Read Managing Death for Free Online

his bloody hand, and I grip it.
    And then.
    Tim’s eyes widen, in sync with mine, and we realise what we are about to do. Both of us struggle, but the ceremony is driving our limbs now. There are no brakes that we can apply to this.
    We slam the knives point first into each other’s chest.

4
    I die for a heartbeat then.
    So does Tim. I can feel it.
    I cry out, but my lips don’t move. The air tightens around us. The One Tree’s creaking becomes a roaring. Great dark shapes loom and cackle. Then, out of nowhere, I see the Kurilpa Bridge. Its tangle of masts and wires. Mount Coot-tha rising in the north-west. Lightning cracks, a luminous finger trailing down.
    And then the knives are back in our hands, bloodless. The wounds gone.
    Sometimes I would like a job that involved less stabbing.
    Tim coughs, his fingers scramble desperately over his chest. ‘What the fuck was that?’ He waves the stone knife in my face. ‘Christ. Christ!
Christ!
’ I snap my head backwards to avoid losing my nose.
    Then he seems to realise what he is doing, breathes deeply, slowly, in and out, and puts the knife down carefully on my desk, as though it’s a bomb.
    And it is, I suppose. I follow suit, and the knives mumble at the both of us. They sound happy.
    ‘Shit, I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It wasn’t what I was expecting.’
    ‘Wasn’t what you were expecting? What the hell were you expecting?’ Tim’s looking down at the front of his shirt.
    There’s no blood. I haven’t bothered checking, I’m an old hand at these sorts of things now.
    ‘No one told me that would happen, believe me. Not Mr D or Neti.’
    ‘I can see why.’ Tim drops into one of the chairs at my desk. He grins a little though, surprising me. ‘It was a bit of a rush.’
    ‘So Kurilpa,’ I say. ‘Yeah, the new pedestrian bridge.’
    Kurilpa Bridge sits on the curving Brisbane River just on the edge of the CBD. It’s a wide footbridge; steel masts rise from its edges like a scattering of knitting needles, and between them are strung thick cables. You either love it or hate it.
    Can’t say that I love it.
    ‘How do you hold a Death Moot on a bridge?’ I move to sit in my throne, shaking my head. The moment my arse touches the chair the black phone on my desk rings. I jump then look from the phone to Tim.
    ‘Well, I’m not answering it,’ he says.
    I snatch it up.
    This is no regular phone call. Down the line a bell is tolling, distant and deep. I keep waiting for some slamming guitar riff to start up.
    Instead a thin voice whispers, ‘You have engaged us, across the peaks and troughs of time. And we will serve you.’
    There’s a long pause.
    ‘Thank you,’ I say at last.
    ‘We are coming,’ the voice says. ‘The bridge has been marked with your blood. The bridge has been marked and we are coming. Oh, and there will be a set menu. And canapés.’
    The line goes dead.
    ‘They’re coming,’ I say, looking at the handset.
    ‘Who?’ Tim looks at me blankly.
    ‘The Caterers.’
    ‘Excellent,’ Tim says, taking this whole being-stabbed-in-the-chest thing very well.
    ‘Oh, and there will be canapés.’
    ‘As long as there aren’t any of those little sandwiches, then I’m happy.’
    ‘But when do these guys arrive? I forgot to ask.’
    ‘That I know,’ Tim says. ‘Four days from now. We’ll take them out to the bridge then.’ He gets to his feet. ‘Well, that’s that. The Death Moot has begun. Pub?’
    I shake my head. ‘You and Lissa are right,’ I say. ‘I need to start actually being here. I need to make sure that I’m ready.’ I pick up the knives. ‘And I need to get these back to Aunt Neti. They’re much too dangerous to leave lying around.’
    Tim grins at me. ‘Nice to have you back.’

    There’s an angry bruise on the horizon when I get home. It’s six o’clock and a storm is coming. I feel virtuous, and pleased that, after two visits in one day, I won’t have to speak to Aunt Neti for some time. The