Mushroom

Every time I look at a mushroom I'm aware that the knowledge that I can eat it - knowledge which I can only take for granted in the case of those brown flecked caps and stems enticingly stacked before me in the market - memorializes the act of a potential victim... perhaps a crippled, aged and expendable member of the tribe, perhaps a particularly courageous or foolhardy alchemist, perhaps just a very hungry farmer caught in the rain far from his fields and herds who didn't die when they ate this one, whose breathing didn't lurch to a halt as he doubled over from pain like an iron claw pulling his guts out through his throat, black agony racing up his nerves like acid to shroud his mind, shocked, terrified, pleading and finally silent.