Archchancellor, his self-control rigid enough to bend horsehoes around. “Right.”
The Bursar handed him a soggy green bundle. Ridcully took it.
“Now, Windle,” he said, “I’d like you to imagine that what I have in my hand—”
“It’s quite all right,” said Windle.
“I’m not actually sure I can hammer—”
“I don’t mind, I assure you,” said Windle.
“You don’t?”
“The principle is sound,” said Windle. “If you just hand me the celery but think hammering a stake, that’s probably sufficient.”
“That’s very decent of you,” said Ridcully. “That shows a very proper spirit.”
“Esprit de corpse,” said the Senior Wrangler.
Ridcully glared at him, and thrust the celery dramatically toward Windle.
“Take that!” he said.
“Thank you,” said Windle.
“And now let’s put the lid on and go and have some lunch,” said Ridcully. “Don’t worry, Windle. It’s bound to work. Today is the last day of the rest of your life.”
Windle lay in the darkness, listening to the hammering. There was a thump and a muffled imprecation against the Dean for not holding the end properly. And then the patter of soil on the lid, getting fainter and more distant.
After a while a distant rumbling suggested thatthe commerce of the city was being resumed. He could even hear muffled voices.
He banged on the coffin lid.
“Can you keep it down?” he demanded. “There’s people down here trying to be dead!”
He heard the voices stop. There was the sound of feet hurrying away.
Windle lay there for some time. He didn’t know how long. He tried stopping all functions, but that just made things uncomfortable. Why was dying so difficult? Other people seemed to manage it, even without practice.
Also, his leg itched.
He tried to reach down to scratch it, and his hand touched something small and irregularly shaped. He managed to get his fingers around it.
It felt like a bundle of matches.
In a coffin? Did anyone think he’d smoke a quiet cigar to pass the time?
After a certain amount of effort he managed to push one boot off with the other boot and ease it up until he could just grasp it. This gave him a rough surface to strike the match on—
Sulphurous light filled his tiny oblong world.
There was a tiny scrap of cardboard pinned to the inside of the lid.
He read it.
He read it again.
The match went out.
He lit another one, just to check that what he had read really did exist.
The message was still as strange, even third time around:
Dead? Depressed?
Feel like starting it all again?
Then why not come along to the
FRESH START CLUB
Thursdays, 12pm, 668 Elm Street
EVERY BODY WELCOME
The second match went out, taking the last of the oxygen with it.
Windle lay in the dark for a while, considering his next move and finishing off the celery.
Who’d have thought it?
And it suddenly dawned on the late Windle Poons that there was no such thing as somebody else’s problem, and that just when you thought the world had pushed you aside it turned out to be full of strangeness. He knew from experience that the living never found out half of what was really happening, because they were too busy being the living. The onlooker sees most of the game, he told himself.
It was the living who ignored the strange and wonderful, because life was too full of the boring and mundane. But It was strange. It had things in it like screws that unscrewed themselves, and little written messages to the dead.
He resolved to find out what was going on. And then…if Death wasn’t going to come to him, he’d go to Death. He had his rights, after all. Yeah. He’d lead the biggest missing-person hunt of all time.
Windle grinned in the darkness.
Missing—believed Death.
Today was the first day of the rest of his life.
And Ankh-Morpork lay at his feet. Well, metaphorically. The only way was up.
He reached up, felt for the card in the dark, and pulled it free. He stuck it between his
The Bursar handed him a soggy green bundle. Ridcully took it.
“Now, Windle,” he said, “I’d like you to imagine that what I have in my hand—”
“It’s quite all right,” said Windle.
“I’m not actually sure I can hammer—”
“I don’t mind, I assure you,” said Windle.
“You don’t?”
“The principle is sound,” said Windle. “If you just hand me the celery but think hammering a stake, that’s probably sufficient.”
“That’s very decent of you,” said Ridcully. “That shows a very proper spirit.”
“Esprit de corpse,” said the Senior Wrangler.
Ridcully glared at him, and thrust the celery dramatically toward Windle.
“Take that!” he said.
“Thank you,” said Windle.
“And now let’s put the lid on and go and have some lunch,” said Ridcully. “Don’t worry, Windle. It’s bound to work. Today is the last day of the rest of your life.”
Windle lay in the darkness, listening to the hammering. There was a thump and a muffled imprecation against the Dean for not holding the end properly. And then the patter of soil on the lid, getting fainter and more distant.
After a while a distant rumbling suggested thatthe commerce of the city was being resumed. He could even hear muffled voices.
He banged on the coffin lid.
“Can you keep it down?” he demanded. “There’s people down here trying to be dead!”
He heard the voices stop. There was the sound of feet hurrying away.
Windle lay there for some time. He didn’t know how long. He tried stopping all functions, but that just made things uncomfortable. Why was dying so difficult? Other people seemed to manage it, even without practice.
Also, his leg itched.
He tried to reach down to scratch it, and his hand touched something small and irregularly shaped. He managed to get his fingers around it.
It felt like a bundle of matches.
In a coffin? Did anyone think he’d smoke a quiet cigar to pass the time?
After a certain amount of effort he managed to push one boot off with the other boot and ease it up until he could just grasp it. This gave him a rough surface to strike the match on—
Sulphurous light filled his tiny oblong world.
There was a tiny scrap of cardboard pinned to the inside of the lid.
He read it.
He read it again.
The match went out.
He lit another one, just to check that what he had read really did exist.
The message was still as strange, even third time around:
Dead? Depressed?
Feel like starting it all again?
Then why not come along to the
FRESH START CLUB
Thursdays, 12pm, 668 Elm Street
EVERY BODY WELCOME
The second match went out, taking the last of the oxygen with it.
Windle lay in the dark for a while, considering his next move and finishing off the celery.
Who’d have thought it?
And it suddenly dawned on the late Windle Poons that there was no such thing as somebody else’s problem, and that just when you thought the world had pushed you aside it turned out to be full of strangeness. He knew from experience that the living never found out half of what was really happening, because they were too busy being the living. The onlooker sees most of the game, he told himself.
It was the living who ignored the strange and wonderful, because life was too full of the boring and mundane. But It was strange. It had things in it like screws that unscrewed themselves, and little written messages to the dead.
He resolved to find out what was going on. And then…if Death wasn’t going to come to him, he’d go to Death. He had his rights, after all. Yeah. He’d lead the biggest missing-person hunt of all time.
Windle grinned in the darkness.
Missing—believed Death.
Today was the first day of the rest of his life.
And Ankh-Morpork lay at his feet. Well, metaphorically. The only way was up.
He reached up, felt for the card in the dark, and pulled it free. He stuck it between his
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