I was standing one day with my possum friend Roger Alberts. We were eating at the KFC dumpster over off of 19th street.
"Did you hear that Pauline got it last night?" I asked him as I gnawed on a bone.
"Yep - a 2002 Ford Explorer on I-95 - I didn't see it but heard it was VERY bad." says Albert.
"Dude" I say "It was one of the worst I've ever seen - her back legs were about 30 feet from her head, which was about 40 feet from her tail - parts of her never did show up it was so bad."
"I guess the Great Possum called her to be with him" said Albert.
"Wait a minute! You BELIEVE THAT!? You believe in the Great Possum!?" I asked.
Albert looked shocked. "Of course I do - YOU don't!?"
"Fuck that fairy tale stuff" I said, chewing on a KFC Coleslaw container, "you want me to believe there's some mysterious Great Possum in the sky that 'called' Pauline and other possums to be with him?"
"Exactly" said Albert.
"And THAT'S how he 'calls' his people? By having their head and limbs painfully ripped from their young bodies - by leaving homeless possums back home to die? What kind of Great Possum is THAT!? Sounds like an asshole to me!" I answered, now annoyed and no longer enjoying the coleslaw.
"WHOA!!" said Albert "That's not cool, fool. Don't talk like that about the Great Possum. The Great Possum works in ways we can't understand - Pauline now sits with the Great Possum and is whole again"
"Well" I said "The Great Possum can kiss my great white possum ass"
Albert pretended he didn't hear me as he pawed through some old fries. "These are possum-bly the best stale KDC fries I'ver ever had" he said, skipping the uncomfortable subject. (Yes we possums say "possumbly" instead of possibly)
But I continued anyway; "Every DAY Albert you and I both see mass destruction of our kind, we see other possums mutilated on I-95, and they speak of the Great Possum being compassionate and loving - that's not love - that's sick and evil - don't ever speak to me about any 'Great Possum" again. The Great Possum is a fantasy fairy tale, invented and passed on to give us Possums hope when there is no hope. Our lives are so miserable that some freak long ago started this Great Possum balony just to try and help us get through each night. I don't buy it."
Albert stopped munching on an Original Recipe KFC thigh bone long enough to speak "Where do you want to go when you die though? Don't you WANT to believe in an afterlife for Possumkind? Don't you want to believe we go to a better world, a world where there are no highways and roads?"
"No" I said, "I don't. When I die I want it to be the end - no more"

(Albert was found dead on I-95 two days after this dumpster talk. He had been ran over by a 1999 Dodge Caravan. Albert left behind a wife and 12 children)

I'm still ticking.