Postmortemism – Chapter 1
Postmortemism: The Narcoleptic’s Guide to Necrophilia in the 21st Century: A Rebuttal of the Buttressed Post
Dedicated to Rip Van Winkle, the one who overslept
I am by day a no-frills choir boy who can smell the scent of a lilac 30 years in the making and 50 more in the grave. I am by night a triceratops riddled with catheters, scraped and shaven and left face down in the bay. I am a hypercondensed tab of psyllium seed husks, a Neolithic gentlewoman who has renounced her fortune and his fate. I am a draconic gameshow host with an appetite for jaywalking swamis, a beacon for the Western Prince. I am the immaculate exception.
Have you ever read a book with 41 chapters?
I am president-elect of all salmon-wielding fish mongrels, each one an expert in his field, a gloating homunculus suspended in seven irradiated stasis tubes, and I will not abdicate until the wind grants my growling wishes. I am a best-selling novel submerged in a boiling cauldron of beef bouillon and banana leaf stew. I am callous and crude. I am a vector in your wad of chewing gum, the vertex in my very own bowl of soup.
Have you ever read a book made from 41 death-defying stumps?
I am the massive scar etched into St. Helen’s thigh. I am your accruing interest and your worst, most blasphemous daydreams. I am the unicorn’s horn resting gingerly on your bedside table. I am remembered by forgotten women who have never learned my name.
I am the weary servant of decadence. I am the fox, the coyote, the raven, the mantis, the lemur, the spider, the tortoise and the hare. I am the hunter and the hunted, the henpecked poacher. I am the given, and I am the lie.
January 27, 1094, off the southern ridge of Salamanca