Hogfather - Umbrella Stand

‘Oh, I will, I will.'

Susan fished the black scabbard out of the umbrella stand.

Umbrella stand! It never rained here, but Death had an umbrella stand. Practically no one else Susan knew had an umbrella stand. In any list of useful furniture, the one found at the bottom would be the umbrella stand.

Death lived in a black world, where nothing was alive and everything was dark and his great library only had dust and cobwebs because he'd created them for effect and there was never any sun in the sky and the air never moved and he had an umbrella stand. And a pair of silverbacked hairbrushes by his bed.

He wanted to be something more than just a bony apparition. He tried to create these flashes of personality but somehow they betrayed themselves, they tried too hard, like an adolescent boy going out wearing an aftershave called 'Rampant'. Grandfather always got things wrong. He saw life from outside and never quite understood.

***

Hogfather - p232