A Visit from Death Episode 3
| ‘Oh, bugger orff!’ said Jack, shaking his head sharply and giving a lame wave of his hand in front of his face. ‘Go on, get out!’ Death looked up, blinking his small black eyes in surprise and said, ‘I beg your pardon.’ ‘What?’ said Jack. ‘Oh, not you. It’s this bee: he’s been in and out of my bloody room all day. After the flowers I suppose.’ |
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The insect flew past Death’s nose and they both followed its flight, as if their noses were attached to its behind with fishing wire. As it reached a particularly garish bunch at the other end of the room, Jack reached painfully over to his right, where a newspaper lay on the bedside table. He picked up a section of it and began rolling it into a tube. He was going to end this infernal intrusion once and for all.
The bee hovered clumsily through the air, grumbling absent-mindedly, now, around a bunch of wild daisies at Jack’s right, on the same table where the newspaper had come from.
‘Jack,’ said Death, ‘I have something I must tell you.’
But Jack was distracted by the irritating insect by his bedside.
‘Come here,’ he muttered, uncomfortably raising his newspaper cudgel. ‘Come on, you vicious little nuisance.’
‘I-it’s a bee, Jack. I-it’s just a bee,’ Death stuttered. ‘Look, I’ll shoo it out of the window for you.’
He stood and began walking around the bed.
‘Stay where you are, old boy,’ ordered Jack in a harsh whisper.
‘Jack, Stop.’ called Death, with more than a hint of distaste in his voice.
But with a wicked grin on his face, Jack licked his lips, widened his eyes and said ‘gotcha’, slamming the paper cudgel down on the table. The bee drifted up into the air with the apparent attitude of blissful ignorance. There was a moment of silence. Then,
‘What’re you doing, man?’ boomed Jack in a voice that had only a trace of its original power. ‘I had him. You frightened him orff!’
‘Jack…’ said Death in his warm and calming growl, but he managed no more than that, as the paper cudgel landed squarely and firmly in the centre of his right hand.
‘Howzat!’ chuckled Jack, looking up into his friend’s frowning face. ‘Sorry, old boy. Did he bite you?’
‘Yes he did, thanks to you,’ replied Death, who stood now with his right hand gripped in a fist.