Soul Music

" I've been on tour before, you know," said Glod. "When I was with Snori Snoriscousin And His Brass Idiots. Every night a different bed. You forget what day of the week it is after a while."

" What day of the week is it now?" said Cliff.

" See? And we've only been on the road... what... three hours?" said Glod.

" Where're we stopping tonight?" said Cliff.

" Scrote," said Asphalt.

" Sounds a really interesting place," said Cliff.

" Been there before, with the circus," said Asphalt. "It's a one­horse town."

Buddy looked over the side of the cart, but it wasn't worth the effort. The rich silty Sto Plains were the grocery of the continent, but not an awe‑inspiring panorama unless you were the kind of person who gets excited about fifty‑three types of cabbage and eighty‑one types of bean.

Spaced every mile or so on the chequerboard of fields was a village, and spaced rather further apart were the towns. They were called towns because they were bigger than the villages. The cart passed through a couple of them. They had two streets in the form of a cross, one tavern, one seed store, one forge, one livery stable with a name like JOE'S LIVERY STABLE, a couple of barns, three old men sitting outside the tavern, and three young men lounging outside JOE'S swearing that one day really soon now they were going to leave town and make it big in the world outside. Real soon. Any day now.

" Reminds you of home, eh?" said Cliff, nudging Buddy.

" What? No! Llamedos is all mountains and valleys. And rain. And mist. And evergreens."

Buddy sighed.

" You had a great house there, I expect?" said the troll.

" Just a shack," said Buddy. "Made of earth and wood. Well, mud and wood really."

He sighed again.

" It's like this on the road," said Asphalt. "Melancholy. No‑one to talk to but each other, I've known people go totally ins–"

" How long has it been now?" said Cliff.

" Three hours and ten minutes," said Glod.

Buddy sighed.

They were invisible people, Death realized. He was used to invisibility. It went with the job. Humans didn't see him until they had no choice.

On the other hand, he was an anthropomorphic personification. Whereas Foul Ole Ron was human, at least technically.

Foul Ole Ron made a small living by following people until they gave him money not to. He'd also got a dog, which added something to Foul Ole Ron's smell. It was a greyish‑brown terrier with a torn ear and nasty patches of bare skin; it begged with an old hat in its remaining teeth, and since people will generally give to animals that which they'd withhold from humans it added considerably to the earning power of the group.

Coffin Henry, on the other hand, earned his money by not going anywhere. People organizing important social occasions sent him anti‑invitations and little presents of money to ensure he wouldn't turn up. This was because, if they didn't, Henry had a habit of sidling ingratiatingly into the wedding party and inviting people to look at his remarkable collection of skin diseases. He also had a cough which sounded almost solid.

He had a sign on which was chalked 'For sum muny I wunt follo you home. Coff Coff'.

Arnold Sideways had no legs. It was a lack that didn't seem to figure largely among his concerns. He would grab people by their knees and say, "Have you got change for a penny?", invariably profiting by the ensuing cerebral confusion.

And the one they called the Duck Man had a duck on his head. No‑one mentioned it. No‑one drew at­tention to it. It seemed to be a minor feature of no consequence, like Arnold's leglessness and Foul Ole Ron's independent smell or Henry's volcanic spitting. But it kept nagging at Death's otherwise peaceful mind.

He wondered how to broach the subject.

AFTER ALL, he thought, HE MUST KNOW, MUSTN'T HE? IT'S NOT LIKE LINT ON YOUR JACKET OR SOMETHING...

By common agreement they'd called Death Mr Scrub. He didn't know why. On the other hand, he was among people who could hold a lengthy discussion with a door. There may have been a logical reason.

The beggars spent their day wandering invisibly around the streets where people who didn't see them carefully circled out of their way and threw them the occasional coin. Mr Scrub fitted in very well. When he asked for money, people found it hard to say no.

Scrote didn't even have a river. It existed simply be­cause there's only so much land you can have before you have to have something else. .

It had two streets in the form of a cross, one tavern, one seed store, one forge, a couple of barns and, in a gesture of originality, one livery stable called SETH'S LIVERY STABLE.

Nothing moved. Even the flies were asleep. Long shadows were the only occupants of the streets.

" I thought you said dis was a one‑horse town," said Cliff, as they pulled up in the rutted, puddled area that was probably glorified by the name of Town Square.

" It must have died," said Asphalt.

Glod stood up in the cart and spread his arms wide. He yelled: "Hello, Scrote!"