Five Things That Will Outlive Me

1.     Bees. I fucking hope bees outlive me. I guess I’ve swung in there and put bees at the top spot without much thought, but perhaps it’s more of a hope than a given? Nonetheless, it’s always good to start lists on a positive tip, think you not? Plus, this list starts at one anyway (what can I say, I’m a rule breaker); this isn’t peak—number five is the headliner—it’s no countdown. What do you take me for? A rocket launcher? FFS. Youth of today.

2.     Number two then. The second thing I am pretty sure that will outlive me is an absolute joke. It’s also an actual joke. You know, that joke about what sort of bees make milk?’ Boobies. Boobies make milk. That joke will outlive me. I told it to some kids and they’ve told it to everyone in their school and not one kid did not find it funny (I went into proper double negative territory there didn’t I?), so I’m sure it will get passed like webbed toes and freckles and that gene that makes some people’s urine smell of artichoke and the keys to a suitcase from generation to generation. It will become immortal.

3.     The ‘cast iron sturdy log burner accessories kit’ that I bought my partner last Christmas that he has never used that just collects dust and gets knocked over every time one of us thinks our butt is smaller than it actually is and tries to squeeze past the table that is pushed up next to the hearth. It’s made up of a poker, a tong, a shovel and... and this was the deal breaker...a brush. They’re all old friends (which is lucky I guess seeing as how they spend all their time together) and they’re all neatly hooked on a central stand. An anchor point, so to speak. It will outlast me and probably the entire human race unless someone smelts it. Unlikely. It is unlikely that there will be a sudden push for smelting; I think it’s a fashion trend (like flossing and leg warmers and fucking avocadoes) that’s had its day, flash-smelting. Unless there’s a sudden shortage of iron, or a house fire, I guess, but seeing as they are designed to poke and stoke fires with, I imagine they’re pretty hardy and would pull through a big blaze. They look like tough guys anyway, all hanging there, dangling and being so close to the fire without even being scared of the flames. Be pretty silly, thoughtless even, to design a fire poker made from a material with the melting point of dairy milk though anyway, wouldn’t it? You get me?

4.     Coming in at number four—bearing in mind EVERY mother fucker has egocentric tendencies, even someone as near-perfect as myself—it’s ‘My Words’. The splattering of pieces of flash fiction and short stories and words that form sentences and sentences that form sense to some and nonsense to others that I have had accepted for online publication over the twenty-three months that I have been writing for will all, undoubtedly, outlive me. I’m not saying I’ll go down in history, join the Classics, rub shoulders with Shakespeare, Dickens and the like, (although, let’s face it, it’s probably going to happen with work like this), I’m just saying that as long as ‘The Websites’ are maintained, my words will linger like sexy ripe fruit at the end of someone else’s search engine for eternity. Or... My Words will remain trapped as a bunch of bundled, hoarded ones and zeros and zeros and ones in some massive internet zoo under the ground or in the centre of the moon or in your nan’s biscuit tin or wherever the internet is kept when it’s not being looked at, but they’ll still be there, My Words, alive, waiting to hatch into your eyeballs and grow inside of your brain, outliving me.

5.     See, we’ve reached five, and I’m struggling now as I had planned on existing for eternity, therefore rendering this list obsolete. Me, living for eternity was the deal I had made with the chap in the smartest suit and tie I had ever seen. I met the well-heeled dude in business class last week and he promised me eternity in exchange for my seat, but turns out, he was just another shark in a suit. A FUCKING SHARK IN A SUIT! Teeth should have given him away really. More gnashers than the Beano back catalogue. Anyway, I digress. Turns out, I’m just a regular mortal and so is he and we will both spring like jumping beans from our mortal coils at some point in the not too distant future, we’ll both be worm food, jugs of ash, coffin filling long before His Smart Suit bites the dust. So, on the basis of this highly relevant story, number five is His Smart Suit. (Hu)Man, I hate disposable fashion. Soon as you turn eighteen and you’ve stopped, you know, growing all vertical and shit, once your knees are where they should be, and your ears and stuff, once they’re all right where they should be with no chance of getting any higher, get yourself fitted out with a good suit, sports fans. One that’ll see you through college. One that might outlast you. Most of our clothing will outlive us.

Inspired by a letter her mother wrote to her instructing SJ to follow her dreams, SJ got completely lost. The path led to mayhem and nonsense.

SJ has won the Secret Attic short story contest (Spring 2020), has had her words published in Sledgehammer Lit Mag and Punk Noir Magazine, and was long listed for the Women on Writing non-fiction contest in 2020. She has also written two novels: Tabitha Fox Never Knocks and Twenty-Seven and the Unkindness of Crows, both available on Amazon. 

SJ likes: silence, comfortable shoes, writing. Dislikes: flat tyres, liquorice, a poorly loaded dishwasher.

Pen name: SJ Townend

Twitter: @SJTownend