Reaper Man

house, then,” said Albert.
    Y OU DO THAT .
    Death stood alone, watching the wheat dance in the wind. Of course, it was only a metaphor. People were more than corn. They whirled through tiny crowded lives, driven literally by clock work, filling their days from edge to edge with the sheer effort of living. And all lives were exactly the same length. Even the very long and very short ones. From the point of view of eternity, anyway.
    Somewhere, the tiny voice of Bill Door said: from the point of view of the owner, longer ones are best.
    S QUEAK .
    Death looked down.
    A small figure was standing by his feet.
    He reached down and picked it up, held it up to an investigative eye socket.
    I KNEW I’ D MISSED SOMEONE .
    The Death of Rats nodded.
    S QUEAK ?
    Death shook his head.
    N O , I CAN’T LET YOU REMAIN , he said. I T’S NOT AS THOUGH I’ M RUNNING A FRANCHISE OR SOMETHING .
    S QUEAK ?
    A RE YOU THE ONLY ONE LEFT ?
    The Death of Rats opened a tiny skeletal hand. The tiny Death of Fleas stood up, looking embarrassed but hopeful.
    N O . T HIS SHALL NOT BE . I AM IMPLACABLE . I AM D EATH…ALONE.
    He looked at the Death of Rats.
    He remembered Azrael in his tower of loneliness.
    A LONE …
    The Death of Rats looked back at him.
    S QUEAK ?

    Picture a tall, dark figure, surrounded by cornfields…
    N O , YOU CAN’T RIDE A CAT . W HO EVER HEARD OF THE D EATH OF R ATS RIDING A CAT ? T HE D EATH OF R ATS WOULD RIDE SOME KIND OF DOG .
    Picture more fields, a great horizon-spanning network of fields, rolling in gentle waves…
    D ON’T ASK ME I DON’T KNOW . S OME KIND OF TERRIER, MAYBE .
    …fields of corn, alive, whispering in the breeze…
    R IGHT , AND THE D EATH OF F LEAS CAN RIDE IT TOO . T HAT WAY YOU KILL TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE .
    …awaiting the clockwork of the seasons.
    M ETAPHORICALLY .

    And at the end of all stories Azrael, who knew the secret, thought: I REMEMBER WHEN ALL THIS WILL BE AGAIN.
    * In this case, three better places. The front gates of Nos 31, 7, and 34 Elm Street, Ankh-Morpork.
    * At least, until the day they suddenly pick up a paper knife and carve their way out through Cost Accounting and into forensic history.
    * The post of Senior Wrangler was an unusual one, as was the name itself. In some centers of learning, the Senior Wrangler is a leading philosopher; in others, he’s merely someone who looks after horses. The Senior Wrangler at Unseen University was a philosopher who looked like a horse, thus neatly encapsulating all definitions.
    * It is true that the undead cannot cross running water. However, the naturally turbid river Ankh, already heavy with the mud of the plains, does not, after having passed through the city (pop. 1,000,000) necessarily qualify under the term “running” or, for that matter, “water.”
    * Although not common on the Discworld there are, indeed, such things as anti-crimes, in accordance with the fundamental law that everything in the multiverse has an opposite. They are, obviously, rare. Merely giving someone something is not the opposite of robbery; to be an anti-crime, it has to be done in such a way as to cause outrage and/or humiliation to the victim . So there is breaking-and-decorating, proffering-with-embarrassment (as in most retirement presentations) and whitemailing (as in threatening to reveal to his enemies a mobster’s secret donations, for example, to charity). Anti-crimes have never really caught on.
    * i.e., everywhere outside the Shades.
    * Rains of fish, for example, were so common in the little landlocked village of Pine Dressers that it had a flourishing smoking, canning and kipper-filleting industry. And in the mountain regions of Syrrit many sheep, left out in the fields all night, would be found in the morning to be facing the other way , without the apparent intervention of any human agency.
    * Someone who will put certainly salt and probably pepper on any meal you put in front of them whatever it is and regardless of how much it’s got on it already and regardless of how it tastes . Behavioural psychiatrists working for fast-food outlets around the universe have saved billions of whatever the local currency is by noting the autocondimenting phenomenon and advising their employers to leave seasoning out in the first place. This is really true.
    * Many songs have been written about the bustling metropolis, the most famous of course being: “Ankh-Morpork! Ankh-Morpork! So good they named it Ankh-Morpork!”, but others have