Republic of Shalampax An Inane Island in an Insane World
Frozen Putridsausage
February 23, 1997 was a sad day in
Shalampax. On
that day, a great Shalampaxian, Putridsausage, learned that he had
contracted an agonizing,
terminal, incurable blood disease. There were some available treatments
that, while not a cure, promised to extend his life by up to 32 or 33
minutes, but they usually increased the patient's pain immensely during
those 32 or 33 minutes and they worked only
10 percent of the time.
All of Shalampax was disconsolate when they heard the news
because
Putridsausage was a much
revered person. It was he who discovered how to hijack satellite
television
signals and funnel them to Shalampax over the Internet connections that
had been pirated from thousands of unsuspecting Wi-Fi router
owners
in Australia. (See
Science: Communication.)
As sorrowful as Putridsuasage's fellow Shalampaxians were
over his
condition, Putridsausage himself was devastated by the news of his
impending doom. He
loved life. Well, that's not quite right. He didn't exactly love life.
He loved television,
which, for him, was pretty much the same thing.
Desperate for a solution that would save his life, and
knowing that
medical science wasn't going to come up with one in time to help him,
he insisted that he be cryogenically preserved until someone discovers
a cure for his ailment.
A crowd of Shalampaxians gathered to try to talk him out of
it.
"Everyone dies sometime," they said. "Even if someone eventually
finds a remedy for your disease, thaws you and cures you, so what? By
then the rent on
that fabulous apartment of yours will
be years overdue. Before you're anywhere close to paying off
the
debt you'll die of something else, possibly something even
more
excruciating than what you've got now. It's inevitable. As we said,
everyone dies
sometime. Worse, we have no experience with cryogenics here in
Shalampax. How do you know you won't shatter into a thousand
pieces when you're in a state of deep freeze? Besides, your wife is
already sleeping
around to audition potential second husbands, your kids have siphoned
off your bank accounts to avoid the inheritance taxes and probate fees,
and we've raffled off
your apartment. In
short, you have nothing
left to live for."
Despite the crowd's cajoling, reasoning, begging, pleading
and whining,
Putridsausage was adamant. After hours of back and forth arguments, his
friends finally gave in to his
wishes and ordered a cryogenic capsule. When it arrived,
Putridsausage fearlessly climbed inside.
His friends closed the door and switched on the capsule's refrigeration
unit,
successfully putting Putridsausage into cryonic suspension.
The next day, Shalampax experienced one of those glorious,
warm, arid, sunny days
that blesses the island only once every twenty or thirty years.
Shalampaxians aren't normally superstitious, but Putridsausage's
friends attributed the seemingly supernatural weather to the
benevolence and divinity of Putridsausage's
iced, but still heavenly spirit.
In Putridsausage's honor, his friends made a rare excursion
outside to
enjoy a raucous picnic. The event was a revelation. Up to that point,
nobody realized that one could keep so many beers so cold for so long
in an
open cryogenic capsule.
Later that afternoon, with much alcohol-induced fanfare,
Putridsausage
was given a traditional burial at sea in the figuratively and
literally coolest burial vessel in Shalampax's history — and likely
it's future.
