Terry Pratchett - Reaper Man

His heart sank.

Or, rather, it didn't.

"Oh, gods," muttered Windle, and leaned against the wall. How did it work, now? He prodded a few, likely-looking nerves. Was it systolic... diastolic... systolic... diastolic...? And then there were the lungs, too...

Like a conjurer keeping eighteen plates spinning at the same time - like a man trying to programme a video recorder from an instruction manual translated from Japanese into Dutch by a Korean rice-husker - like, in fact, a man finding out what total self-control really means, Windle Poons lurched onwards.

The wizards of Unseen University set great store by big, solid meals. A man couldn't be expected to get down to some serious wizarding, they held, without soup, fish, game, several huge plates of meat, a pie or two, something big and wobbly with cream on it, little savoury things on toast, fruit, nuts and a brick-thick mint with the coffee. It gave him a lining to his stomach. It was also important that the meals were served at regular times. It was what gave the day shape, they said.

Except for the Bursar, of course. He didn't eat much, but lived on his nerves. He was certain he was anorectic, because every time he looked in a mirror he saw a fat man. It was the Archchancellor, standing behind him and shouting at him.

And it was the Bursar's unfortunate fate to be sitting opposite the doors when Windle Poons smashed them in because it was easier than fiddling with the handles.

He bit through his wooden spoon.

The wizards revolved on their benches to stare.

Windle Poons swayed for a moment, assembling control of vocal chords, lips and tongue, and then said:

"I think I may be able to metabolise alcohol."

The Archchancellor was the first one to recover.

"Windle!" he said. "We thought you were dead!"

He had to admit that it wasn't a very good line. You didn't put people on a slab with candles and lilies all round them because you think they've got a bit of a headache and want a nice lie down for half an hour.

Windle took a few steps forward. The nearest wizards fell over themselves in an effort to get away.

"I am dead, you bloody young fool," he muttered. "Think I go around looking like this all the time? Good grief. " He glared at the assembled wizardry. "Anyone here know what a spleen is supposed to do?"

He reached the table, and managed to sit down.

"Probably something to do with the digestion," he said. "Funny thing, you can go through your whole life with the bloody thing ticking away or whatever it does, gurgling or whatever, and you never know what the hell it's actually for. It's Like when you're lying in bed of a night and you hear your stomach or something go pripple-ipple-goinnng. It's just a gurgle to you, but who knows what marvellously complex chemical exchange processes are really going -"

"You're an undead?" said the Bursar, managing to get the words out at last.

"I didn't ask to be," said the late Windle Poons irritably looking at the food and wondering how the blazes one went about turning it into Windle Poons. "I only came back because there was nowhere else to go. Think I want to be here?"

"But surely," said the Archchancellor, "didn't... you know the fella, the one with the skull and the scythe -"

"Never saw him," said Windle, shortly, inspecting the nearest dishes. "Really takes it out of you, this un-dyin'."

The wizards made frantic signals to one another over his head. He looked up and glared at them.

"And don't think I can't see all them frantic signals," he said. And he was amazed to realise that this was true. Eyes that had viewed the past sixty years trough a pale, fuzzy veil had been bullied into operating like the finest optical machinery.

In fact two main bodies of thought were occupying the minds of the wizards of Unseen University.

What was being thought by most of the wizards was: this is terrible, is it really old Windle in there, he was such a sweet old buffer, how can we get rid of it?

How can we get rid of it?

What was being thought by Windle Poons, in the humming, flashing cockpit of his brain, was: well, it's bye. There is life after death. And it's the same one. Just my luck.

"Well, " he said, " what're you going to do about it?"

It was five minutes later. Half a dozen of the most senior wizards scurried along the draughty corridor in the wake of the Archchancellor, whose robes billowed ?out? behind him.

The conversation went like this:

"It's got to be Windle! It even talks like him!"

"It's not old Windle. Old Windle was a lot older!"

"Older? Older than dead?"

"He's said he wants his old bedroom back, and I don't see why I should have to move out -"

"Did you see his eyes? Like gimlets!"

"Eh? What? What d'you mean? You mean like that dwarf who runs the delicatessen on Cable Street?"

"I mean like they bore into you!"

"- it's got a lovely view of the gardens and I've had all my stuff moved in and it's not fair -"

"Has this ever happened before?"

"Well, there was old Teatar -"

"Yes, but he never actually died, he just used to put green paint on his face and push the lid off the coffin and shout "Surprise, surprise -" "

"We've never had a zombie here."

"He's a zombie?"

"I think so -"

"Does that mean he'll be playing kettle drums and doing that bimbo dancing all night, then?"

"Is that what they do?"

"Old Windle? Doesn't sound like his cup of tea. He never liked dancing much when he was alive -"

"Anyway, you can't trust those voodoo gods. Never trust a god who grins all the time and wears a top hat, that's my motto."

"- I'm damned if I'm going to give up my bedroom to a zombie after waiting years for it -"

"Is it? That's a funny motto."

Windle Poons strolled around the inside of his own head again.

Strange thing, this. Now he was dead, or not living any more, or whatever he was, his mind felt clearer than it had ever done.

And control seemed to be getting easier, too. He hardly had to bother about the whole respiratory thing, the spleen seemed to be working after a fashion, the senses were operating at full speed. The digestive system was still a bit of a mystery, though.

He looked at himself in a silver plate.

He still looked dead. Pale face, red under the eyes. A dead body. Operating but still, basically, dead. Was that fair? Was that justice? Was that a proper reward for being a firm believer in reincarnation for almost 130 years? You come back as a corpse?

No wonder the undead were traditionally considered to be very angry.

Something wonderful, if you took the long view, was about to happen.

If you took the short or medium view, something horrible was about to happen.

It's like the difference between seeing a beautiful new star in the winter sky and actually being close to the supernova. It's the difference between the beauty of morning dew on a cobweb and actually being a fly.

It was something that wouldn't normally have happened for thousands of years.

It was about to happen now.

It was about to happen at the back of a disused cupboard in a tumble-down cellar in the Shades, the oldest and most disreputable part of Ankh-Morpork.

Plop.

It was a sound as soft as the first drop of rain on a century of dust.

"Maybe we could get a black cat to walk across his coffin."

"He hasn't got a coffin!" wailed the Bursar, whose grip on sanity was always slightly tentative.

"OK, so we buy him a nice new coffin and then we get a black cat to walk across it?"

"No, that's stupid. We've got to make him pass water."

"What?"

"Pass water. Undeads can't do it."

The wizards, who had crowded into the Archchancellor's study, gave this statement their full, fascinated attention.