I simply could not die!
I had to save myself, I had to try,
So I quickly got out my needle and thread
Sewing like a maniac - I’d have to be quick or I’d be dead.
The thoughts were racing through my head:
Sew! Sew! Sew! Till my neck is sealed and the blood flows no more.
It worked and I stood, relieved, in a pool of blood on the floor.

Now, my task: my raison d’etre, as they say:
To the cattery to give my money away.
I felt so crazy, feeling ill,
So with paper in hand I scribbled my will:
“To the cattery all my money must go, of this I must stress:
All fifty pence of it, not a penny less.
All my worldly possessions must go there too:
My lump of coal and my old and tattered shoe.
I’d give more if I had it, but I don’t.”

Now at last I could die in peace,
Just like Jason after he’d found the Golden Fleece.
I no longer had to fear death, my life was in order,
I could get out my knife and slit my neck,
And slump to the floor as a pathetic wreck
- Well, a pathetic dead wreck to be precise,
Lying on the floor like a piece of meat
With a severed neck and rotting feet.
“I have to die! I have to die! I have to die!”, that is what I said,
But I could not do it so instead
I started to cry.

Like a baby again, lying on my back
I was completely lost, but on the right track.
“Dazed and confused”, as the song does go,
I would freeze in the night as I walked in the snow,
Or sing for my friends in a West End show,
‘Cause I am a warrior, a fighter of the night,
Battling evil with the power of second sight,
And slaughtering enemies: it’s such a delight!

Now, my people, my time is nigh,
When to bed I must go, for eight hours to lie.
I must twist like a lizard into my own dreams,
And you’ll know that I’m dreaming by my deafening screams;
You’ll know that I’m sleeping by the sweat pouring down my face,
And I’ll dissolve in the night, disappearing without trace.


© 2000 Matt Everett