Death and taxes

Strange dream last night. I was hanging around at some house in Minneapolis and chillin with a few guys. Mike Flanagan was there, talking about how he'd been at some festival where things got crazy. He was doing all right, up to his usual thing. His voice is the same as ever, laughing about some dumb bastards.

You've been gone for a while, I say.

Just keepin' busy.

Yeah man, that's cool, it's great to have you back in town again.

The laugh was there, the sound of his voice. He, Blake and I plot to purchase a case of beer. Everything is perfectly normal, low keyed, another afternoon.

You pulled a fast one, man. People thought you were dead. It's sweet these things are reversible.

Mike shifts in the recliner, uneasy, looks at me with those piercing blue eyes. The rooms shimmers and dissolves.

My eyes open, back in the bedroom. I reach for my water. Before I can lay back down, reality kicks me. It's not reversible, it's a one-way flow.

I close my eyes but the scene doesn't come back.

Dammit, two things that can't be reversed. Death and taxes. I gotta mail the returns today. Fuck.

Maybe he's like Hotblack Desiato, the rock star from Disaster Area in Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, just spending a year dead for tax purposes.