A Stranger at the Door

Mark chuckled emptily at his phone screen, as something moderately amusing occurred in an Instagram reel that would no doubt be forgotten for ever ten seconds later. He was on hour two of scrolling, and although his brain screamed at him to do something beyond rotting on his sofa, to just go outside like he'd been planning to do all day, his body was showing no signs of complying.

The sun briefly emerged from behind the wispy clouds that obscured much of the sky outside his window, sending a piercing ray straight into his eyes. He squinted up at it, and, snapping out of his short-form video-fuelled stupor just for a moment, realised that his neck was at about ninety degrees to his torso, something his girlfriend endearingly referred to as "shrimp mode". Mark straightened up, cracked his neck, and, shifting out of the sun's glare, cast a brief glance at the crimson- and ochre-tinged woods that dominated the view from his apartment.

He sighed, and continued scrolling.

The unmistakeable sound of a key sliding into his door moments later finally snapped him fully out of his semi-hypnotised state, and he turned towards the noise, waiting for his girlfriend Maya to enter. No, he corrected himself, it was 2:30pm, she was still in London, and she wasn't arriving until the evening. His ever-rational brain latched onto another possibility: maintenance work that his lettings agent had forgotten to notify him of yet again. But still, even the most unfriendly of maintenance workers would still have the decency to knock, no?

It occurred to him that whoever was unlocking the door was doing an extremely poor job of it. It had been about fifteen seconds, and it didn't sound like the key had even turned at all. Was he being robbed? But who would rob an apartment in a suburban Yorkshire town at 2:30pm on a Sunday?

The door finally opened, and Mark yelped in terror. Death himself, the Grim Reaper, was standing on his doormat, wiping his boots. About six feet tall, with a formidable scythe that came close to grazing the ceiling of the small studio apartment, the black-hooded figure advanced silently but swiftly towards the sofa. One wizened, mottled (but still skin-covered, Mark observed through his terror) hand gripped the dark red wood of the scythe's handle, while the other reached out as if to grab Mark's trembling hand...

He gasped in utter, astonished horror as it passed straight through, as if his hand were mist.

"Ah. Shit." said Death. "That's not supposed to happen."

The accent was Northern; local, perhaps.

Mark tried to say something, but no words came. His brain felt like it was on red alert.

The Grim Reaper turned, as if to leave, and then seemed to think better of it, half-turning somewhat indecisively back towards the sofa.

"Mark Thompson," came the voice from the depths of the hood, with not inconsiderable gravitas. "Twenty-nine years old. Place of residence, 338 Elm Court, Hartbridge."

Mark stared blankly.

"Yes?" came the voice again, somewhat encouragingly.

Mark nodded.

"Cause of death: accidental fall from balco..." He trailed off, as his eyes moved to the singular window in the room, starting at chest-height and, rather crucially, not leading out onto a balcony.

"Well, of course, these things are not always entirely accurate..." The Reaper chuckled, his voice now a little uncertain.

He reached up with his weathered hand, and grasped the front of his hood.

Mark, who had been somewhat zoned-out for the past thirty seconds, little going on in his head except for a desparate attempt to remain conscious, was now jolted back into reality. He had died? How? And, more pressingly, was he about to see the horrifying, skeletal face of the Grim Reaper? Would his eyes be glowing like coals? Or would they just be empty pits of blackness? Would—

Death pulled back the hood, revealing the kindly, plump face of a man who looked to be in his late seventies.

Shock, confusion, and then relief washed over Mark in waves, as the man pulled out a small notepad from the folds of his cloak and began peering at it intently. It was just a prank! Of course it was; he remembered now that he'd given spare keys to a couple of close friends, and he could just imagine them pulling a ridiculous stunt like this.

But then he remembered that this man's hand had passed straight through his own about two minutes ago, and the terror returned.

"Hmm... Yep, definitely you," concluded the man, with some confidence.

He stooped to Mark's level, smiling a deeply trustworthy smile, and slowly reached out his hand.

"It's OK, Mark. My name is Greg, and I'm simply here to guide you on to your next life. You don't need to be scared; it's time to leave the world behind for a little while, stop resisting, and follow me. We've got tea and biscuits waiting if you'll just come with me."

Greg's voice was so soothing that he found himself softening to this friendly man in the cloak. And then, in one smooth motion, Greg brought his hand round and passed it straight through Mark's shoulder.

"Oh," he said flatly, his hand fully embedded in Mark's thorax. "You're... really not dead yet, are you."

The shock of having a man's hand sink straight through his shoulder and into his chest cavity, without feeling a thing, was almost too much for Mark, and he began to feel extremely faint.

"Well, this is a new one for me," concluded Greg, removing his hand from Mark's ribcage and straightening up.

"Perhaps I was... early? Were you planning on doing any parkour or similar this afternoon, Mark? Perhaps in the next, uh, thirty minutes?"

He looked Mark up and down, no doubt taking in the posture and the salmon-pink linen shirt.

"Mm... Perhaps not." Greg furrowed his brow. "Well, don't let me stop you doing anything... dangerous! Just try and go about your day as planned, and I'll check the database; see if I've missed something. There's a first time for everything, even when you're a couple of million years old. See you soon, Mark!"

With a cheery wave, Greg stepped backwards and slowly dissipated into a wisp of black smoke.

Mark was left alone, his heartbeat pounding in his ears and cold beads of sweat running down his back, soaking his shirt. He stared, unblinking, at the spot where Death, or, Greg, had dematerialised, as thousands of clamouring thoughts and fears somersaulted through his head.

He was going to die. And soon, too. Could he stay in this flat for ever, avoiding anything that could possibly result in a fall to his death? Or would death simply get him in other ways, Final Destination style? Maybe he'd slip in the shower instead, or there'd be a gas leak, or he'd poison himself by eating expired food, or Maya's old rice cooker would explode...

With a gasp, Mark reached for his phone. He had to talk to Maya and his family before it was too late. But what would he say? That Death is actually a nice man called Greg, who'd just told him that he's going to die from a fall? That he was just randomly calling to say that he loved them, like he was a hostage in some sort of thriller movie? He had no idea, but he knew that he had to tell them something. He unlocked the phone.

On the screen, a street "interviewer" was asking a drunk couple deeply personal questions outside some US college campus.

"So, if he cheated—"

Mark quit the app in disgust. The claw of social media had relinquished its grip on his brain, and regret began to flood in.

He could have really excelled in photography. He could have picked up some other hobbies, maybe learned a language. Even just read some books for a change. His mind dwelt on the hundreds of wasted hours, as he pulled up his contacts list, and called Maya. At least he had always been there for her, he hoped.

As he waited for Maya to pick up, Mark stood, and walked on trembling legs towards the window, taking in the beauty of the autumn scene that had been right in front of him for weeks. The sun was still high in the sky; what time was it now?

He glanced at the phone. 14:32.

That can't be right, he thought. Greg had been there for at least five minutes; he was sure of it. Had he misread the time earlier?

No answer from Maya. Then, a key in the door. Mark's stomach tied itself in a knot, and he had to make a conscious effort to slow his breathing. Had he managed to die already? Maybe the shock had given him a heart attack? He looked at the sofa behind him, but saw no body.

The door opened.

"Sorry, took me a couple of minutes, I had a million or so bugs to do on my way. I can slow down time, but there're only so many milliseconds in the day, you know!"

Greg, hood pulled forward over his head again but sounding remarkably cheery, rushed into the flat.

Mark's confusion momentarily overtook his fear.

"Why open my flat with a key if you can just teleport at will?" he questioned, emboldened by Greg's cheeriness and genuinely curious despite the terror.

Greg paused for a second.

"Well, er, politeness of course!"

Mark wondered if knocking might be an even more polite option, but didn't want to press the issue. But now there was one more thing.

"Sorry, did you say bugs?" Was Mark stalling for time now? He wasn't sure.

"Yes, yes, invertebrates are all part of the system. You were a beetle a couple of lifetimes ago." Greg sounded as if this were the most natural thing in the world.

Mark's brain reeled, trying to grasp the truly insane implications of this knowledge, but falling short.

"Now. The purpose of my visit."

Greg sounded focused. Mark's fear took over again.

"Bit of a funny one actually, you see. So, there's a chap with almost identical DNA to you, same age too — absolute spitting image of you, I must say — living just a few miles away at a place called Elm Tree Court. All a complete coincidence, of course. And — get this — he's got the exact same name as you!"

Mark narrowed his eyes in confusion.

"You two were swapped over in my files, and, y'know, I visited the wrong one! You're free to go, Mark."

Mark nearly collapsed with shock and then, moments later, exhilaration.

"And now that I think about it, something similar did happen once before. Chap I used to work with a few millenia ago — really gaunt, skinny lad — ended up with some properly mixed-up files after our system got updated and, y'know, that's why you always see Death looking all skeletal in artworks. Course, mistakes do happen occasionally with invertebrates; there are a few million of us doing this, but you can imagine the difficulties of..."

Mark's stomach was doing cartwheels, and as hard as he was trying to concentrate on Greg's genuinely fascinating information about the nature of existence, the joy of not being dead was rather outweighing everything else right at that moment. Beneath the joy, though, there was also a pang of sadness for the Mark Thompson who wasn't so lucky, and Mark felt some responsibility to start living his life in a slightly more productive way than he had done thus far.

"Oh, sorry, this is probably a lot, isn't it." Greg had cut himself short. "We don't really get to talk to live humans much — mostly we make sure they can't see us — so forgive the rambling."

Mark snapped back to the conversation, imbued with a new sense of purpose.

"Oh, no worries," he assured Greg, surprising himself with the steadiness of his voice. Mark thought back to what Greg had been saying. "Did you say there were... millions of you?"

"Yep, that's right," Greg stated matter-of-factly. "Lots of souls in this world to deal with, and everyone gets a go at the job eventually. I was like you once, although I can't remember much of it; you should get the chance to don the uniform in another five lifetimes or so."

Stunned, Mark tried to formulate another question, but Greg spoke first.

"Anyway, I must be off. I was due to take over at an abbatoir down the road a couple of ten-thousandths of a second ago. See you in... Oh! No, that would be telling, wouldn't it." He chuckled.

"Wait!" Mark called out, as Greg began to fade. "Can I tell anyone about this?"

Greg shrugged. "I don't see why not. I didn't mention any of the really mind-blowing stuff."

He disappeared.

Mark stood alone in his apartment, the silence of the calm Autumn afternoon washing over his ears. He turned to the window and smiled tentatively, as the sun blazed forth from a now-cloudless sky.