Reaper Man

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 round.

‘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 towards Miss Flitworth in the broken-knicker-elastic run 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 afterwards, 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 tunnelled 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 a steel-jawed trap. This was clearly unsuitable.

It cast around for fresh ideas and much to its surprise one arrived smoothly, as if travelling 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.