Final Voice Print

This big slob from the wrong side of the space-time continuum bellied up to the bar at Think-A-Holic Lounge the other night. I could tell he was a salesman right off the bat because he wasn't in any hurry to get served. And he fussed and fidgeted with his collar and tie and then jingled the loose change in his pockets until the bartender came running out of sheer annoyance, if nothing else.

The big goof ordered a brewski and then I made the mistake of looking at him. He thought that was his cue to start busting my chops about his wares, "Death Prints". The very idea turned me off but I was also intrigued by his sales approach. He said he had digitally remastered "death rattles" (also called "final voice prints") of all the famous dead Hollywood movie stars since Valentino and about half of the the famous European writers since Kafka. I wasn't biting.

I told him I wasn't interested in that kind of creepy crap and to shove off or at least get the hell out of my face. The dark side of life was never my cup of tea and the dark side of death was even worse. That's when he reached into seemingly thin air and pulled down this disturbing piece of digital art. I recognized the artist's name immediately and laughed so hard I spilled the rest of my bubbly chaser on the salesman, just barely sparing the artwork from a foamy death. Too bad.

"Sorry about that, pal," I lied. "Say, whose death rattle is that supposed to be, anyway?"

"Yours," he said in a surprisingly calm voice. Then he quickly packed it in and left like the devil was chasing him.

Angus McCloud, the big-ass head bartender and the ghost of a 400-year-old Scot poet, was trying to suppress a sarcastic snort and I knew it wasn't because I'd spilled a drink on that damn dark-art salesman. He knew and I knew and I think that the salesman knew, too, that the joke was one me. So it was.