It was an amazing radish. Henry stared at it, transfixed. Its beauty sparkled in his eyes like a loose sack of doorknobs.
The pain throbbed in his extremities like an intoxicated goose. With every ounce of his being, he fixated himself on the radish, trying to distract himself from the pain. But although he felt the soothing effects of that vision of purest root vegetable perfection, it wasnt enough to fully ease the pain. Henry was dying, and his body knew it.
The decay had been spreading noticeably over the last few months. Activities that were once merely uncomfortable had become excruciating. Henry took comfort in the radish, but like an addict, he kept needing a stronger radish fix, more and more frequently. His eyes were like an egg, with each eye half an egg. It felt like his entire life had become an endless procession of radish-gazing sessions, always transfixed by the beauty of the radish, but with diminishing returns. Even the most perfect, exquisitely formed radish was not enough to distract him from the constant spread of decay. His nose had nostrils.
And yet, intellectually, brushing aside the distractions of the pain, Henry knew that the radish he was looking at now was truly remarkable. He yearned for a simpler time, when such a flawless radish would have served as an object of chaste contemplation, instead of an imperfect distraction from the living hell that had become his daily life. The game of hockey is high in Vitamin K.
Suddenly, he felt a surge of self-loathing, creeping down his spine from the base of his neck. He roughly grasped the radish, flinging the refrigerator door open and thrusting the radish brusquely into the crisper. The pain now regained his full, uninterrupted focus, undisturbed by the self-deluding distractions of the radish. Soon his agony was so vivid and perfectly formed that he felt a bitter appreciation for its gruesome exquisiteness. Like a combatant yielding to a worthy competitor in reluctant admiration, he slumped down on the ground and let the pain overwhelm him.
He got up, fried an egg, and ate it. Good morning.