No Flowers

I would like the cross-section of a piece of Sicilian Easter pie, taganu d'aragona, as a tattoo on my arm, and I'd like to have a stained old piece of parchment paper with the recipe. When I make mini-quartered ones to test it out next spring, I'm going to substitute a (slightly) more common sheep's milk cheese, like caciocavallo. I'm sure I'll make the meatballs too tough, so I'll try not to. I'm probably going to use ditali instead of rigatoni because I'd rather fall from a green awning on a quaint little cobblestone sidestreet trying to fix a gutter. The ice from the winter made it that way, screamed an old aunt. Everyone rushed around holding towels. Rosa knocked over a wooden chair as she lunged for a box of bandages. A few jars of lentils spilled out onto the floor. One of them fell off the table and shattered. All the men tried to straighten me out on the ground, it made sense I guess.

I had broken my neck though, so in some ways bandages and a makeshift gurney really didn't help. All the blood from my heart gushed into places blood doesn't belong in the human neck because a couple vertebrae had punctured a major artery and tore half a dozen muscles and fat tissue. I coughed and squirmed unconsciously, and my blood started to trickle onto the street. At first it filed dutifully around each stone in the recessed paths that outline each stone. After a few seconds the blood poured over onto the (mostly) smooth surface of the cobblestones. I have B negative blood, and I don't recall but I don't think blood type affects the color of blood, it's probably all the oxyhemoglobularization and whatnot.

My brain let me think of a few things as I lay there about to die. For one, it let me think about the situation, which I quickly accessed as quite bad. Under less severe circumstances, I think the pain and the realization would've knocked me out or caused me to lose control of my bladder. But this was a difficult time. I had about twenty seconds of thoughts before I passed. As I mentioned, I spent the first twelve seconds panicking about all the blood and the frantic people and the feeling of complete detachment from everything below my chin. In retrospect it was foolish to spend 60% of the rest of my life worrying about dying. I mean I think 10-15% would've been a more reasonable portion.

That way, I could've used nine whole seconds thinking about [my most basic pleasures: soup, egg sandwiches, listening to loud music, gingerbread lattes, relaxing with [the golden girl of my dreams], etc.]. Then! I could've used about three seconds to think about things I've never done, like climb Mt. Everest, watch Star Wars, figure out why people believe that soccer is fun, or take a picture with Bruce/Rafa/Jamie/Dave.

I don't really know how the last five seconds would play out. I don't think you can plan that. My guess would be that I'd think something idiotic like, "hey I never gave so and so a chance." Or, "Rosa is so stupid what is that stupid towel going to do my backbone is sticking out of my shoulder." Or, "Dear God, please send me to heaven even though I [the big sins]."

I'm a big fan of "what went on while" another event happened. I guess it's a little ironic. That presupposes that I would've described something like, ahem, then the blood trickled down the small street in the direction of the coast, where [XX] and [XY] embraced serenely.

I should take this out now. It's almost ready.