He wanted to imagine that raindrops would fall slowly onto his casket from a few lingering clouds on an otherwise sunny day...

He wanted to imagine that the day wouldn’t just seem longer for some, but be longer for everyone. He hoped that his passing would be a wrench in the works, slowing down the gears of time, even just for a day.

He didn’t plan for this day, but he had it planned. The day was to be marked by throngs of followers lining the streets of his procession. There were supposed to be masses of people visible from space.

Maybe, he hoped, Just maybe, an astronaut looking down on New York would radio down to Houston and let them know that the Great Wall broke free and made it across the Atlantic, and all the land in between, causing just one last moment of chaos before he was forgotten.

Unfortunately, not many things go on as planned. There was no rain, no lingering day, and no hoards of mourners, there wasn’t even a casket. Thanks to a group of close friends, who decided to make good on a childhood promise, he got the sending off he asked for when he was only 16 years old.

A crane suspended his lifeless body in mid air, rigor mortis leaving him in a gnarled position decided on by his younger self. A slight breeze entered the room sending his plaid shirt fluttering and dancing over his khaki pants hovering below and covering his sandals.

They lowered him slowly, until his toes just skimmed to the surface, impervious to the heat as it crept up his shin and made its way to his head. As if the breeze froze in mid air, his clothing stopped waving inch by inch, as it was devoured completely. Soon his neck was all that was left, then his chin, and a sewed on cigarette was taken under too just before his head was swallowed.

No one was there, he saw to that personally with every wrong choice he made, or knee jerk impulse he didn’t suppress. His words, his sarcasm, his actions, ensured that the ceremony was as private as possible. There were no tears; there was no grieving, not from the men operating the lift, and certainly not from the guest of honor. The beginning of the festivities had ended, and in a few short days, everything would be complete.

In less than a week it was done. Now, On the peak of a mediocre hill, in a no name town, on a nothing island, stands a statue like no one has ever seen. With a cigarette in his mouth, his arm extended with his middle finger up on the hand not holding a copper dipped glass of scotch, and a placard that simply reads, “It was painful, and it was slow,” stands The Suffra, waving good-bye

“The book is open and the hand writes”

"Here's to the end"