Geoff and Naomi are dead, and they're depressed, but when Geoff's cat Bernie dies as well, they embark on a wild journey to find it in the underworld.
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When Geoff dies, along...
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"When we die, let's get buried in the same coffin and stay cuddling forever," you say into my neck as we lay buried in our doona.
This talk of death and coffins and rotting side-by-side doesn't surprise me considering your love of gore and affection.
I close my eyes and imagine our after-life, at first just hugging in the grave and then discovered, re-animated by undead workers from the world below.
They unhinge the coffin from underneath and unfold us still half-deceased down into the secret midnight rush of skeleton city.
We start a new life down there in a shack like this one, only made of dirt and fire and darkness; we lie in the rubble of the afterlife and kiss until our lips fall off.
You would turn to me as we lay in our skeleton bed, our bones entwined and say "I feel so ugly" and I would say "yours are the most beautiful remains I have ever seen".
The underworld has purple moons and ink black seas and the wine you drink is green and falls through the bones of your mouth; we wander the streets and drink our green wine until the sun sets beneath us.
(Yes, there is a sun deep inside the earth and it is just as bright as our sun but you don't have to worry about skin cancer because you have no skin and you are already dead).
We would swim drunk in the black swell of the underground ocean and the dust of starfish would sparkle around us and you would be the glitter queen.
Eventually, we pass out and our floating corpses wash up with all the other drunks on the beach to dry in the red morning sun.
We crawl home to sleep in the midday heat under the glow of our fire roof in our bone bed with our skeleton cat stretched out beside us.
Back in the dark of our living bed cave I turn to you and whisper, "yes, we can share a coffin", but you're already asleep. I press my hand against your chest to feel your heart, and I'm glad to feel it, for now we're alive, and the moon is cool and the crickets sing in the air outside, and this is the time to be thankful for skin and mouths and the great expanse of night.
