A hankering and a beanwatering
Beans watered on October 26, 2025.
I am dead.
“By the time you read this, I will be dead.” I’ve always wanted to say that. But I have been dead for weeks. So I guess I would never be able to. I snorted harrumphilly and went back to moldering away under the ground.
I wondered, with my life cut short by a carnivorous fungus, how many em-dashes and en-dashes (and even the rarer ell-dashes!) would the Universe now be deprived of witnessing? And what of my readers?—How would they get through their weeks without lovely prose—and even lovelier punctuation!—such as this—and this—and this? Inhumed many feet underground, my corpse being liquefied and sucked dry by this fungus, I began to despair.
Without my incessant bloggery, would Mike the Headless Chicken be now forgotten forever? I clucked forlornly and continued to despair.
I heard something bubbling and realized, my corpse had farted. I thought back to my previous life as a candle-taperer, a street-sweeper, a water clock–waterer, and even a computer. When the farting ceased, would I be reborn again into one of these exciting careers? Or would I just wake up as someone’s palace eunuch—or a concubine—again? Oh, how I kept on despairing.
The mad crisations of my big little redheaded huzzey-muffet when I fed her enough sweetcorn popped into my head right then. Then: Nurdlebutt sure was a good cat. Without me around to feed her, would she eat all the neighbors? With those images cavorting around in my noggin, I paused in my despair.
But I also knew that I no longer had Chloë Moretz’s feet to cast my gaze upon. It was dark down here and my eyeballs had rotted away weeks ago anyway (corneas and all!). I resumed my despairing. I despaired and despaired.
A sudden hankering for brevari gripped me then ¬ gripped me like a man trying to choke the life out of his own chicken. Then the hankering passed. But it was replaced with a longing—then a pining—then an ineffable desire once again to visit Llanfairpwllgwyngyll at least once before I died. But I was already dead. I couldn’t do anything before I died if I died already. So I nixed that idea. And…
I went back to moldering away some more. It was most peaceful.
I was out of my gourd but on my beanwater again, I realized right then. And was I ever off my beanwater? Even when I despair, I rejoice—and when I rejoice, I despair—for my gourd is divided into two hemispheres, each of which have a mind of their own. Ever since that turnpike came crashing down on my head back in ’86, that is. That mishap involved both a bottle of brevari and my old ornithopter. And now I was wondering where I left that ol’ bird. Yet…
I am dead. The dead do not wonder. The dead do not realize. But we do molder away.
I went back to moldering away.