The Man Who Missed His Death

On the morning appointed for his death, Mr. Qiao overslept.

This was not, in itself, unusual. He had overslept promotions, weddings, tax notices, one excellent revolution, and the birth of his second daughter. But death had always been described to him as punctual, stern, and impossible to ignore. It was disappointing, then, to wake at ten thirty-seven to find no hooded figure, no angelic clerk, not even a note tucked under the teacup.

He dressed carefully out of respect.

At noon, the doorbell rang. On the porch stood a young woman with a leather satchel and the face of someone employed by an office that believed deeply in stamps.

"Mr. Qiao?" she asked.

"Regrettably," he said.

"I am here regarding your scheduled death at nine fifteen this morning."

"I was asleep."

She opened the satchel, consulted a blue form, and frowned with professional sorrow. "Yes. We have that. Failure to attend one's own ending. Common enough after seventy. You may file for reassignment."

"Do many people do that?"

"Most ask for an extension. A few ask for clarification. One man requested a matinee slot."

Mr. Qiao invited her in. He made tea. She accepted, though she looked like a person forbidden by policy to enjoy anything.

"If I miss a dentist," he said, "they charge me. What does death do?"

"Usually? It reschedules itself. But there are shortages. Stars, traditions, extinct beetles, several empires. The department is busy."

He considered this. Outside, a delivery scooter coughed bravely at the curb. Somewhere in the building, a child practiced the violin with homicidal intention.

"I think," he said, "if death came all this way and found me asleep, it might feel insulted."

The young woman looked up as if she had never considered death's emotional life. "Perhaps."

"Then let us be courteous. Put me down for tomorrow. Early afternoon. Not before breakfast."

She wrote this carefully.

When she had gone, Mr. Qiao watered the plants, called his daughters, and mended a shirt he would no longer need. That evening he walked to the river. The ducks looked temporary, the clouds reusable. He felt, not cheerful exactly, but included.

The next day he died on time, with his shoes polished and a biscuit in his pocket for the journey.

Three months later, a boy in another city woke from a fever and asked for tea in a voice uncannily like Mr. Qiao's.