Reaper Man

Timers line the walls. Not hour-glasses, although they have the same shape. Not egg-timers, such as you might buy as a souvenir attached to a small board with the name of the holiday resort of your choice jauntily inscribed on it by someone with the same sense of style as a jelly doughnut. It's not even sand in there. It's seconds, endlessly turning the maybe into the was. And every lifetimer has a name on it. And the room is full of the soft hissing of people living.

Picture the scene...

And now add the sharp clicking of bone on stone, getting closer.

A dark shape crosses the field of vision and moves up the endless shelves of sibilant glassware. Click, click. Here's a glass with the top bulb nearly empty. Bone fingers rise and reach out. Select. And another. Select. And more. Many, many more. Select, Select.

It's all in a day's work. Or it would be, if days existed here.

Click, click, select, the dark shape moves patiently along the rows.

And stops.

And hesitates.

Because here's a small gold timer, not much bigger than a watch. It wasn't there yesterday, or wouldn't have been if yesterdays existed here.

Bony fingers close around it and hold it up to the light. It's got a name on it, in small capital letters.

The name is DEATH.

Death put down the timer, and then picked it up again. The sands of time were already pouring through. He turned it over experimentally, just in case. The sand went on pouring, only now it was going upwards. He hadn't really expected anything else.

It meant that, even if tomorrows could exist here, there weren't going to be any. Not any more.

There was a movement in the air behind him. Death turned slowly, and addressed the figure that wavered indistinctly in the gloom.

WHY?

It told him.

BUT THAT IS... NOT RIGHT.

It told him that No, it was right.

Not a muscle moved on Death's face, because he hadn't got any.

I SHALL APPEAL.

It told him, he should know that there was no appeal. Never any appeal. Never any appeal.

Death thought about this, and then he said:

I HAVE ALWAYS DONE MY DUTY AS I SAW FIT.

The figure floated closer. It looked vaguely like a grey-robed and hooded monk.

It told him, We know. That is why we're letting you keep the horse.

The sun was near the horizon.

The shortest-lived creatures on the Disc were mayflies, which barely make it through twenty-four hours. Two of the oldest zigzagged aimlessly over the waters of a trout stream, discussing history with some younger members of the evening hatching.

"You don't get the kind of sun now that you used to get, " said one of them.

"You're right there. We had proper sun in the good old hours. It were all yellow. None of this red stuff."

"It were higher, too."

"It was. You're right."

"And nymphs and larvae showed you a bit of respect."

"They did. They did," said the other mayfly vehemently.

"I reckon, if mayflies these hours behaved a bit better, we'd still be having proper sun."

The younger mayflies listened politely.

"I remember, " said one of the oldest mayflies, "when all this was fields, as far as you could see."

The younger mayflies looked around.

"It's still fields," one of them ventured, after a polite interval.

"I remember when it was better fields," said the old mayfly sharply.

"Yeah, " said his colleague. "And there was a cow."

"That's right! You're right! I remember that cow! Stood right over there for, oh, forty, fifty minutes. It was brown, as I recall."

"You don't get cows like that these hours."

"You don't get cows at all."

"What's a cow?" said one of the hatchlings.

"See?" said the oldest mayfly triumphantly. "That's modern Ephemeroptera for you. " It paused. "What were we doing before we were talking about the sun?"

"Zigzagging aimlessly over the water," said one of the young flies. This was a fair bet in any case.

"No, before that."

"Er... you were telling us about the Great Trout."

"Ah. Yes. Right. The Trout. Well, you see, if you've been a good mayfly, zigzagging up and down properly -"

"- taking heed of your elders and betters -"

"- yes, and taking heed of your elders and betters, then eventually the Great Trout -"

Clop

Clop

"Yes?" said one of the younger mayflies.

There was no reply.

"The Great Trout what?" said another mayfly, nervously.

They looked down at a series of expanding concentric rings on the water.

"The holy sign!" said a mayfly. "I remember being told about that! A Great Circle in the water! Thus shall be the sign of the Great Trout!"

The oldest of the young mayflies watched the water thoughtfully. It was beginning to realise that, as the most senior fly present, it now had the privilege of hovering closest to the surface.

"They say, " said the mayfly at the top of the zigzagging crowd, "that when the Great Trout comes for you, you go to a land flowing with... flowing with..."

Mayflies don't eat. It was at a loss. "Flowing with water, " it finished lamely.

"I wonder, " said the oldest mayfly.

"It must be really good there, " said the youngest.

"Oh? Why?"

" ‘Cos no-one ever wants to come back."