The religions of the world have given us interesting post-death worlds to explore. This set of short stories explores a handful of them. They're around 1500 to 5000 words (10 min to 30 mins reading time) apart from the last one, a longer 'novelette'.
Birds of the Afterworld A deceased birdwatcher strays into an inappropriate afterlife.
Golf Balls of the Material World Col. Mackenzie's 250-yard drive goes clear across the Keltie's Burn. Or does it go much, much farther than that?
The Black Loch of the Beast A winter meeting between a grieving climber and... someone else
Fairway to Heaven The golf course is threatened with redevelopment. But what can Fraser and the foursome team do about it – given that all four of them are already dead?
The Love of Granite To die on the granite is better than living on the ground.
Rock Candy Mountain Freshly-squeezed lemonade trickles down the rocks and the cee-gars grow on trees. So can Cross-tie Joe find happiness here?
The Cloud of Unknowing Gerald Macdonaldson, youth group leader, finds his own mapreading leads him into confusion.
Adventures in the Bardo Plane Dying on Shishapangma, will Bibi Armbruster end up in the Preta-realm of the miserable ghosts? Or might he, even, attain enlightenment?
In the night airport A midle-aged man is trying to download his boarding pass. But a voice from the past keeps breaking in.
The Death and Afterlife of the Boatman Tut-Capet When her devotee Tut-Capet is brought to judgement under mysterious circumstances, river goddess Annaket decides to investigate.
1500 words
The bird was small and black, with a jerky flight pattern. It was a Zvenker's chough, he was sure of it. He reached for his binoculars.
Funny thing. He'd got used to how his hand passed through his body when he did that. But he couldn't get used – would never get used – to not having his binoculars.
Along the grey shore, men in grey camo jackets crouched behind the dead willow trees. Mostly men – there were one or two women but they looked just like the men. A line of oystercatchers pecked across the grey shingle. The waves rattled on the gravel bank, as they had for – how long?
Nobody else had noticed the Zvenker's. If it was a Zvenker's.
Behind the beach, the mountains were as big and black as they had been yesterday, the day before. He was a hill man, and the birds he liked were hill birds. He crossed the bare meadow with its thistle clumps (he'd spotted a rubicose siskin there just a couple of days – months – ago) and set himself at the slope beside the waterfall.
Sooner than he expected, the stream shrank to a mossy trickle between black rocks. Far below, the shoreline reached around its bay to where the sea crashed white and green on rocky islands. The birders clustered like starlings around the patch of bare sand where they marked up their sightings. Ahead, through the pass, the mountains rose in talus and crags of black basalt, catching the grey light with a shine like a raven's wing. High above, dirty snowfields spread against the sky.
The chough – a Zvenker's, he was sure of it now; never mind the binocs, his eyes were as sharp as a young birder of seventeen spotting bluebirds through the bedroom window. Just in that next corrie, that was where the nest would be. He scrambled over jammed boulders – below him was empty space where a waterfall clattered, but he was hardly aware of that. Between wisps of cloud he saw a grey-green valley, with a great meandering river, and scrubby trees, alder swamp he guessed. And some sort of large building with an arched roof.
The chough soared in circles – it was about to land, and that would be...
For a moment he heard footsteps on the gravel behind him. Then something struck him from behind. He flew across the rocks; the world turned round several times, and faded to black.
Minutes – days – hours passed; and the world faded back in again. The world was noisy, and smelled of wood smoke. He blinked open his eyes to red flickering firelight. A high-arched hall, it had to be the place he'd seen from the hillside. Wooden tables that looked carved with axes, and dogs, and people. Big shouldered people, in leather and black armour. People who lifted him onto a stool in front of a roasted goat, and brown lumps that could be turnips. People who wanted to look at his neck. "Clean off in one. A truly satisfying blow! You should have seen his little head bouncing across the boulders."
"Never mind, dearie." A young woman was at his shoulder with a jar of something smoky brown. A rather pretty young girl, with black hair in two long plaits around her head and an elegant, jewelled sword at her leg. "That Ragnar, he got you from behind. You'll get your stroke back on the bugger in the morning."
The one called Ragnar looked doubtful. "You're awful small. And what's happened to your sword? Very odd, to get here without your sword."
The goat was surprisingly good, and even the mead was okay. The hall itself was almost romantic, with its smoke-blacked beams rising into darkness, its high table decorated with antlers, and all the bloodstained blokes with beards. But he was thinking of his early start for the dawn chorus – those scrubby trees he'd seen from the hillside had to be full of birdlife. "Where do I sleep?'"
"Sleep?" Ragnar looked at him – an unsettling experience in itself. "We're just about to start the singing."
Whatever the songs lacked in melody or elegant delivery they made up, and more, in length. The first sunbeams were struggling through the smoke as the singers fell asleep across the chunky tabletops. Ragnar, he noticed, was leading the dark haired girl to a pile of straw in the corner.
The next morning, his head got chopped off again. And the next one.
It began to get boring.
Some days, or months, passed. He was inside a small bramble bush, at the edge of the alder trees, watching for swamp warblers. There were no warblers, it was the wrong time of day for warblers. He wasn't birding, he was hiding.
Heavy feet sounded in the clearing behind him. He crouched lower. There were grunts, and a clashing of iron.
He twisted himself around inside the bramble bush. Two men, one of them fallen and bleeding into the ground. The other bent above him, stealing his jewellery. The stooping man was Ragnar.
Without thinking, he pulled out the rusty old sword they'd given him. Ragnar's neck was exposed. He struck – and Ragnar collapsed across his own victim, their blood mingling in the yellow grass. Well, he had to get lucky sometime...
"A doughty blow;" the dark-haired girl was piling on the goat ribs. "Not bad for a little fellow. Drink up!"
Then Ragnar was elbow-grabbing him up to the high table, the one with the antler chairs and the longest, most bloodstained beards. Ragnar was showing them all the red scar on his own neck before it closed over. "Not bad lurking, boy. I never saw you in that bramble bush."
"I'm a birder. Lurking is what we do."
"Birding, eh? You need to explain that."
"Swamp warbler," he said. "Little brown bird, seasonal migrant, never seen one. Very interesting."
"Swamp warbler, eh? Drink up!"
He'd not had so much attention since the first evening, after the first time his own head was sliced off. With the food and drink being forced on him, he was beginning to feel unwell.
The dark girl came around again with her jar. These goat ribs were good, but rich. He was feeling worse than unwell. He headed out into the night.
Rain pattered on the grey ground. A bird cried in the darkness. The night air helped a little. Not enough. The goat stew ended up on the pebbles of the lake.
Heavy feet on the shingle, and Ragnar was looking at him suspiciously. "Not enjoying your big night? Are you all right, small fellow?"
"I just went outside... bird, you know..." Between retches, he had in fact heard a call he recognised. "Green throated diver."
"Oh, birding? Today you do head chop, let's us do bird." And now they were all trooping into the night, half eaten bits of goat in greasy fingers, torchlight red on buckle and helmet. Under the brittle stars, before the pale gleam of the lake, the fighters fell silent. And they heard it then, the hollow long drawn cry from out on the water.
"A dead soul, no? Or just a mermaid."
"Green throated. Or small southern, maybe. It's territorial, claiming its ground. Like – oh – like clashing your shield in battle."
"Be quiet, small fellow! I want to hear it again."
The next day, he lost an arm hacked off at the shoulder. But that night, there were several intelligent questions about the two redneck buzzards that had come down to peck at his bloodstained fingers where they lay on the pebbles.
Days (months, years) passed. He found himself doing a bird sighting summary every night just before the singing. Once, when he was watching a pair of friskins, several warriors passed without killing him – it had to be they wanted to hear the evening bird report. Better than that: he was getting less bad at the killing bit himself. Warriors, if you watch them, are just as predictable as blackbirds or short eared owls. And an ambush is only a bird hide with swords in stead of binoculars.
He sat down at the oak table, not just still alive, but pleased with a day of one fatal backstabbing and two woundings including a clean foot amputation. He dragged his victim towards the table with the antlers. "What do you think, Ragnar? Not too bad, the foot job?"
But Ragnar was preoccupied. "Didn't you hear? Black phalarope, on the lake, it's back."
"Phalarope?" The voice came from the floor. The amputee stood up, staggering on his new grown foot. "Just passing, or a nesting pair?" Together, the two warriors headed for the high iron doorway. A murmur went around, and in minutes, the hall had emptied of fighting men. Goat stew steamed pink in the firelight. Only the dark haired girl remained, looking at him across the empty tables.
He walked up the hall, seated himself in one of the high antler chairs.
He beckoned to the dark haired girl. "How about some of that mead you're holding, Lassie. And look, could you give me a lesson with this sword thingie?"
• • •
"Thirty-seven," says Hector Sanderson. He says it in a neutral tone – or tries to, at least. Because, Rules of Golf: The ball that is farther from the hole shall be played first. Which means that Sanderson can't play his second shot until, somehow, I've played my own ball another 30 yards up the fairway.
My tee shot connected first time – and straight up the middle. Pretty good, given the poor playing conditions, the pre-dawn light as dense cloud scuds across, not to mention the wind still brisk after the overnight storm. But now my concentration has slipped. This time – I prepare my swing. Eye on the ball, Fraser. The lie's good, and now –
Along the fairway's edge, something's moving. The dark shadow of a person, hunched against the rain. But my swing is already started – down, through: in my imagination I hear the satisfying clunk of wood on golfball.
I look down. The ball still lies there, in front of me, a little white glow in the half-light. "Thirty-eight," Hector says.
It was Colonel Mackenzie, of course, out on the fairway at three in the morning. The old army officer – yes, the army has women in it now, just like the Club itself. If I'd been still around for that meeting I'd have voted against, of course I should. But you know what, I'd have been wrong. Watching the Colonel and her colleagues all these years, their playing style, respect for the Rules of Golf. No, they hadn't lowered the tone of the Club. Rather the opposite, to some extent.
Not that the Colonel's a member, not any more. Small matter of the subscription.
The Colonel, these days, is what we call a Supernumerary. An unpaid volunteer, basically. Though I know, because I've seen her, that once all the Members are away in the bar she'll play a hole or two, on her own and strictly against the Rules. Particular fondness for this hole, as it happens: the Eleventh, known to its friends as the Horse's Arse.
But now she's walking down the fairway's edge. She is looking at the lost balls, the ones she fetched out of the rough yesterday evening, the ones she left along the edge of the playing area.
She's noticing that two of them have moved. And now, looking out across the fairway –
Where one of those balls is lying, right out in the open. Both of them in fact, Sanderson's one just 30 yards further up the fairway. And now the Colonel is walking out towards us. Stops right here, looks down at my ball where it lies. Quite a good lie, as I mentioned before, no excuse really for not managing to hit the thing.
Not managing, thirty-seven times.
She looks down at the ball, probably liking the lie as much as I do. Rain running down her sou'wester hat, grey hair damp against her shoulders. Gabardine jacket, shabby now but still holding out the water, and the sensible tweed skirt. I've always rather admired the sensible tweed skirt.
I step back smartly as she moves round to my side of the ball, stands looking down at it as if to take the next shot, just supposing she had a club in her hands. Then she turns round, faces directly towards me.
Behind her, the clouds are breaking, the sunrise in streaks of custard yellow. Beyond the trees, over on the seventh fairway, the wild dogs are howling.
"Fraser?" she said. "Fraser, is that you?" And I realise she can see me, is looking straight at me, dim shadow as I am.
Dim, dead shadow. Dead these ninety-five years.
• • •