Unalived

There stood a mighty statue of a man and woman, their hands locked, raised towards the sky, loudly proclaiming their defiance. One fateful day, the sky turned grey and a streak of lightning struck the statue, and the statue was no more. Its furious roar thundered across the land.

As for me, I was within earshot of the lightning strike, and I just about soiled my pants. It was loud. Not extremely so, but loud enough to shake me from my reverie. In fact, to this day I can’t remember what I was thinking about. I only recall that my mind had wandered a bit.

Even my journal is unhelpful in this regard. I found my entry for that day, but all it read was "Storm go boom. Call Maris." I don't even know a Maris! I asked my oldest friend, Mark, if there was a Maris at our elementary school that I've forgotten. He just stared with sad eyes.

"How many things have you forgotten my friend?" Mark would say quietly, not completely meeting my surprised glare. "But anyway...nobody really talks about Maris anymore. Not after that...incident. It is as if the whole thought of her creates a jinx now..."

“Jinx” sounds superstitious. Don’t step on a crack, throw salt over your shoulder. What happened to her has a scientific explanation. Her existence became a paradox. I hope ceasing to have ever existed wasn’t painful.

It would appear that she was both alive and not alive, but not undead. This seemed to defy all rational and logical explanation, and yet she was both states at once. Thinking about it made my head hurt… until it all started to make sense. “2 + 2 = 5 !” I triumphantly blurted out.

"It's all so clear to me now, NYAHAHAAaa!..", I laughed maniacally and unhelpfully. "She's Unalive! Her foot caught while exiting this mortal coil! Non-expired! Vigour Mortis! Schrödinger's Homosapien!". I was panting a bit by now, and running out of ideas. Time to call it a day.