I live in a trailer park next to a sprawling cemetery. When the zombie apocalypse goes down, I’ll be relying on my better-armed neighbors on the north side of the park to slow the onslaught while my sweetie and I escape. On a recent stroll through that cemetery recently, I noticed a few things, and it got me to thinking more about what I would want etched in stone above the small patch of real estate reserved in my name that no one was ever allowed to use for any productive purpose.

I passed one monument, dark marble, with text in a script I was unsure of. Fun and curly letters, but I could tell it was a poem. In my imagination, I was looking at a verse from beyond the grave, an insight into the nature of the afterlife.

Soon after I passed an equally magnificent monument etched with the words “We will miss you.” Frankly, this inscription annoyed me. Clearly this message is not intended for the rotting corpse in the ground; this is a resolution by those still above-ground to honor the dead so that when their time comes, perhaps they will be remembered as well. If the spirit interred therein could read the words, it could also discern the truth of them.

I think, perhaps, my most lasting published words will be what’s carved in the stone over the patch of lawn my corpse commands. The title of this episode refers to a painting I once saw in the Louvre, and while scholars and people who know latin may disagree, my simple, naïve interpretation of the scene, where people are reading the words on the stone is, “I used to live here, too,” or in modern lingo, “I had a life, love, passions and fears, just like you. And now here I am.” An entirely appropriate memento mori from dead to the living. (Scholars go on about death existing even in utopia and shit like that. I respect scholars, and maybe the painter was over-thinking things, but my answer is better.)

A brief aside for art criticism: It’s funny, in my recollection of the scene, how small the people were, dwarfed by the world around them. The image in my head is, apparently, a departure from the actual work. Perhaps there was another pastoral scene nearby in the museum that tied itself to the same memory. And researching the thing on wikipedia now, I’m a lot less impressed. Too much nearsightedness and pointing. “Holy shit, Marge! Get a load of this one! Makes you think, don’t it?”

So what will my stone say, should I even rate such a monument? It depends on circumstances, but I think the message must come from me. Don’t carve messages to me in the stone; I won’t be able to read them.

For your reading pleasure I have a few modest candidates here. It’s good to plan your last words in advance.

The first is dependent on the manner of my demise:

Simple honesty can be compelling:

Which is a variation of:

Then again, being dead, maybe you know something your readers don’t. Vague prophecy is popular in some circles, and hey, it keeps you in the game, at least until five years after the big event:

Or perhaps the mystical powers of the departed can be put to more mundane use:

In a similar vein, if Arnold Schwarzenegger’s headstone does not say the following, I demand a full inquiry:

Finally, it might be my last chance to advertise:

It’s a fun game, thinking about what your final, enduring words might be. And although some of these ideas are silly, that’s all right. In fact, it’s better than all right. Dispense with the usual platitudes and seize your chance to shape how you will be thought of long after anyone who knew you is gone. And maybe make some stranger’s day while you’re at it.

1

Sweet!

Thanks!

Talk talk talk sex escape talk talk hippies lecture drugs talk talk talking while dong things end.

To expand on that a bit:

Talk, talk, talk. There is a sizable chunk of Dave Van Arnam’s Starmind that takes place in a single room, with most of the characters unable to move. There’s just talking. Then the Tylerbody (the shorthand used for the three personalities all sharing one body) bangs the hot nurse (with Joe at the controls; Jailyn has a bit of trouble with this part), and then literally minutes later is rescued from the clutches of the Evil Dr. Brian.

Tylerbody blinks Tylereyes and whistles with Tylerlips. It is a creative solution to the impossibility of finding an adequate pronoun for the multimind. Creative, perhaps, but not very good. Later, when the personalities experience moments of great union, THEY see through THEIR eyes and learn about THEMSELF. I found MYSELF glancing ahead to see how long these all-cap pronouns were going to last.

There are some fun parts along the way — for instance the book, written in 1969, credits the Beatles’ music from the 1980’s (their ‘middle years’) with helping to spark a global cultural revolution. Alas, that revolution petered out after global biological warfare killed half the population of Earth, but the country folk (or as I call them, ‘hippies’) have been carrying on.

Meanwhile, up in space, the giant asteroids that have been outfitted with pseudogravitic multiwave generators haven’t up to this point accomplished much except cost a lot and suck down gigantic amounts of power. Think of them as super-huge microwave ovens that don’t really heat things up very well. But as the three minds become more integrated they realize something: Those microwave ovens will work better than anyone ever imagined, if only the right person were to stick THEIR head in it. So THEY do. And it’s awesome.

And thus mankind is given the stars, as long as they can construct just the right three-brained people to stick their heads in the microwaves. And, as no other intelligence has come up with the idea of merging people’s brains and sticking them in gigantic, inefficient, microwave ovens, mankind goes on to rule the galaxy. But that, we are told, is another story. Maybe one without so much talking in it.

1

Sweet!

Thanks!

So here’s the thing. I actually hit the “publish” button on Knives episode 18 a few days ago. And immediately had second thoughts. I was confident in the story, but not so much in the mechanics. So I didn’t tell anyone.

At least one faithful reader found the chapter anyway, and I’m flattered by the enthusiasm. But over the last few days I’ve been subtly betterizing the episode. Hat tip here to my proofreader for this episode, who didn’t sign up for the job but still accepted the role gracefully.

In revisionist history news, I added two words to episode 13. “Trust me.” The aforementioned proofreader might better be dubbed “editor”.

Looking toward the future, episode 19 is having an identity crisis. There are the simple things that must happen, and there’s the who-knows-what-when question. I just wrote an exchange that I’ll probably delete tomorrow. I have to remind myself that everything that happens in episode 19 is in service of episode 20. Because in 20, shit gets real.

Shut up and let me read!

Sweet!

Thanks!