiful. Actually it is utterly sexist and misogynoir, but I guess a sexy image of a towering black Goddess version of Mrs Death will sell books. I get it. I am so sick and tired of the black hood and scythe thing . . . moving on . . . OK, I am opening the book and the first chapter is . . . really? Princess Diana? A picture of Diana, dead Diana, Princess Diana with her coffin and a million mourners, it is London and it is raining with flowers and wreaths and weeping poor people. Alas! Too young! Too sad! Too soon! Her sons! Too tragic! Now next page. No name! Ah chapter two, a picture of a cardboard box, look at the dead homeless girl with no money to be dead and buried, and look how she dies without dignity in rags, in a piss-stained sleeping bag with a plastic bag for a pillow in the lonely pissing rain, all alone. Ooh the contradiction! Who do we grieve for? Who gets a hashtag on Twitter? Who makes the front page? Who makes us more sad? Do we cry for the princess or weep for the pauper? Oh the princess! Oh the peasant! Oh for crying out loud, this is a bizarre book, Wolf . . . Not. Very. Cheerful. Thank you not very much! No! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!
Wolf:
Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!
[The room spins and changes back to Wolf’s attic room. Wolf is rocking in the wooden chair, typing stop it, stop it, stop it and screaming stop it stop it stop it, pages and pages of stop it. stop it. stop it.]
Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!
Mrs Death:
[She peels another boiled egg and starts to eat it.]
Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Give up! It’s no good, give up, Wolf, give up, give up, give up, stop, before it is too late, it’s earlier than you think. Give up, give up, give up, it’s earlier than you think, Wolf! Give up and write something cheerful instead. People have enough misery in their lives. Humans like happy stories full of laughter and colour, not stories about dead people and their dreary funerals and people crying all over the place! The people want laughter! I want laughter!
Wolf:
People laugh at funerals. I laugh at funerals. Lots of people laugh at funerals. Laughing at death is natural: we laugh in grief, we laugh out of disbelief, we laugh with love, I suppose, and sorrow and shock. I laughed at my mother’s funeral. I am laughing now. HA HA HA.
[Wolf laughs a big fake laugh. Wolf rolls and then lights a fag. There is an awkward silence, and they continue talking . . .]
Pooh! . . . Those eggs you eat stink. Why are you always eating eggs?
Mrs Death:
I eat an egg when a new egg is made. It’s all about eggs. Life makes eggs. Death eats eggs. Circle of life and death. It is way more complex than that, but for now, all you need to know is that it is all about one word: eggs.
Do you have any salt?
Wolf:
Salt?
Mrs Death:
Second word you need to know: salt.
There is salt in all living things, Wolf. There is salt in death. There is salt in tears, sweat, sperm, juice, piss, blood. Life is salt. Death is salty too. Sea salt, the sea and the land, the peat, and salt in the air and the volcano and the sulphur and the flame and the world goes on, with salt and eggs, eggs and salt. Circle of life and death. I eat an egg. My sister Life lays an egg. So I have to eat more eggs. Salt and eggs, eggs and salt.
It is hard to keep up with her, to be honest. My sister. Life. She is an over-achiever, little Miss Abundance. My sister! Imagine growing up with that, with her for a sister! Just imagine if Life was your sister! Eggy little goody two-shoes eggy fart face. The earth would be horribly over-crowded if I didn’t eat her eggs and destroy her spawn and do my job efficiently. She is constantly vomiting, and puking cherry pips and cherry blossom everywhere. Every time Life lays an egg, Death eats an egg. All who come from eggs are connected, every creature, every egg, every mammal and fish and insect. Eggs. Salt. Birth. Blood. Death. And on and on it goes, never ending . . . eggy eggs eggy eggs . . . What came first, the chicken or the egg? Life came first! She always comes first! Ha! Selfish fish fishy eggy fart face.
[Snaps her fingers.]
Ha! I know what’s funny! Monkeys are funny! Wolf, why don’t you write a book about a monkey instead? In my humble opinion there were never enough books about monkeys. Shakespeare never wrote a thing about monkeys. Bearded idiot! Monkeys are hilarious, monkeys eating bananas, funny monkeys, cheeky monkeys, funny monkeys on typewriters, funny monkeys riding bicycles. I love monkeys: write that for me. I’d like to read a lovely funny monkey book. Everyone loves monkeys . . . Come on.
Clean page, type this, write this down, I’ll help you:
The Monkey Book by Wolf Willeford. Once upon a time there was a big beautiful monkey, he was far, far away from home. He grew up to be a huge and powerful black gorilla but he lived in a zoo and . . .
Wolf:
And let me guess, his name was Harambe and he was shot?
Mrs Death, monkeys are highly intelligent and sensitive creatures. I saw a nature programme recently with David Attenborough, and there was a death in a group of monkeys. I was in floods of tears watching it, I mean, it was harrowing. Monkeys are affected by death, trauma and grief just like humans, they show empathy and remorse. A family of monkeys feel loss when they lose a member of their group. They gather together and hug each other, just as we humans do, I mean like human beings do. If you want me to write about monkeys I’ll write about that, I’ll write about Mrs Death and the dead gorilla! The killing of Harambe! Why did they kill Harambe? Why don’t we respect and save the animals, Mrs Death? What will we do when the last elephants are extinct, Mrs Death? Who will save the turtles and the coral reefs and the rainforests? Who will help us save the natural world when Attenborough dies, Mrs Death? Mrs Death? Can you answer me?
Mrs Death:
No. Can’t be bothered.
Wolf:
Wow, really? You? Death? Can’t be bothered? Mrs Death, you stink my room up with the smell of eggs, eggs, eggs. Don’t you have a village to flood, a plane to crash, a bomb to drop . . . or are you here just to distract and torture me? I think I want to be alone, you are annoying me now.
Mrs Death:
Oh come on, there’s no need to be like that, Wolfie. After all, you’re sitting at my desk. You asked for this, you summoned me, remember that, I literally come with the furniture . . . I’m afraid as long as you sit and write and worship at my desk, you’re stuck with me.
Besides, I don’t annoy you, it isn’t me. I don’t torture you: you torture yourself. I watch you. You think about one thing you did wrong, something you said, or a time you put your foot in it, and then you replay it, the same moment over and over in your hot curly head, getting more and more anxious with each replay. You are a catastrophist and your moods swing violently. You make things up! You gather memories of times you failed or you were overlooked or you were thoughtless or clumsy, times you could have done better, times you said something wrong or made a mistake or forgot your manners, and you join them together. You do this, catastrophising, over and over on a loop until you have a cluster of things to cringe about and then you sit and loathe yourself as all these tiny (un)remarkable events play on and on in a vicious circle in your head, all adding up to one juicy sandwich of self-loathing anxiety. It’s quite hard work in your head, Wolf, I’ve been in there and you torture yourself, you panic, you waste your time, you waste energy, you worry needlessly, all on your own. You berate and distract yourself, you give yourself a hard time, you tell yourself this is not enough, that y
ou are not enough. You know what, Wolf? You are enough.
Wolf:
Thank you.
Mrs Death . . . I don’t want to give up.
Mrs Death:
Darling, are you scared?
Wolf:
Scared of what?
Mrs Death:
Are you scared that if you write this book you will get too close to me and . . .
Wolf:
And . . .
Die?
Mrs Death:
Yes, do you think that all this Mrs Death talk will lead you to your own death?
Wolf:
Death isn’t catching.
Mrs Death:
But has it crossed your mind that if you talk with me every day you draw your own death closer, no or yes or no or yes or . . .
Wolf:
No . . . and yes and no. Well. Yes. Actually yes, now you mention it. Yes. And no. I am aware that by talking about death that I am thinking about death and pulling death towards me by even writing this but I won’t give up. I’m inspired and I’m honoured you guide me to write your stories. We are all going to die one day, right, if there is one thing I have learned from you so far, it is that we are all going to die one day. And so I think this book can be a celebration of you, of the female spirit of death. Mrs Death, you’re amazing. I mean, why haven’t they written about you before? You are Death, you are the Grim Reaper, the shadow keeper, the mother of Otherland, the caretaker of all souls, the black angel of eternal night, the shepherdess of the long sleep, the grand madam of eternity, the Goddess of the night, the lightkeeper of the long goodbye, you are the night nurse, the siren of the deep black lullaby, the shadow of the moon and the mother that blows out the candle of life and . . .
Mrs Death:
Hahaha! Is that how you want to depict me, like Florence Nightingale, lady with the lamp, softly blowing the candle out, nighty night, sleep tight, time to die?
Wolf:
What? No. You’re definitely not a Florence Nightingale. Not in my book anyway. But sometimes you miss, Mrs Death, sometimes you miss and people live against the odds; sometimes people dodge your bullet, sometimes you . . . You let people go, you let people live, you let people in, or is it out? I get confused . . . but sometimes you allow it, you give people more time or a second chance. I have seen you. I mean, I have watched and observed the world and I have imagined it is you, Mrs Death, nudging a child out of the way of busy traffic. You are that invisible hand on a shoulder pulling someone back from the edge. I have seen plants come back to life. I have seen you strike but miss and then retreat. How do people survive? I believe it was you who pushed people out of the windows of the World Trade Center on September 11th, Mrs Death, was this to try and save their lives? I believe it was you who threw people overboard on the Titanic to swim to life boats. I believe you hold dinghies filled with fleeing immigrants afloat on rough seas. I think you give as much as you take. I mean, who else is always first on the scene of a hurricane or tsunami or terrorist attack, who else? You, Mrs Death, you give and you take. I need to understand why you sometimes let people have enough hope to live . . . For example, the fire, that fire, my mother, you let me live, I saw you, there must be a reason I’m here.
Mrs Death:
Wolf, I never left you. I remember you, your bare feet in your pyjamas, smoke and chaos, you howling up at me, all that rage. I remember all that happened the night of the fire . . . You stayed with me. You were lucky to survive. I didn’t save you, your mother’s strength did that: your mum, she woke you and got you out of the building in time . . . Can you smell smoke? Remember, she shook you awake . . . Run, she said, remember?
Wolf:
Please help me write your story.
Mrs Death:
Alright then, let me help you. Are you sitting comfortably?
Type this, Wolf.
Wolf:
Type this, Wolf.
OK. Ready . . .
Mrs Death:
The birth of Death: my life started like Life, my life started with love, with love and breath and blood. I was in the dark, in deep hibernation, burrowed down in the underneath where the roots begin and the earth is black and wet. It is silent down there, under the underneath. It’s dark too, dark as the womb, dark as a tomb. It takes all your eyes wide open to see there is nothing to see but the darkest dark, but you get used to it after a while. Death was born there. I was born.
I am always there, out of the corner of your eye in some far-off field. Death is there, a fleeting moment on the edge of time, there, darting in the hedgerows, chewing on plump cowslips and blackberries.
Not many people know this but . . . Death is a rabbit.
[Int. Wolf’s room. Mrs Death begins to shrink and morph and change into a white china rabbit sitting on the desk. The rabbit shines, it has a pink nose and painted eyelashes. There is one person in the room. The writer called Wolf is sitting and drinking all alone. Wolf sits slumped at the antique desk, a mop of curly hair, hunched over, whispering and muttering to a white china rabbit. There are eggshells scattered all over the attic floor.]
Death Is a Rabbit
death is a rabbit
darting in a distant field
death is the stranger
you feed at your door
death is the cherry blossom
the sweet and the sour
death is a rabbit
leaping through long dewy grass
in a far-off field
seen from your train view
out of the tail of your eye
run rabbit, run, run
death is the stranger
sharing your sweet cherry wine
and hot rabbit stew.
Mrs Death and Her Lover Time
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, in the time before all of this began – in the beginning and before the here and the now – the Moon and the Sun agreed to make Time the boss so they would both know the time. They needed Time so neither one would have more time to shine than the other. With Time in charge the Sun and the Moon would know how fast to go and how slow; from summer to winter, from day to night. How else would the Sun know when to rise? How else does the Moon know it is midnight? How else would they know when to eclipse each other and dance in each other’s light and shadow? Time knows.
Time is wise. Time has much less to do with the human idea of straight lines and itineraries and diaries and budgets and schedules and everything to do with circles and cycles and colour and light and sound. Time is forever. Time lives in space. Time is in time with the echo of your heartbeat drumming: dum-dum dum-dum dum-dum.
I was doing Time. Time was doing me. At the beginning of time, Time and Death were great lovers and quite a handsome pair. I met Time sometime and next thing I know Time is all mine and Time is so beautiful and it is a beautiful time and when we were together time stopped and we were timeless. How time flies when you’re having fun.
Time was my first love. Time felt reliable, solid, like a tree with strong roots that go all the way down to the centre of the heart of the earth and with arms that can go all around the universe. All that Time, it greases the cogs that make the earth spin on its axis. Time is very hands-on. Time touches people, holds them in the one place. Time tells people where they are and how long it is necessary for them to be there and why. It is very hard to move or grow when you are living by rules ruled by Time and age and years; it is a very controlling experience when you realise how much of everything is governed by Time.
Time has an eye that looks as though it is made of a mirror. It reflects all that is here and there and past and future. If you stop and face Time, take a deep breath, you’ll find your own reflection in that eye. It is then you’ll see who you were and who you are and then you’ll see who you want to be. Often you’ll find that you were never moving forward or looking backward, but you were always just in one place, inside you, and here, the place we call the present. I don’t blame anyone for falling for the tricks of Time.
Intoxicating. Hypnotising. You fall under Time’s gaze, swim, then get pulled into a time-warp. The machinery is in your dreams and intentions. You must stop running. Stop still and look Time in the eye and face yourself and see who you really always were, who you really are beneath all that rush rush, hurry hurry, busy busy.
I spent thousands of years under Time’s watchful eye. We lived in that rocky bed. I was barefoot in a cave, swimming in volcanic lava, back when Time was young. We were all young then, I suppose. The world was young, planet earth was all fire and volcanos and meteor showers.
When I look into the eye of Time, I see it all. Together, we see everything, the purpose of this, and why I must do what I do and who I do: the meaning of the work of Death. What happens when Death looks Time in the eye? What happens when Time and Death meet face to face? What happens when Time and Mrs Death make love? I look Time in the eye. Time stops and looks Death in the eye. We hold that moment and fall through it, and things explode, then there we have it all, the thread that tugs us and pulls us together. When Time and Death have a fuck, Time has the end of the thread, Death comes with the finish. Time calls Time. Are we friends? Yes and no. Lovers? Well, it’s complicated.
Truth is, our jobs are a strain on our relationship. For example: you saw what happened to the dinosaurs. That was the end of our first fling and our first big fight. A conflict of eggs and ego and self-interest and sulphur and BOOM!
Time keeps Time. Time is inside the ebb and flow and the wax and wane. The time of the month, the tides of Time. Time is a demagogue dictator. Time is a capitalist. Time is a tricky trickster. Time is a charming fellow. Time isn’t easy to hold on to, to stop and talk to, to sit with. Time takes time. Time takes Time seriously. Time walks with a wooden stick, a tall staff, tap, tap, tap, everywhere Time goes. If you stop and listen carefully you can hear Time, tick tock tap, tick tock tap, you hear Time ahead of you, passing you and then behind you. Time sneaks up on us, Time sneaks past and then disappears into the fogs of Time.
Mrs Death Misses Death Page 7
