“Do you have an appointment?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Nobody gets in without an appointment.”

I felt my face blush. Well, as much as the dazzle of my bright white skull could. I tried to form a disapproving frown as best I could, but failed on account of the fact that I was the keeper of the keys to the next life. I pulled my hood from my head and tapped my scythe angrily against the ground. Nothing, absolutely nothing, it was as if he didn’t recognise me at all.

“Don’t you know who I am?” I boomed, well tried to and failed on account of my complete absence of vocal cords. The man leaned over me, his ear piece buzzed like a demented wasp in a glass jar. He looked me in the eye socket and the faintest glint of understanding flickered for a second. I tried to step passed him and he blocked my way.

“Nobody can go in their without security clearance,” the man seemed uncertain.

“Now listen you little worm, I am the fourth horseman, the taker of souls, and if you don’t get out of my bloody way it will be your funeral.” He drew his gun and aimed it at me. It was enough to make me laugh, so I did. “I mean literally. Your funeral. Do you get me?”

“Hands up!” He shouted, his bravado ebbing away. A door flew open behind him and a ruddy red-faced dwarf emerged.

“What is all this noise?” Screamed the dwarf, his botoxed cheeks a flaming red.

“This man…” begun the security officer.

“I’m no man you fool. I’m death!” I interjected angrily. The dwarf approached me and poked me in the belly.

“You? Death?” The dwarf laughed, “how many countries have you annihilated?”

“What?”

“When was the last time you committed genocide?” Said the dwarf.

“That’s not my department,” I replied.

“Not your department, you snivelling coward. It is I who is the great ticket conductor to oblivion. You! You are just a pale imitation…”

“Palist,” I said solemnly.

“Look at you, in your dirty robes. You think a scythe puts fear in the hearts of men. No, no, no. Nuclear weapons. I could destroy you at the push of a button!” I looked at the balding dwarf who barely reached my belly button. He was sweating profusely. The brown crown of hair on his swollen distending face made him look like a baby underwater.

“And you would destroy yourself.”

“But I’d live forever, casting fear in the hearts of men,” he punched the air with a complete sense of conviction that if he annihilated the whole world including himself, somehow someone would be left to remember him. He wasn’t scary, or intimidating. He wasn’t even a brave man himself. He was a lunatic, a bully and a murderer. There was only one thing for it.

“Vladimir, you are mental,” and with one swipe of my scythe he turned into dust. And at that moment Mother Earth sighed with relief.