But the mushroom people weren’t really people as it goes down in the dictionary. The mushroom beings did not use any language, other than the physical acts of hitting each other in the face, and exhausting various gases out of bodily orifices. The latter, I must admit, they had fine-tuned for generations, so that it actually might, anthropologically, be considered the true, fine art of the mushroom people. On the other hand, one of their other highly considered skills was that of watching television. The monitors’ glow attracted their attention, and forced them into a zen-like state of mind, where they lost the concept of physical existence and the laws of physics. The mushroom people floated around in the room, their eyes fixed towards the giant screens, irises vibrating and tear glands moistening.

Then suddenly, the screens went black.

The mushroom people screamed at the top of their rectal capacities, filling the room with a stench of which no man has ever known. The gases eradicated all life in the room, destroying the mushroom people and any insect that was unfortunate enough to have entered the doomed chamber.

There was only darkness, and a solid, uncomfortable silence in the room, like before the very birth of the universe, life and all that is and ever will be.
Until the door suddenly opened, and Bobby, one of the wardens, came in with my daily pills and a wheelchair for me to sit in, so that I could enjoy the sun in the gardens outside of the hospital.