The Wit & Wisdom of Discworld - By Terry Pratchett Page 0,66

of History, who store it and pump it from the places where it’s wasted (like Underwater – how much time does a codfish need?) to places like cities, where there’s never enough time.

But the construction of the world’s first truly accurate clock starts a race against, well, time for Lu-Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd. Because it will stop time. And that will only be the start of everyone’s problems.

Complete with a full supporting cast of heroes and villains, yetis, martial artists and Ronnie, the fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse (who left before they became famous).

‘She has told me everything,’ said Wen. ‘I know that time was made for men, not the other way round. I have learned how to shape it and bend it. I know how to make a moment last for ever, because it already has. And I can teach these skills even to you, Clodpool. I have heard the heartbeat of the universe. I know the answers to many questions. Ask me.’

The apprentice gave him a bleary look.

‘Er … what does master want for breakfast?’ he said.

Wen looked down from their camp and across the snowfields and purple mountains to the golden daylight creating the world, and mused upon certain aspects of humanity.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘One of the difficult ones.’

*

This is the desk of a professional. It is clear that their job is their life. There are … human touches, but these are the human touches that strict usage allows in a chilly world of duty and routine.

Mostly they’re on the only piece of real colour in this picture of blacks and greys. It’s a coffee mug. Someone somewhere wanted to make it & jolly mug. It bears a rather unconvincing picture of a teddy bear, and the legend ‘To The World’s Greatest Grandad’ and the slight change in the style of lettering on the word ‘Grandad’ makes it clear that this has come from one of those stalls that have hundreds of mugs like this, declaring that they’re for the world’s greatest Grandad/Dad/Mum/Granny/Uncle/ Aunt/Blank. Only someone whose life contains very little else, one feels, would treasure a piece of gimcrackery like this.

*

They were not lifeforms. They were … non-lifeforms. They were the observers of the operation of the universe, its clerks, its auditors. They saw to it that things spun and rocks fell.

And they believed that for a thing to exist it had to have a position in time and space. Humanity had arrived as a nasty shock. Humanity practically was things that didn’t have a position in time and space, such as imagination, pity, hope, history and belief. Take those away and all you had was an ape that fell out of trees a lot.

Intelligent life was, therefore, an anomaly. It made the filing untidy. The Auditors hated things like that.

*

Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.

*

Lobsang heard the dojo master say: ‘Dojo! What is Rule One?’

‘Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men!’

*

If children were weapons, Jason would have been banned by international treaty. Jason had doting parents and an attention span of minus several seconds, except when it came to inventive cruelty to small furry animals, when he could be quite patient. Jason kicked, punched, bit and spat. His artwork had even frightened the life out of Miss Smith, who could generally find something nice to say about any child. He was definitely a boy with special needs. In the view of the staffroom, these began with an exorcism.

Madam Frout had stooped to listening at the keyhole. She had heard Jason’s first tantrum of the day, and then silence. She couldn’t quite make out what Miss Susan said next.

When she found an excuse to venture into the classroom half an hour later, Jason was helping two little girls to make a cardboard rabbit.

Later his parents said they were amazed at the change, although apparently now he would only go to sleep with the light on.

*

‘What precisely was it you wanted, madam?’ she said. ‘It’s just that I’ve left