Tevun-Krus #106 - Best of '22

Gestation of the End - A BugPunk Story by @WilliamJJackson

​Gestation of the End

by WilliamJJackson

(dedicated to Cemetery Confessions Podcast and talkdeath.com)

After waking from a dream about talking word stones I knew I had to assail Uncle Nothing with a most pertinent question.

"What were cemeteries?" I posed as we sat atop Where The Hill Is Crowned. I liked it best up there. The sweetgrass scent eased the mind into peaceful tranquility while smoke cicadas meditated at 112 decibels.

"Harumph?" His usual response to big inquiries. Goofy old, frumpy Uncle To Do Nothing. He cascaded from sitting cross-legged to lying on his back, watching Glossy Bleak, nebula womb, above fail to snatch up our world. Sizzle green-orange glitter fingers from the Creator.

I preferred to observe the fireflies circle and jockey their way up the hill, skirting over the sweetgrass, lighting up the scaly knots of jumbletherm trees. "Uncle! You're dodging again."

"Who, me? Perish the thought? Hold on now. Can thoughts perish? Now there's a question worth asking. Besides, you could call up a Mind. Skeedah! Every answer you could ever want in seconds. Give it the dumb questions. Why do I gotta get the dumb ones?"

"You think I don't know that?" I considered all his words. "The Mind part, not the dumb question crack. I mean, you saw at least one, yeah? You were there, right? You were born on Earth. So, I figure, you have to know how they worked. They were all over?"

He rolled over and turned his back to me, like always. Old pudge couldn't stop clowning if you paid him to. He let out a synthetic sigh and hummed his way into an explanation. "I come all this way for this. Fine. It started a long time ago, when people were covered in insects, but not in a friendly way. Bedbugs. Mites. Fleas. Oh boy, fleas were something else! But anyway, people had always died. It's sorta our thing, you know? Animals do it all-natural, dignified. They get killed in combat, or lie down and face it in the shadows, but it looks very regal. Except for plagues. Those were...something else. But anyways, most people were tripping around trying to avoid the big D. We were drama queens. Gotta catch a new disease, even make one in a lab and...whoops! Broke the petri! All fall down."

"I know how death works," I groaned as a cricket, big as my hand and shaded an irradiated yellow-green, hopped onto my thigh. I stroked its back. The data exchange began.

"Sure you do, Neph, but you wanted a story, you get a story. And no better story than 'Dumb Ways People Died'. Falling on swords, sometimes on purpose, never could figure that one out. Choking to death on a good meal was just as understandable and a good way to see yourself out as it was embarrassing. Let's see now, vehicular accidents chopped off a lotta heads. Sex! So many losers were praying to die underneath some hot thing but yeah, picture that..."

"Uncle," I stated with a cold efficiency as if I was still back in my Dimensional Mathematics course wishing Professor Stardust would just get on with it. Meanwhile, cricket showed me the error of my ways. Lacrosse moves strung out generationally, perfect motion captured as wisdom. My brain sucked it in. She knew what I needed. Next game I would be fire. She got an extra back rub and a protein chip for the assist. My aura blushed cool teal gratitude.

"What?" Uncle played dumb. "Anyways," his hand attacked me, messing up my already uncombed flaxen hair, "Death got 'em good. So good. Seemed to dodge the rich often. They lived into old age, most of 'em. I knew a guy I worked for back in the day. Had every organ replaced. Half his brain, too. Called him Prop for fun, behind his back. Didn't wanna lose credits, you know? Prop was, what, hundred and eighty- three when he hired me. I went to his funeral like, forty years later. He knew how to kick it. Everybody else either missed the tricks once tech got real suave or just didn't care much for longevity, I guess. Babies died left and right. Lots of heartaches." He got quiet for a full four minutes. "But then things got better. For medicine. Not behaviors. Yeah. Bad behavior, lack of watchfulness, that's what did 'em in by the billions. People have always been dirt right up until they degraded into dirt."