On a Wednesday in late June, not exactly at midday but thereabouts, some people who had died before their time started turning up again. They simply appeared on street corners and milled about confusedly until someone took pity on them, and took them home, or to the police, who didn't know what to do with them either.
They were as they were just before they'd died. They looked dead, but they weren't. It was like time was a filing cabinet and they’d got slotted back in to the wrong pocket file. That this period of currently living time was a sort of time that could be overlooked in such a manner, put the wind up everyone just as much as having a bunch of dead people hanging about.
When Deborah ran into Vincent Van Gogh at the Post Office, she demanded to know, “Is this how it’s going to be from now on?” He shrugged, “How should I know. I’m only an artist. Can you direct me to a paint shop and a florist that sells sunflowers. I've got to do some more paintings. I need the cash.”
“It’s alright for you!” She replied. “You’ve got a trade. I’ve got the Romanovs living in my spare room and they’ve got nothing. They’re eating me out of house and home.”
The whole world was waiting for the second coming, but the son of God was lying low. “They’re not going to get me this time.” he told Deborah, as she walked past the allotment he’d made home. She could tell it was actually him because of the halo. She didn’t blame him for wanting a quieter death.
King Arthur was not so shy in coming forward. He had adopted Totnes as his new Camelot and was busy petitioning the EU to rejoin as an independent nation.
Yes, it was hard. The deeply depressed were in revolt. For what good is suicide when you can be sent back? Those countries that still had the death penalty were having to rethink. Population density was spiralling. Wars, however, had ceased, with death not being the threat it once was, and everyone agreed with each other that this was a good thing.
The end. Sort of.
No comments:
Post a Comment