June 25, 2010
Runion Maelstorm knew he was about to run out of toast, which was one of his biggest fears, so he made the final slice last. He took tiny bites around the edges every day, the smallest nibbles he could manage. That way, he got to enjoy the fabulous taste of his toast for a full week longer than if he’d eaten it all at once. Then, the full week turned into a full month. By the end of that month, all that was left was a smidgen of toast the size of a postage stamp. Runion kept it in a Tupperware container and carried it with him everywhere he went…from his kitchen to his bathroom to his bedroom to his condo in Monaco.
Finally, the day came when that splendid fragment of toast was reduced to the size of an aspirin. Runion could no longer nibble bits of it with his front teeth or scrape off the dust of its crust to dab up with his tongue. This was a full three months after he’d been on the verge of running out of toast, yet still did Runion hesitate to finish the deed. For the state of being almost but not quite out of toast had become a kind of rapture to him. He had become addicted to the in-betweeness of it, the almost-but-not-quiteness. But that very state had been predicated on his daily enjoyment of samples of the makeshift sacrament. He knew he needed to taste the toast to sustain the divine nirvana, though tasting it would destroy it.
Fortunately, he came up with a novel solution. He placed the toast on his tongue, closed his mouth…then gave the signal to the staff of the Freeze You cryogenic center. They turned on the freezing gas, which placed Runion in a state of suspended animation, still with the tiny bit of toast resting undigested on the tip of his tongue. In this way, Runion guaranteed himself a perpetual state of bliss as he continued to enjoy the toast and dread running out of it…and this state would continue for a very long time. Until his bank account ran dry, at least. And that, in itself, would add to his state of anticipating running out of something precious. So life was very good for Runion Maelstorm.
