What You Think About When You're Buried Alive (1432 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.82 on 33 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Spenny (View user info) at 2008-12-13 20:42:55 EST
David woke up not with a start, as you never really wake up with a start from a sleep that deep, but rather with a much slower realization that crept through the reptilian portions of his brain, those that regulated his dribbling pulse and respiration. He wouldn't, then, have encountered the box around him as a kind of surprise, comically reaching his hand up to soothe his forehead only to mash it against the soft satin lid. He was, rather, aware of the box perhaps sooner than he had been aware of himself; the hazy, sightless sensations returning to him slowly. He would have been aware of the box before he was aware that he was wearing a nice suit with no back. He would have become aware of his limited movement long before he could realize just how soft his bed was. How, David maybe thinks, Did I fall between the wall and the bed? Or maybe he asks himself, Did I pass out inside a trunk? No, the memory has to return before David can remember the slick road, the car crash, and the hospital, and the horrible conclusion. This line of reasoning a person in David's position might not be able to work out fully before the lack of oxygen puts them back down without their ever knowing just where they were.
David didn't have that luxury. The wax encompassing his senses melted in steady, quickening rivulets, and soon enough his wits were back with him enough to realize he was six feet under, and he shuffled, and he remembered the joke he had always told. He had told it mostly to his students, but only because he had more students than friends and family. Anyone who knew David long enough would have heard him tell it, and they would have giggled if not because it were funny, if only because it was So True about Their David.
"When I'm buried," the small, bookish man had always started the joke, smiling to telegraph the jovial nature of the introduction, "there's always that small chance that perhaps I wasn't really dead after all." The joke would pause, and the professor, the husband, the friend would let the effect soak into his listeners' spirits. Their moods would dampen, their faces becoming serious next to David's wry grin. "In the old times, they would run a string into the coffin connected to a bell, and should a person awaken, they would simply ring the bell to be saved, thus the phrase." He would say, and maybe puff on a pipe that he held purely for effect. Satisfying the educational requirements of his tale, he would then continue on, "But I won't ask somebody to sit by my gravestone until you're all convinced I'm really gone. I wouldn't want to put anyone out of their way. No, in case I wake up when I'm dead, I just want you guys to bury three things with me: A flashlight, my reading glasses, and a very, very short story."
David had back every sense but sight, the memory of his joke quickening his slowed pulse. He clutched eagerly at his breast pocket, where he had always kept his glasses, but didn't find them there. His hand probed the coffin, gripping at the soft satin. He brought his trembling fingers toward his face and tapped his fingernail against the lenses, already in front of his eyes. His heart jumped, and his search of the coffin continued in earnest. Between his legs he found the flashlight and blinded himself when he turned it on, instinctively clicking it off before turning it back on and adjusting to the light, slowly, painfully.
With the light on, and between painful pools that floated in his eyes, he could see the book wedged between his feet. A struggle finally found the book into the professor's hands. It was old. Hard-back with no dust cover. This book had never had a dust cover. It was dirty with age, its papers yellow and spotted, it looked almost as if it had been buried long before.
There was just enough room in the coffin for the book to sit upright on David's chest. The cover was dingy, the words having almost been rubbed right off by dozens or hundreds of palms. Best American Fiction.
He opened the brittle pages to a spot marked with a ribbon. His tired eyes adjusted slowly to the small, ancient type. The first words, the biggest on the page, were the first to come into focus. He recognized neither title nor author.
His chest was already beginning to rise laboriously when the finer edges and lines of the classic font came into definition, his eyes fighting with the oncoming lightness in his head. Sweat formed in beads on his forehead, and his throat felt a little tighter with each indulgent breath. He turned the delicate, printed leaf.
Small type, two pages long. Three minutes to read, and the remainder to consider it.
User Reviews
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2008-12-19 19:00:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Good.
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2008-12-16 22:21:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Interesting, hmm, yes, very.
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2008-12-16 09:00:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
its a nice idea
Submitted by RoadSong (user info) at 2008-12-15 17:21:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2008-12-15 14:21:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
not too shabby.
lol @ shitfuck's review.
Submitted by sweetcheebs (user info) at 2008-12-15 14:04:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This makes me feel like I'd be ok if I were buried alive.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-12-15 08:16:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent bit of writing.
It's good to see that Spooner is alive and well.
Submitted by czwij (user info) at 2008-12-15 08:08:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2008-12-14 10:17:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This story could be that story.
--------------------
no, couldn't be. that story has already been done over there.
Submitted by shitfuck (user info) at 2008-12-15 01:25:23 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
uhhhhhh, good but crappy.
too much suck.
sorry, it was a good attempt.
Submitted by Spooner (user info) at 2008-12-15 00:48:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Haha that's a neat poem.
Submitted by Falafel (user info) at 2008-12-15 00:21:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
PLAGIARISM!! lulz
I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb.
And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead,
Then space began to toll
As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.
And then a plank in reason, broke,
And I dropped down and down--
And hit a world at every plunge,
And finished knowing--then--
- Emily Dickenson
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2008-12-15 00:08:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Nyrea (user info) at 2008-12-14 23:40:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-12-14 21:54:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TechnoRatty (user info) at 2008-12-14 18:49:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
yep, so I'll make sure this story is buried with me then.
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-12-14 16:23:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DeathJester (user info) at 2008-12-14 15:40:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuck being buried alive, cremation all the way.
You can't come back from an urn.
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2008-12-14 15:05:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Chroniclysm (user info) at 2008-12-14 14:49:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'll probably think about this post, and be really fucking pissed that I don't have a bell or a book. Mostly the bell.
Submitted by SilvrWolf (user info) at 2008-12-14 13:23:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by RestrictionsApply (user info) at 2008-12-14 11:58:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2008-12-14 10:17:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This story could be that story.
Submitted by beer-turtle (user info) at 2008-12-14 09:40:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I enjoyed this. I could see the poor chap in my head.
-B
Submitted by locksly (user info) at 2008-12-14 05:45:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I think he would have been better off with the bell
Submitted by Spooner (user info) at 2008-12-14 04:48:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Doodles -
Too Long; Didn't Read
Submitted by TheBrad (user info) at 2008-12-14 04:46:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Sick, twisted, but somehow calming. The flavor of death is sweet in this story.
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2008-12-14 00:28:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2008-12-11 23:49:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
you're my favorite queer.
just thought you should know.
P.S. I don't know what Tl;DR means.
but then I don't really care.
Submitted by polyamorousaj (user info) at 2008-12-13 23:06:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm going to set aside some time to read this later. I'm glad you're back. <3
Submitted by Spooner (user info) at 2008-12-13 21:51:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I think it was something else when I used to come here.
On the rest of the internet it's usually TL;DR.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-12-13 21:25:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
:)
Submitted by mystiamoon (user info) at 2008-12-13 21:22:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm not up to date on my Uber slang but I think it's
WTF I'm not reading All That.
You probably knew that , but just in case :)
Submitted by Spooner (user info) at 2008-12-13 21:10:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No idea what that means, man, sorry.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-12-13 20:57:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
WTFINRAT.
:)