I DIE
BY KEVIN HYDE
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While walking down the street, casually swinging my arms and listening to music on my walkman, I am struck by a tendril of lightning. The headphones are charred into my skull, necessitating a closed-casket funeral. My family weeps; ex-girlfriends rend their hair and clothes, wondering why oh why they didn’t stay with me. Sony buys the autopsy photos to demonstrate (in-house) the durability of their audio gear. When a bug of exotic size and ugliness flies into my eye, spreading pollen from some poisonous flora into my membranes. At night, when I am asleep, the flower somehow grows and blooms asexually, the roots imbedding themselves in my brain and the blossoms springing forth from my pupils. I am found like this. The bouquet is astounding. After opening a can of soda which was found to contain no liquid: a dead can. However, the can is left out overnight, releasing its invisible caffeine-absence gas into the ventilation system. Turns out that one part per million is lethal. I inhale ninety-two thousand separate parts. My brain congeals. My blood turns to pudding. I am quiche. In bed, surrounded and mourned by cats named after
pre-Socratic philosophers. It is unexpected, and shocking.
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B R A V E S O U L S R E C E I V E
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