The Meter Man

The Meter Man

‘Here puss...here puss puss puss.’
Gilbert Gossing stood scowling in the kitchen, a saucer of milk quivering in his hand.
‘Damn it! Where is that mange ridden beast?’ He set the saucer on the floor with an irritated grunt. ‘This what you get,’ he muttered aloud, ‘for being neighbourly. They’re sunning themselves in Spain while I’m sulking around here like a demented milkman, looking after a very ungrateful cat!’ The last words thrown loudly about the room. ‘Sod you!’ he shouted. ‘If you want your milk you can find it yourself...drown in it for all I care.’ He looked around the kitchen, nodding in satisfaction. ‘I’ve done your water, your food, your bloody milk and cleaned the cat litter...yes...that will do for now. I’m good for a few hours until the next meal.
As he moved into the hallway on his way out, the doorbell rang. Gilbert pulled the door open with a grunt. Standing before him was a tall figure, dark haired, long faced, wearing a long brown coat. ‘Good morning sir. Come to read the meter.’
‘Oh,’ said Gilbert, slightly annoyed that his morning coffee was to be delayed. ‘You’d better come in. The meter’s there under the stairs.’ He gestured with his finger, but the tall man remained still. ‘Well get on with it,’ Gilbert snarled. The stranger shuffled, raised his shoulders a little then said, ‘Actually sir I haven’t come to read your meter at all. That was just a ploy.’
‘What?’ Gilbert stiffened. ‘What are you doing here then...selling encyclopaedias? If your a burglar I’ll have you know that I used to be a black belt in karate in my young days, and the police station is just around the corner!’
‘I haven’t come to sell or steal anything sir...more...collect.’
‘Collect?’ Gilbert frowned. ‘If you’re from the church, I’m afraid there isn’t any jumble here.’
‘It’s not jumble I’m after sir. I’ve come to collect...you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes sir...for your last journey.’ The meter man motioned upwards with his thumb. ‘I think this will explain things.’ He handed over a small business card.
‘Grim Reaper Inc.,’Gilbert read. ‘Service with a scythe. Is this supposed to be some kind of joke...or have you escaped from somewhere?’
‘It’s no joke sir...deadly serious you could say.’
‘You’re a complete loony. There’s probably a search party out for you already.’ Gilbert grabbed a long handled broom from the meter cupboard. ‘If you come one step closer I’ll shove this right up past your earlobes!’
‘Not quite the reaction I was hoping for,’ the long coated man sighed.
‘A broom handle up the backside is the best way to deal with loonies.’
‘Now listen sir...whether you believe it or not, I am the Grim Reaper, and I do have other calls to make so...’
‘You don’t look anything like the Grim Reaper,’ Gilbert retorted, menacingly poking his broom. ‘The Grim Reaper has a scythe and a hood and skull for a face.’
‘Ah...yes...well we Reapers prefer to travel incognito. These days if we dress like that, we’re liable to be arrested. I myself have had one or two very embarrassing run ins with the local constabulary. I blame it on all those fancy dress parties nowadays. Anyway it’s easier to move around soberly dressed.’
‘As a meter reader?’
‘Exactly.’
‘You’re completely raving !’
‘I had hoped for a more amenable response,’ the meter man moaned. ‘But I can see that you need more persuasion.’
‘Behold!’
Grey smoke swirled around the tall figure and an eerie wail filled the hallway. The stranger’s appearance slowly changed, in perfect synchronisation with Gilbert’s dropping jaw until, by the end, the meter man had become an eight foot tall, black hooded skeleton, replete with a long razor tipped scythe, while Gilbert resembled a dentured white shark.
‘Convinced!’ the creature boomed, showering the quivering cat minder with sewer smelling spittle.
‘Ye...yes...completely,’ Gilbert bleated, clenching his buttocks all the tighter. One second later the meter man stood once more before him. ‘Now, as I was saying sir, it’s my job to collect those whose time on this fair planet has come to an end and I’m on rather a tight schedule so, shall we be going?’
‘But...but...’
‘Yes I know it’s a shock, but we all have to go sometime.’
‘But...you’ve got the wrong person!’ Gilbert finally blurted out.
‘Oh really sir...if I had a banana for all the times I’ve heard that one...’
‘But it’s true!’
‘Look,’ the meter man said,loosing his patience. ‘This is number 22 is it not?’
‘Yes but...’
‘Then this is the right address.’
‘Yes it’s the right address but the wrong person.’
‘But you opened the door.’
‘Yes I did but I don’t live here,’ Gilbert’s face was reddening with every reply.
‘Then what were you doing opening the door?’
‘I’m the neighbour. I was only here to feed the bloody cat!’
‘Feed the cat...oh that’s a good one sir...almost original.’
‘But it’s true!’ Gilbert exclaimed sweatily. ‘The chap you want is on holiday in Spain. Right now he’s sunning himself on the Costa del Sol.’ The meter man’s blank response only intensified Gilbert’s frustration. ‘Look, he’s got one lung, has had two heart operations and spends all his time chained to an oxygen tank!’
‘That’s as maybe sir,’ the long faced Reaper said. ‘But he’s not here...and you are.’
‘Yes but surely you can see that it’s a mistake?’
‘If I’m ordered to collect a soul at number 22, then yours is the soul in question.’
‘But it’s the wrong bloody soul!’ Gilbert exploded. ‘Why don’t you go to Spain?’
‘I haven’t got time to galavant around the Costa’s. Now, shall we go?’
‘Wait wait,’ Gilbert stammered, his mind racing. The whole situation was criminally absurd, his incognito adversary either very clever or incredibly stupid. Everything was slipping dangerously downhill; an idiot determined not to go back empty handed and a cat that was more trouble than it was worth. A light suddenly illuminated his thoughts. ‘Listen,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve got to return with something right?’
‘Right.’
‘And you won’t believe that I’m the wrong person?’
‘No,’ the meter man folded his arms resolutely.
‘Well,’ Gilbert smiled, ‘perhaps we could make a deal?’
‘A deal?’ the Reaper sniffed. ‘What sort of deal?’
‘Well instead of me, you could take...the cat.’
‘The cat!?’
‘Yes...why not?’
‘I can’t go back with a cat!’ the meter man cried. ‘I’ll be a laughing stock. I’ll never be able to show my face again at the Grim Reapers Sunday Club!’
‘But what does it matter? A soul is a soul.’
‘Not when it’s got whiskers! Now, enough of this nonsense, are you going to come quietly, or do I have to use force?’
‘You’ll have to catch me first!’ Gilbert was already up and running before he finished speaking. Argument was useless, reasoning a waste of time - speed and distance were his only options. He dashed back through the living room to the kitchen, pulling in futile rage at the handle of the locked door. A lunging rush back to the hallway, past a foot tapping meter man, wrenching pointlessly at the front door - locked and bolted!
Bugger!
‘Do we have to go through this pantomime sir?’
Gilbert ignored him. Up the stairs then, in the bedroom, if needs be on the roof. Jerking his way from bedroom to bedroom, cursing every unyielding window, panic tightening his ribs.
‘There’s really no escape sir!’ the grim meter man shouted.
‘We’ll see about that,’ Gilbert muttered. In the same instant knowing the answer - back to the front room, break the window and out onto the street. He’ll never follow me and if he does I’ll have him arrested...yes...a dangerous criminal. ‘I was fleeing for my life, constable!’ Ha...let him “Reap” his way out of that. Brilliant!
Gilbert made for the stairs, tripped and clattered to the bottom.
‘Gotcha!’
The meter man hauled a bewildered Gossing to his feet and, before poor Gilbert could protest, whisked him up into a misty, gloomy place.
‘I don’t know where you’re taking me,’ the misunderstood neighbour cried. ‘But I’m going to complain to your superior !’
‘As you wish,sir.’
‘Gross, gross miscarriage...dreadful mistake...never in my life...what?’ Gilbert suddenly realised that they were on an escalator high in the sky. ‘Curious...’ he murmured. ‘They’ve got one of these in Woolworths.’
‘This one goes a bit higher than the gloss paint and bicycle accessories.’
‘Yes...’ Gilbert huffed, once again collecting himself. ‘Right up yo your boss. There’s a ton of bricks waiting for you!’
‘We’ll see sir, we’ll see.’
The silent escalator brought them to a wide open area, with a white tiled floor. At the far end were rows of desks, side by side, with a large screen behind each one.
‘Good God,’ Gilbert gasped. ‘It’s just the check-in at Heathrow Airport.’
The desks were manned by sobers suited officials, scribbling, explaining, stamping and gesturing to the long queues of men and women before them, each accompanied by a meter man. ‘Busy this morning,’ Gilbert’s companion said as they took there place in one of the queues. The disgruntled cat minder expected a long wait, but in no time all the people before him were whisked away, right and left and he stood before a stony faced bureaucrat.
‘Name,’
‘Gossing,’ Gilbert instinctively replied. ‘Look, there’s been a terrible mistake...’
‘Gossing...Gossing...’ the official ran a pen down a long list.
‘You won’t find me there,’ Gilbert assured him. ‘This idiot has brought the wrong person.
You see, what happened was...’
‘Gossing, ah yes, here you are.’
‘What!?’
‘Gilbert Gossing, dead on time, no pun intended,’ the attendant’s mouth didn’t move a millimetre.
‘For heaven’s sake, you’re as deranged as this one,’ Gilbert wailed. ‘Isn’t there anyone here with an ounce of brains?’
‘He’s been like this the whole time,’ the meter man moaned with raised eyebrows.
‘Listen, it’s very simple,’ schoolmaster Gilbert began. ‘Your eh, colleague came to the right house but got the wrong person. The chap you want is lying half dead on a beach in Spain. Why is that so difficult to understand?’
‘Because sir,’ the blank faced bureaucrat replied, ‘you’re on the list...right place right time.’
‘Then the bloody list is wrong!’ Gilbert was shivering with rage. The official’s face suddenly lengthened in horror. ‘The list is never wrong.’
‘Well it is this time!’
‘Impossible!’
A deep rumbling voice shook the whole area and a screen flickered into life. Before Gilbert’s stunned eyeballs an image formed...of himself, crumpled, at the foot of a staircase.
‘Wha...wha...?’ his lips refused to meet.
‘Your earthly remains sir,’ the meter man said, while his colleague read the full notation on the list.
‘Gilbert Gossing, cause of death...broken neck after tripping over the cat and falling down stairs. Like I said...dead on time.’
Gibbering with disbelief Gilbert was led away, all the while staring, like a stunned fish, at his twisted exit from the world.
‘Back in a sec,’ the meter man called to the official.
‘Don’t take too long,’ the dark suit replied. ‘I’ve got a rush job for you...in the Costa del Sol!’