Francois Boucher The Interrupted Sleep

Francois Boucher The Interrupted SleepFrancois Boucher Portrait of Marquise de PompadourFrancois Boucher Diana Resting after her Bath
There was one lifetimer left on Death’s desk. He stared at it.
Swivel, swivel. Swivel, swivel.
In the hall outside, the great clock ticked on, killing time. Death drummed his skeletal fingers on the desk’s scarred He raised the hourglass and watched the draining of Time. And then he paused. There was something he had to know. Bill Door had been curious about things, and he could remember everything about being Bill Door. He could look at emotions laid out like trapped butterflies, pinned on cork, under glass.
Bill Door was dead, or at least had ceased his brief woodwork. In front of him, stacked up with impromptu bookmarks in their pages, were the lives of some of the Discworld’s great lovers.* Their fairly repetitive experiences hadn’t been any help at all.He got up and stalked to a window and stared out at his dark domain, his hands clenching and unclenching behind his back.Then he snatched up the lifetimer and strode out of the room. Binky was waiting in the warm fug of the stables. Death saddled him quickly and led him out into the courtyard, and then rode up into the night, towards the distant glittering jewel of the Discworld. He touched down silently in the farmyard, at sunset.He drifted through a wall.He reached the foot of the stairs.