Copyright © James Shields, 1993. First published in Phase Four, the short story magazine of the Irish Science Fiction Association.
James Shields / jshields@iol.ie
‘Shit, that was close!’ Paul sat up and felt himself up and down for broken bones. He seemed uninjured save for a nasty bruise where his head hit the pavement. His head ached and his vision was badly blurred, but he forced himself to look back to the site of the accident.
The car had stopped over whatever remained of his bicycle, and another person lay several feet before the car, motionless. Whether they had been thrown from the car, or a pedestrian had also been involved, Paul couldn’t tell. He couldn’t even make out whether or not the car was damaged.
He heard the car door open and saw the shadowy outline of a person step out, move to the body and crouch down.
‘Are they badly hurt?’ Paul enquired as he struggled to his feet. Without waiting for an answer, he walked, very unsteadily, to where the body lay. If anything his eyesight was getting worse. He was unable to make out any further details than the head, torso and limbs. He collapsed, painfully, to his hands and knees before the body.
Just for a moment, perhaps due to the pain, his vision cleared. He looked down into the victim’s face. His own face. Shock and realisation hit him together and he scrambled backwards in fear.
‘Somebody call an ambulance,’ the driver was saying. Other shadowy figures were approaching. But they were dark and shadowy blurs and distant echoes of voices.
He only realised that he was crawling backwards when he bumped into someone. He turned to see a beggar sitting on the ground. He was almost bald with a rim of grey hair stretching from above his ears around to the back of his head and dull coat and trousers were so patched that it was impossible to guess their original colour. From his red-rimmed starring eyes and wide grin, Paul guessed him to be either drunk or mad, possibly both.
‘That was me,’ said Paul, still shocked. ‘That was my body back there.’
‘Have you got any food,’ the Beggar said, ignoring him. ‘D’ya know, if we had some bacon, we could have bacon and eggs. If we had some eggs, that is.’
This angered Paul. ‘I’m telling you that I saw myself lying on the road and all you can do is make bad jokes about food.’
‘Of course you did, you’re dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘Yep. Totalled. Expired. Dead.’
‘Shit, that was too close.’
‘You should have worn a helmet.’
Although his head still hurt, Paul was gradually becoming more aware of his surroundings. Everything around him was so blurred he could barely make out the sky from the ground. But this old man was crystal clear, perhaps even sharper than he could see with his normal vision. He also realised that when the man spoke, the words seemed to come from inside his own head.
‘Who are you?’ Paul said at last.
‘Oh, me? I’m Death. Y’know, the grim reaper. Skeletal, heavy black robes, big scythe, all that lark.’
‘But you don’t look a bit like that.’
‘Oh, I don’t bother with it any more. It got awfully dull. Great for scaring people at parties, though.’
‘I’m Paul,’ said Paul, holding out his hand.
‘I know,’ said Death, grasping the hand and shaking it warmly. ‘I’ve to take you to the next life.’
‘I’m not going.’
‘Oh, don’t give me that, you have to go. Everyone does. It’s the natural order, you see. This world is for the living.’ He paused for a moment, seeing that Paul remained unconvinced. ‘Oh, what’s the point.’ He leaned forward and whispered into Paul’s ear. ‘Pain connects you to the earth.’
Paul thought back to when he fell and remembered how his vision became clear for a moment. He pushed his tongue between his teeth and bit hard. The salty taste of blood filled his mouth, and he felt a sharp pain. But the world became visible again, and the Beggar faded to be transparent, although still just about visible like a slide projected onto a wall in daylight. The ache in his head was no longer so bad although that from his tongue more than made up for it.
Looking around, Paul could see a crowd of people clustered around his body. The siren of an approaching ambulance was audible. He took a couple of steps forward, watching the activity, but then his mouth reminded him that he didn’t have much time to spare, and he turned and ran down the street.
He really had no idea what he hoped to achieve, but he wasn’t sure how long he could bear the pain and hurried in the direction of home.
Along the way, a thought struck him - could people see him? A middle-aged woman was walking down the pavement carrying some shopping bags. He ran up to her and said ‘Hello.’ Although the sounds made by his cut tongue were somewhat muffled, they were definitely sounds. The woman, however, ignored him and kept walking.
He ran ahead of her and stood right in her path, shouting and waving his hands in the air. As she approached, he coughed, spitting blood which should have hit her in the face. It didn’t, though - it vanished into thin air before it reached her. She still took no notice of him, and walked straight into him, knocking him to the ground. He was left on hands and knees coughing blood onto the grass verge where it disappeared.
When he looked up, his vision had started to blur again. He took another bite into his tongue, but his whole mouth had gone numb, presumably from loss of blood. He stuck his thumb into his mouth and bit. Although it hurt somewhat, he drew no blood, and his vision blurred further. He closed his eyes in anticipation as he opened his jaws wide and slammed them closed on his thumb.
He felt the crunch of bone between his teeth and the stabbing pain from his hand. Blood trickled down his forearm to his elbow, soaking into his shirt. But once again his vision was clear, at least for the moment.
By the time he reached home, he had chewed through both thumbs and three fingers of his left hand. He walked up the path to the front door. Putting his hand in his pocket, which added to the already excruciating pain from his thumb, he found his keys were no longer there.
Shrugging, he pressed the doorbell. But even with all his weight, he was unable to push it and make it ring. Panicking, he began shouting and pounding on the door, but no sound issued from the door and nobody was able to hear his shouting. He only stopped when his vision began to blur again.
He tried to lacerate his forearm on a sharp part of the iron railing which separated the garden of his house from the next. Even this was frustrated. When he pressed his flesh against the railing it simply stopped on meeting it and the metal would not cut into it as it would with living flesh.
Just as he was about to give up in desperation, the front door opened and his mother stepped out with a couple of milk bottles. As she closed the door after her, he dived through the narrowing crack, landing in a crumpled heap in the hallway on top of his left hand. This aggravated the pain, and his view unclouded somewhat.
He clawed his way after his mother into the kitchen where she sat down with the newspaper to resume the crossword.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ he said, miserably. ‘I wanted to come back, but I couldn’t. I tried so hard. I just couldn’t. I just wasn’t strong enough. I’m sorry...’
The words trailed off. His world was fading again. But as the kitchen diminished into blur, it seemed she looked up at him. And she seemed to be smiling. Then she and the room were gone.
He found himself sitting in the haze, sobbing.
‘There, there, now,’ he heard the old beggar’s voice saying, ‘it isn’t all bad.’
He stood up and embraced Death.