'Right,' said Mr Pin, one side of his face beginning to twitch. The way I see it--'
'You better hurry!' said Mr Tulip. 'It's only a coupla inches away!' '--the way I see it, I'm a small man, Mr Tulip. You couldn't stand on me. I wouldn't do. You're a big man, Mr Tulip. I wouldn't want to see you suffer.'
And he pulled the trigger. It was a good shot. 'Sorry,' he whispered, as the lead splashed. 'Sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry. But I wasn't born to fry...'
Mr Tulip opened his eyes.
There was darkness around him, but with a suggestion of stars overhead behind an overcast sky. The air was still, but there was distant soughing, as of wind in dead trees.
He waited a while to see if anything would happen, and then said: 'Anyone --ing there?'
JUST ME, MR TULIP.
Some of the darkness opened its eyes, and two blue glows looked down at him.
'The --ing bastard stole my potato. Are you --ing Death?'
JUST DEATH WILL SUFFICE, I THINK. WHO WERE YOU EXPECTING?
'Eh? For what?'
TO CLAIM YOU AS ONE OF THEIRS.
'Dunno, really. I never --ing thought...'
YOU NEVER SPECULATED?
'All I know is, you got to have your potato, and then it will be all right.' Mr Tulip parroted the sentence without thinking, but it was coming back now in the total recall of the dead, from a vantage point of two feet off the ground and three years of age. Old men mumbling. Old women weeping. Shafts of light through holy windows. The sound of wind under the doors, and every ear straining to hear the soldiers. Us or theirs didn't matter, when a war had gone on this long...
Death gave the shade of Mr Tulip a long, cool stare.
AND THAT'S IT?
'Right.'
You DON'T THINK THERE WERE ANY BITS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED?
... the sound of wind under the doors, the smell of the oil lamps, the fresh acid smell of snow, blowing in through the...
'And... if I'm sorry for everything...' he mumbled. He was lost in a world of darkness, without a potato to his name.
... candlesticks... they'd been made of gold, hundreds of years ago... there were only ever potatoes to eat, grubbed up from under the snow, but the candlesticks were of gold... and some old woman, she'd said: 'It'll all turn out right if you've got a potato
WAS ANY GOD OF SOME SORT MENTIONED TO YOU AT ANY POINT? 'NO...'
DAMN. I WISH THEY DIDN'T LEAVE ME TO DEAL WITH THIS SORT OF THING, Death sighed. You BELIEVE, BUT YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN ANYTHING.
Mr Tulip stood with his head bowed. More memories were trickling back now, like blood under a closed door. And the knob was rattling, and the lock had failed.
Death nodded at him.
AT LEAST YOU STILL HAVE YOUR POTATO, I SEE.
Mr Tulip's hand flew to his neck. There was something wizened and hard there, on the end of a string. It had a ghostly shimmer to it.
'I thought he got it!' he said, his face alight with hope.
AH, WELL. YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN A POTATO MIGHT TURN UP.