In the Realm of Death walks a creature with an unpronounceable name. He severs your mortal cord in his realm and you die in yours. Revelations describes him as the fourth horseman of the apocalypse riding his pale horse. The Grim Reaper, The ferryman, he has many names depending on your religion. The truth of the matter is his name cannot be spoken with a human tongue for he was doing his reaping long before humans inhabited this world.

The reaper system has been working since time began, and working perfectly, Until now; the turn of the twenty first century.  The youngest of the three gods of death has decided to change the system. This change could bring on Armageddon. This change could doom humankind. As I've already said his name is unpronounceable; I call him Atkinson and you already have had dealings with this beast. You know that feeling when you are falling in your sleep, and you wake just before you hit the ground. That is Atkinson twanging your mortal cord that one day he will cut in his realm and you will die in yours.

***

John Smith woke from yet another night of broken sleep, his pillow wet with perspiration, the quilt at the foot of the bed. His nocturnal journey from bedtime until waking used to be simple: he slept; he woke. That had been the way of things for the past twenty-two years, but not anymore.

Today was Tuesday, but it was destined to be like no other Tuesday he had ever drudged through before. He rose from the bed and struggled to fasten his dressing gown. After the day’s first technical breakthrough, he stood there with his dressing gown tied perfectly and his brown carpet slippers on his feet. With a familiar feeling of dread for the oncoming hours, until he returned to his bed, he made his way into the sterile kitchen. Switching the kettle on, he made his way into the bathroom, and there it was, that same grey face looking back through the mirror. After the growth of Monday’s hours was shaved from his chin, face washed and hair combed, he looked back in the mirror and there it was, that same grey face staring back at him.

Having eaten his cornflakes and drunk his Earl Grey, he put on the clothes that Atkinson, Atkinson and Dewhirst, the accountancy firm he worked for, demanded—grey two-piece suit, white shirt, and the obligatory grey tie—then made his way down the stairs from his top flat at Number 3 Lindale Mews.

Opening his umbrella, he ventured out into the cold, raining December morning.

The crows seemed to be crowing, “Work! Work!”, and a solitary magpie cackled. “Why was it always one magpie, never two, or four, always one for sorrow” he thought to himself. The one magpie certainly matched his mood as he mounted the Number 12 bus to take him to the city.

The Number 12 was on time and delivered him to his desk by 08:30. He ran the gauntlet of the younger go-getting, upwardly – mobile employees, who took great delight in making his working life a misery. The female members of staff showed him the same amount of contempt as any woman he had ever met; and the bosses simply ignored him. The only reason he was still there was because of one account, and the people who owned that account insisted that he alone deal with it. He didn’t know why this was; he had dealt with this account from his very first day, twenty-two years ago this Christmas, and by a strange coincidence, that was the very day the account started.

Atkinson's Administration on Amazon US or Atkinson's Administration on Amazon UK

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