The Monday Monologue

Breath’s harder to catch today. I sag against the nearest solid something.

“We are born an ossuary, my boy, an ossuary!”

I look up. “Sorry, do you want to use this?” I see my support is a solid something with no other use.

“You know how absurd all this... this dressing is?”

Half pointing, half waving at... the Ramones T-shirt?

“Heaving, pulsing lumps, pumps and bellows all waiting to falter and fail us. Threads fraying, pipes clogging. All those moulded clods slowly wasting until they’re nothing but rags clinging to the wire.”

It’s not the Ramones T-shirt. He’s air-moulding imaginary clods. I’m still trying to remember what an ossuary is.

“’The human body begins to die as soon as it is born and carries itself the causes of its destruction.’ An ossuary we are born. A helpless, mewling sack of our own compound remains. A host for the bones we birth when the matter desiccates and the putrid cloak flakes and falls away. We are all of us mothers to terrifying offspring.”

Now I remember what an ossuary is. I’m less sure about desiccation. He places a hand on my shoulder.

“And I’m too old now to pretend it doesn’t frighten me.”

The Monday Monologue

He smiles sadly and walks away. A staff member tells me he’s in every Monday with a new monologue. He’s very hard to get rid of apparently.

“We are born an ossuary, my girl, an ossuary!”

I decide to visit the gym on Tuesdays instead and drag my aching ossuary to the showers. I make a mental note to remind my wife to cremate me if I’m the first to go.