It is said that death and what comes next is what you make of it. This is only part of the truth, just as the shadow is only part of the footprint of the sun.
There are times when what comes next is what others make of you.
The wolf stood at the edge of the desert. He had left the name Gavin behind him, inextricably tied to an irrelevant corporal form. Here he was essential. Here he was the wolf.
Being a wolf, any desert would have been a novelty, but this desert was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so to speak.
Black sand stretched out before him. Perhaps there were sand dunes in the distance, perhaps not. This was not a place where distance or horizon had any meaning. There was no end or beginning to either. They existed in much the same way air does ... though perhaps that was a poor comparison to make in this place.
He was not prone to introspective or riddled with philosophical dilemmas. In death, as in life, he was an uncomplicated creature. And this was his problem. He turned to the tall black-robed figure beside him and growled.
IT IS THE SAME FOR EVERYONE, Death replied.
Death had the unique ability to speak in every tongue, even those where tongues were not available. It was a requirement of the job. Wolfish was a picnic compared to earthworm, which tended to involve a lot more contortion to get the message across and that was always a tricky thing for an anatomy lacking in the muscle and tendon department. He was constantly having to pick pieces up afterwards.
WHATEVER WILL BE WILL BE. Death paused. I ADMIT THAT SOUNDS RATHER CLICHED, he added. SO MUCH OF WHAT I DO SEEMS TO INEVITABLY FALL INTO THAT CATEGORY. EVEN INEVITABILITY ITSELF.
ANYWAY, ENOUGH ABOUT ME. THE CHOICE IS YOURS.
The wolf was good at making choices, but it was only now, on this day that ended all days, that he was confronted by the difference between making and creating choices.
The desert gave him two options. To cross or to remain. Neither seemed to meet the requirements of the moment.
Death sighed, in as much as any creature can that has no organs relevant to any aspect of a sigh. He had seen this before. Minds designed to cut through life like a buzzsaw were ill-equipped to cope with the conundrum of life after death. They would freeze solid, victim, for the first time in their existence*, of paralysing indecision. Strung out along the limitless border of the Stygian expanse were countless figures, many of them fearless heroes, who had not moved an inch.
* Life may be defined by boundaries such as birth and death, existence has no such constraints.
And Death definitely knew the meaning of countless. This also came with the job. In many ways, he only needed a simple numerical system - zero (of course), one (his most popular number), many (tragedies do happen) and countless, because you always end up there in time, and that was one commodity he had in abundance.
How long these heroes had stood there was impossible to answer. Time had no meaning in this boundary place. Millenia could seem like seconds, and seconds like an eternity.
Many religions feature gods that, to all intents and purposes, could be classed are right royal bastards, or bitches, when it came to punishment but none can hold a candle to Indecision when it's playing its A-Game.
Death turned away with a sense of disappointment. A feeling he had somehow failed in his job at this final hurdle.
The dense yet curiously powdery sand stirred around him under the faintest of zephyrs ... which was even more curious because there was no air to speak of. And on the edge of hearing, the faintest of sounds, moving like a tsunami approaching the shore.
Death smiled. He'd seen this once or twice in his existence, which made it extraordinarily rare considering his relationship with time. The zephyr grew into a breeze and then into something approaching a gale. On its heels, the whisper swelled to a roar ... no, not a roar. It bayed like the coming of all things. It Howled.
The wolf's ears pricked and its body stirred, triggered by a response so primal that even indecision packed up its bag and fled. Stranger still, something was happening to the drear expanse. Black gave way to colour, and, wonder of wonders, shapes emerged out of the soil, growing at an inconceivable rate, showing once again that inconceivable says more about the conceiver than about reality.
In a space of time that could have been measured in heartbeats if heartbeats were relevant here, a huge forest stood in front of the wolf, a wide corridor amongst the ancients calling him forward. Deer moved freely among the trees and partridges, fat as butter, moved through the abundant grass. It was a lupine paradise.*
* There is also a paradise for deer, partridges and other game, blissfully free of predators. What goes around comes around.
The Howl wrapped itself around the wolf, stirring every hair on his frame, pulling him forward. The wolf looked up at the tall gaunt figure beside him. Death shrugged.
THE SEARCH FOR MEANING IS ONE OF THE CRUELLEST PUNISHMENTS THE GODS EVER VISITED ON THE HUMAN MIND. BE GRATEFUL YOU DON'T HAVE ONE. IT MAKES LIFE A LOT SIMPLER. SOMETIMES THE WAY TO SEE THINGS CLEARLY IS NOT TO GO LOOKING.
Death pondered this for another absent heartbeat. OF COURSE, IT'S VITAL THAT HUMANS DON'T REALISE THAT, he added. OTHERWISE, THEY MAY CEASE TO BELIEVE IN THE IMPORTANT LIES. TRUTH, JUSTICE AND, EXTRAORDINARILY, FAIRNESS.
WAS IT FAIR THAT YOU DIED WHILE OTHERS LESS...WORTHY...STILL LIVE?
IMAGINE A MIND THAT THINKS LIKE THAT...BUT WORSE WOULD BE A WORLD WHERE THAT SORT OF MIND WAS ABSENT.
Death looked out on the ancient forest.
IMAGINATION. THE MOST IMPORTANT CREATION OF ALL. WITHOUT IT THERE IS NO HOPE, NO DREAMING, NO FOREST.
ALL DOGS CARRY THE WOLF WITHIN. DO YOU KNOW WHY? BECAUSE THEY CAN IMAGINE IT, NOT BECAUSE OF SOME DEEP GENETIC CODE. AND HOW CAN THEY IMAGINE? BECAUSE THEY HAVE TRAVELLED BESIDE HUMANS FOR SO LONG. THEY ARE THE OTHER KIND OF WEREWOLF. THE BETTER KIND.
HAVE YOU HEARD OF A THEORY THAT HUMANS EVOLVED FROM APES? A MIND WITH PLENTY OF TIME ON ITS HANDS MIGHT WONDER WHAT COMES NEXT. HUMANS CERTAINLY SEEM TO BE STRUGGLING AT THE MOMENT TO EVOLVE INTO SOMETHING WORTHY OF THE EFFORT.
I USED TO BE A CAT PERSON, he admitted, BUT IT'S HARD TO SEE MUCH FUTURE IN AN ANIMAL THAT'S WAITING FOR PEOPLE TO EVOLVE INTO DEVICES WHICH AUTOMATICALLY DISPENSE CAT FOOD.
PARALLEL EVOLUTION, THAT'S THE SECRET. DOGS LEARNING FROM HUMANS. THE FUTURE IS CANINE...
... THE MORE IMMEDIATE QUESTION, THOUGH, IS WHAT WILL YOUR FUTURE HOLD?
The wolf had stayed patient through Death's soliloquy, which is generally a wise move. No one but the wolf himself knew what he had thought about it. The one place Death can never travel to is the inner working of the mind, though he was getting better at reading it from the outside. Perhaps, just perhaps, this was another form of parallel evolution.
Maybe the wolf was thinking complex thoughts, maybe they were simple ones. The philosopher, Ly Tin Wheedle, once postulated that, in its highest form, complex thinking became simple. Sadly, this didn't gain the wider appreciation it deserved because at the time it was patently obvious to the audience he was addressing that he had forgotten his lecture notes and was looking for a quick fix. Only one member of the crowd, a raw recruit to the Watch in Ankh Morpork, was taking painfully slow, grammatically terrifying notes, and nodding.
The wolf made a decision. It stepped forward into the wide corridor and loped off into the trees.
Elsewhere, the Howl stirred the hearts and minds of those frozen souls trapped on the ultimate border. Heroes to a man, and woman, heroes of all walks of life, not just the cut and thrust of the battlefield. Battles come in all shapes and sizes. Those that fought injustice, fought unfairness, fought crime and, in not just a few cases, better budgets to carry out their work, began to move.
Who knew what paradises lay in front of them? Longhouses filled with carousing, or tents where beautiful young women, or men, were waiting to peel grapes, or possibly a well-funded library. Paradise is relative. Each one took a step forward, and then another, the process becoming more confident with each stride. The hardest step is always the first one.
Again Death smiled. For a personification, he had come a long way himself.
He turned back to the wolf. It was well into the forest and the sylvan shadows were closing in ... but just on the edge of sight a being with eyes that can see everything might have observed two figures walking towards the creature. And, if he had very good eyes, he might have observed that one of the figures was a male, tall and red-headed, and the other was definitely female, with long golden hair. They were holding hands, but as the wolf approached they dropped them and opened their arms.
Remember, time has no meaning in this place. There is no concept of future or past, just the eternal Now.
Who knew what would unfold. Death, who may well have taken his own first step, would be the first to admit he had no idea. Humans always got him, coming and going. Still, it was a new beginning, in a place where new beginnings became always was.
The sensation of a job well done, which was the closest he could come to happiness, settled on his shrouded shoulders.
And loneliness. It's at moments like these where it can blossom. There's nothing like it for an immortal who has an inkling of the advantages of mortality.
There was a tug at his robe. He looked down.
SQUEAK?, said the Death of Rats.
OH, Death replied. OF COURSE. ALBERT WILL BE WONDERING WHAT KEPT ME. HE'S SUCH A WORRIER.
Maybe the universe doesn't have a grain of kindness in its fundamental particles but who says it can't evolve? And worrying about someone, and being worried about in return, is a damn good start. What goes around comes around.
THE FUTURE IS CANINE.
And the Howl goes on.
Thank you, Gaspode.