Short Sharp Shock
We were going to get back to Celine and as we close in on the halfway point in this collection it seems as good a time as any. All we really learned about her was that she was in bed, naked,1 with Carol's theretofore main squeeze (and Carol's sister) and that she owned two dogs. Not much to go on there.
So, let's see. Having two dogs she probably doesn't have a job that requires a lot of travel—like say, flight attendant or long-distance trucker. She might rent but it would be better if she owned her own place with a fenced yard. A single woman owning her own place at a relatively young age must have a pretty remunerative gig (or a substantial bequest).
I've got it! She's a veterinarian! She calls her practice “Don't Worry, Bark Happy!®” (Which I admit sounds pretty silly, but the smiley dog on her logo makes customers smile. I'll drive over and take a picture. Hang tight ...)
That didn't take too long did it? Thanks for your patience! Isn't she a cutie? Name of Buttons and yes, she's one of Celine's pups. Don't you just want to take your pets there? Maybe Buttons will greet you at the door and you can cuddle!
If you don't have a pet (what?) maybe you could just stop by anyway. If they question your motive say you're thinking of getting a Pom and the sign pulled you in. Then ask, “By the way, does Buttons have any puppies?” That's sure to endear you to Celine and her staff.
[No. Spayed.]
But back to Celine herself. So, we know her profession and her business name. Let's see, um, her other dog is a rescue. A retired greyhound! Named Stretch. She's a bottle-blond (Celine, not Stretch). [Don't get me started.] And frisky.2 [Ditto.]
But here's the thing you wouldn't have guessed about this woman: she plays dead.
No, really.
This is a real hobby that real people really engage in. [Though not very many.]
She would stage her own death in front of a cell phone on a tripod set to “video,” then clip out the best parts as still-shots and post them on Instagram®.
I've seen her head-down in a plate of food, sprawled at the foot of some stairs, splayed in the back yard with Stretch sniffing at her “lifeless” form, collapsed over the steering wheel of her car, and the “plain vanilla”variety—lying in bed with her noggin on a pillow, tongue hanging out, mostly covered in a white sheet. The naked one—where she's fallen out of the shower, torso twisted so as not to be overly revealing—got a lot of “likes.” [Nudity is ever thus.]
This isn't what most of us have come to expect from our veterinarians, now is it? [Type “Celine-veterinary-dead-naked” in DuckDuck to see that one. Whooie!] [Whooie!]
There's kind of a competition among dead-players who aim to create the most convincing scenes.
A couple of years ago some fraudsters muddied the field by posting pictures of people who had actually just died. No sense of good sportsmanship there, but—of course—it helped honest players refine their game. As Pablo Picasso® (and several others) said, “Great artists steal.”
“Why?” I hear you asking. [Regarding the playing, not the stealing which is self-evident.]
Well, that's a puzzle. What are these dead-players hoping to achieve? I suppose bragging rights. “Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah. I look deader than you do!” Though, obviously, we'll all look convincingly dead sooner or later, and that's not something you can actually practice for, no matter what George Harrison said. Rather, sang.3
But, of course, Harrison pulled it off back in '01—practice or no. Arty or artless.
So Celine was constantly thinking of new scenes where she could appear expired. On the pavement behind a bus. Twenty feet below a cliff. Drowned. On railroad tracks—though the severing of limbs requires a pretty handy hand with Photoshop®. [Hand presumably still attached.] In a crowded mall? [Malls, we recall, in this continuing time of cholera—and the ascent of Amazon®— were once crowded.]
But then Celine upped her game!
There's this other group of odd hobbyists who engage in “extreme ironing.” Yes, that's a real thing. Hoo-boy.
What they do is tote an ironing board to an extreme place, say atop a mesa, or deep in the jungle, or on a glacier, or on a surfboard, or in the cone of a volcano, and … get this … iron a shirt. (!)
But Celine (bless her heart) decided to go them one better. (!) [Gotta love this woman.]
Celine's new thing was to copycat extreme ironers but then die across the ironing board. (!) It's like garnering Gold Medals in two Olympic® events at once! Here she's collapsed over a steam iron on Mount Washington, there in a heap while pressing a shirtsleeve in Key West.
I think we were all thus inspired. Go Celine, go!
Me? Me, I wish she'd been turned just a little to the left in the shower shot. But I may not be a good person.
Oh. The shock mentioned in the title? Well, in her last set-up Celine bit into a steam iron cord to lend verisimilitude. What she didn't know is that 110 volt power is potentially fatal. The jolt clamped her jaws shut. That final photo was real and very, very, very convincing. She was, as they say, flattened.
Meanwhile Buttons and Stretch are available for adoption.
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NOTE PER FOOTNOTES: Substack starts off with new numbering each time I post a story. But Footnotes in the original book are continuous and often refer back to previous super important stuff. So original Footnote #s are included below in [#]s.
1 [223] Doesn't that just give you the flutters?
2 [224] As illustrated on page 23 [of the print edition].
3 [225]“Art of Dying,” on All Things Must Pass, Apple®, 1970 “Then nothing sister Mary can do, Will keep me here with you.”
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Art Imitating Life Imitating Art Department
About a month after writing this story I was listening to my favorite news program (Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, on NPR®) I learned that police in London lately responded to an emergency call regarding a person, viewed through a window, head down and motionless in a bowl of soup (or possibly cereal). The bobbies broke down the door and rushed in to find a “dead” mannequin—part of an art installation. This proves something—and not an iron in sight!
Copyright 2023, Cecil Bothwell, All rights reserved.