Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett [9]
He swung himself upright. Muscles that hadn’t worked properly for seventy or eighty years jerked into overdrive. For the first time in his entire life, he corrected himself, better make that “period of existence,” Windle Poons’ body was entirely under Windle Poons’ control. And Windle Poons’ spirit wasn’t about to take any lip from a bunch of muscles.
Now the body stood up. The knee joints resisted for a while, but they were no more able to withstand the onslaught of will-power than a sick mosquito can withstand a blowtorch.
The door to the chapel was locked. However, Windle found that the merest pressure was enough to pull the lock out of the woodwork and leave fingerprints in the metal of the doorhandle.
“Oh, goodness,” he said.
He piloted himself out into the corridor. The distant clatter of cutlery and the buzz of voices suggested that one of the University’s four daily meals was in progress.
He wondered whether you were allowed to eat when you were dead. Probably not, he thought.
And could he eat, anyway? It wasn’t that he wasn’t hungry. It was just that…well, he knew how to think, and walking and moving were just a matter of twitching some fairly obvious nerves, but how exactly did your stomach work?
It began to dawn on Windle that the human body is not run by the brain, despite the brain’s opinion on the matter. In fact it’s run by dozens of complex automatic systems, all whirring and clicking away with the kind of precision that isn’t noticed until it breaks down.
He surveyed himself from the control room of his skull. He looked at the silent chemical factory of his liver with the same sinking feeling as a canoe builder might survey the controls of a computerized supertanker. The mysteries of his kidneys awaited Windle’s mastery of renal control. What, when you got right down to it, was a spleen? And how did you make it go?
His heart sank.
Or, rather, it didn’t.
“Oh, gods,” muttered Windle, and leaned against the wall. How did it work, now? He prodded a few likely-looking nerves. Was it systolic…diastolic…systolic…diastolic…? And then there were the lungs, too…
Like a conjuror keeping eighteen plates spinning at the same time—like a man trying to program a video recorder from an instruction manual translated from Japanese into Dutch by a Korean rice-husker—like, in fact, a man finding out what total self-control really means, Windle Poons lurched onward.
The wizards of Unseen University set great store by big, solid meals. A man couldn’t be expected to get down to some serious wizarding, they held, without soup, fish, game, several huge plates of meat, a pie or two, something big and wobbly with cream on it, little savory things on toast, fruit, nuts and a brick-thick mint with coffee. It gave him a lining to his stomach. It was also important that the meals were served at regular times. It was what gave the day shape, they said.
Except for the Bursar, of course. He didn’t eat much, but lived on his nerves. He was certain he was anorectic, because every time he looked in a mirror he saw a fat man. It was the Archchancellor, standing behind him and shouting at him.
And it was the Bursar’s unfortunate fate to be sitting opposite the doors when Windle Poons smashed them in because it was easier than fiddling with the handles.
He bit through his wooden spoon.
The wizards revolved on their benches to stare.
Windle Poons swayed for a moment, assembling control of vocal chords, lips and tongue, and then said: “I think I may be able to metabolize alcohol.”
The Archchancellor was the first one to recover.
“Windle!” he said. “We thought you were dead!”
He had to admit that it wasn’t a very good line. You didn’t put people on a slab with candles and lilies all around them because you think they’ve got a bit of a headache and want a nice lie down for half an hour.
Windle took a few steps forward. The nearest wizards fell over themselves in an effort to get away.
“I am dead, you bloody young fool,” he muttered. “Think I go around looking like this all the time? Good grief.” He glared at the assembled