He was told, It has all been most irregular.
“It has? Has it? Oh, well, can’t have irregularity,” said the Archchancellor.
He was told, It must have been terrible.
“Well, I…that is…I suppose we…I’m not sure…must it?”
He was told, But now the burden is removed. Rejoice. That is all. There will be a short transitional period before a suitable candidate presents itself, and then normal service will be resumed. In the meantime, we apologize for any unavoidable inconvenience caused by superfluous life effects.
The figure wavered and began to fade.
The Archchancellor waved his hands desperately.
“Wait!” he said. “You can’t just go like that! I command you to stay! What service? What does it all mean? Who are you?”
The hood turned back toward him and said, We are nothing.
“That’s no help! What is your name?”
We are oblivion.
The figure vanished.
The wizards fell silent. The frost in the octogram began to sublime back into air.
“Oh-oh,” said the Bursar.
“Short transitional period? Is that what this is?” said the Dean.
The floor shook.
“Oh-oh,” said the Bursar again.
“That doesn’t explain why everything is living a life of its own,” said the Senior Wrangler.
“Hold on…hold on,” said Ridcully, “If people are coming to the end of their life and leaving their bodies and everything, but Death isn’t taking them away—”
“Then that means they’re queueing up here,” said the Dean.
“With nowhere to go.”
“Not just people,” said the Senior Wrangler. “It must be everything. Every thing that dies.”
“Filling up the world with life force,” said Ridcully. The wizards were speaking in a monotone, everyone’s mind running ahead of the conversation to the distant horror of the conclusion.
“Hanging around with nothing to do,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
“Ghosts.”
“Poltergeist activity.”
“Good grief.” 60
“Hang on, though,” said the Bursar, who had managed to catch up with events. “Why should that worry us? We don’t have anything to fear from the dead, do we? After all, they’re just people who are dead. They’re just ordinary people. People like us.”
The wizards thought about this. They looked at one another. They started to shout, all at once.
No one remembered the bit about suitable candidates.