Five

Death travels back in time to write

a postcard, buy a tie, to order

a take-away, to have a signet

ring engraved with his family crest.

He buys a pint, writes in a notebook,

then takes a train to London King’s Cross

to snap a selfie on a platform,

Harry Potter fan that he is.

Death breaks into a car and joy rides

along the M1 motorway; he

picks up a speeding ticket and

a criminal record on the way.

His fake ID scam ensures that when

he stages a jail-break, an unsuspecting

accountant will end up serving

the rest of Death’s eighteen-month sentence.

Death finds himself proposing to

a starry-eyed, naïve young Goth.

He jilts her at the altar, having

discovered his pansexual nature.

Death decides to adopt a puppy.

He ties a piece of string around

its neck, then ties the other end

to the gates at Buckingham Palace.

Death takes a holiday in Crete.

He fights a minotaur, drinks too

much ouzo, sleeps for a whole week

and wakes up on a flight back home.

A drunken and disorderly

Death causes panic on the flight,

which has to be diverted to

Cairo, both pilots being drunk as well.

Death briefly works in medicine,

but is struck off due to his patients’

one-hundred percent death rate and

his unconventional appearance.

Death signs up for a library card

and spends a month enlightening

himself about death camps, death masks,

death metal and Death on the Nile,

which soon becomes his favourite novel.

He listens to Death at One’s Elbow,

but fails to appreciate it.

He prefers Girlfriend in a Coma.

Death embraces surrealism.

He gets a tattoo of Lobster

across what would have been his forehead,

and a pink T-shirt with Grave Concerns on it

in lime green comic sans. The back

reads: I am going to wait till Death arrives

before answering that vexatious

question about the existence of God.

Death keeps mementos; artefacts

preserved; existences remembered;

reminders of what life can be; to keep

in mind the thing that he is ending.