ow!

Have you ever wanted to be a fly on a wall?

In a reasonably nice pub at the busy not busy time of the evening around 19:45pm, we find ourselves watching the couple in a corner booth, Andy and Steve old school friends now in their mid30’s. These two gents meet up every Thursday, same place, same time same old chat over pints and peanuts. As we watch the two men on this particular Thursday we take in the state of the table, 2 empty pint glasses off to one side, and each are nursing new glasses, one with a pint glass half empty and the other with a pint glass half full. A young bar maid always free with a genuine smile, picks up the empties on her way back to the bar. Her departure watched by both men, the sway of her hips and swish of her long-plated hair almost hypnotic, they both turn back to their glasses aa she moves through the bar hatch, they continue to chat both knowing even if they were younger, they wouldn’t stand a chance with Stacey.

Anyway! time passes as it does music plays from a digital jukebox. More people fill up tables or sit at the bar. Now on their fourth pints, we see Andy sipping at his glass as Steve regaled a tale of a future company team-building trip, it was to some lake or other and he had to attend, he knew it was just another company thing to put up with, just another great idea from management. Steve was still rambling on when something caught Andy’s eye, he slowly placed his pint back on the beer-soaked mat, he just stared at the thing that had appeared next to his left hand. Andy picked it up, at first glance it was just a piece of black metal, about the size of a bank card. Three of its corners were rounded the fourth was square. Andy glanced up, Steve was oblivious still rambling on, Andy looked back down at the black card thing in his hand, the side he could see appeared blank so he flipped it over, at first that side appeared blank and just as Andy was thinking how odd it was, faint silver-red words started to appear:

                             MR A SWIFT

                             SEE YOU SOON!

                                           R

It took Andy a second or two to realize 2 things, 1 the name on the card was his and the second thing he realized, it was a Reaper card (yes! Reaper as in the grim reaper, aka Death). Andy’s heart started beating faster, beads of sweat broke out all over his body, he furtively started looking around, all was ok! Nobody was acting out of the norm, even Steve was still moaning about some work crap he had to do. Andy could see no tall dark figure with a gleaming scythe lurking in the shadows, yet as funny as this may sound to you, sat comfortably reading this story, it is no joke or silly prank for Andy. Shit shit shit Andy yelled out, rising sharply knocking his glass over. Steve looked up at his mate with a confused look on his face, he was about to have ago at Andy over this weird interruption but one look at Andy’s face how pale his friend was stopped that line of thought. “Hey Andy! You alright mate?” Steve asked… NO! we gotta run man we gotta, come on Steve run, confused but Andy was his best mate, they bolted from the pub. Two streets over Steve managed to pull Andy to a stop, his friend looked as scared as Steve had ever seen anybody look, “what is it mate? Come on talk to me”. Andy just looked his friend in the eye as he shakily lifted his right hand, it held the black card……..

OW!