last words (joolz denby)

If I should die, think only this of me......


I didn't snuff it from an infected midge bite in some corner of a foreign field, but from having my lights punctured by a starving knifeman in Rio who spilt my claret for the sake of a pearlised silver plastic mugger trap wallet and a pair of gold sleepers from Ratners. Dead, dead, and only the cat ever called me Mother.
As my lily-draped catafalque sways down Leeds Road bearing its tragic burden, the air rent by the howling cries of the grieving throng, dwell momentarily on my sterling qualities: those shining attributes that stood me head and shoulders (literally) above the heaving, sweating melee of the common herd, that pustulant excrescence that we laughingly dub 'humanity'.... think of my all-encompassing guilt, my savage megalomania, the ready tears, the readier sarcasm, that whip-like tongue ever happy to lash the unfortunate and insufferable fool and last, but by no means least, the temper... ah! Remember its super nova flare, a bright flash searing all in its path then burning out in a millisecond leaving only a crumpled me sobbing over the ashy remains.
Yes, think of me, oh horseman riding by; rein up your malevolent, wall-eyed lump of equine devilmeat and cogitate upon this scarlet haired witch queen, this tattooed termagant, this five-year-old teddy bear with an attitude problem....
Remember me, the monster of my own creation, the phantom at the feast; the grey-eyed looker-on, soft, warm, cuddly with muscle and woman fat, fragrant with fresh sweat and expensive soap, snotty, tired and spotty, the farting, coughing hag grasping at the fleeing years with iron claws, no better and no worse than the worst and the best.
I had beautiful hands and feet. I breathed the air that you breathe now, you are breathing my last exhaled breath; I will never die because I will never be forgotten entirely.
I loved you with all the fierce and savage love of the unwanted child. I loved you as I stared in your lighted windows from the cold streets. I loved you and wrote about you with some skill and a great deal of passion. I drew your faces, wizened, beautiful, taut-skinned or fleshy. I died as you will, a testament to mortality..... and for the sake of my ghost, don't bury me in Bradford....