deadman.html


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<h1 class="title">Dead man</h1>


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<p><span class="line">The dead man finds <a href="last-bastion.html">his way into our hearts</a></span><span class="line">by <a href="words-meaning.html">opening the door</a> and walking in.</span></p>
<p><span class="line">He pours himself <a href="ex-machina.html">a drink</a>, something like</span><span class="line">German cognac, from the mini-bar. He starts talking</span></p>
<p><span class="line">aimlessly about hunting or some bats he saw</span><span class="line">on the way over, wheeling around each other</span></p>
<p><span class="line">like <a href="x-ray.html">x-rays</a> around bones and soft tissue.</span><span class="line">The dead man can see x-rays now, he says,</span></p>
<p><span class="line">a perk of his <a href="initial-conditions.html">condition</a>.</span><span class="line">It’s not so bad, he says, though</span></p>
<p><span class="line">he stops short of saying it’s as good as</span><span class="line">being alive, an omission we can, ultimately,</span></p>
<p><span class="line">forgive. There’s <a href="creation-myth.html">a short silence</a> where nothing</span><span class="line">is said, we’re just looking at him as he looks</span></p>
<p><span class="line">at the ceiling or through it. He looks good</span><span class="line">for being dead. We mention this to him</span></p>
<p><span class="line">but he just looks embarrassed. He mentions</span><span class="line">eels he saw in the aquarium earlier, how they knot</span></p>
<p><span class="line">while mating. For hours, it’s just a huge mass</span><span class="line">of <a href="spittle.html">eel flesh, he says, undulating in the water</a>.</span></p>
<p><span class="line">We nod, waiting for what he’ll say next. He seems</span><span class="line">uncomfortable carrying the conversation, but we</span></p>
<p><span class="line">can’t think of anything either. Now it’s his turn</span><span class="line">to look at us, and <a href="moongone.html">ours to stare at the ceiling</a></span></p>
<p><span class="line">or wherever. Finally, we mention the knots we tied</span><span class="line">in Boy Scouts, especially the loop—a noose? he asks—</span></p>
<p><span class="line">but we say no, the one with the rabbit in its hole</span><span class="line">and the tree it goes around. The dead man</span></p>
<p><span class="line">knows that knot, he says, it’s a good knot. But what</span><span class="line">he really likes is the rabbit, coming out of its hole</span></p>
<p><span class="line">in the morning, eating some grass, and a fox creeping</span><span class="line">out of its hiding place and chasing the rabbit around</span></p>
<p>the tree, back into its hole, where it always ends up safe.</p>
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