Sean Elliott awoke in his house in the middle of the night. He had dreamt of his funeral.
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As per his will, Elliott was to be buried in seemingly random coordinates. The grave was to have latitude exactly halfway between the longitudes of Elliott's mother and wife's graves, and also to have longitude exactly halfway between the longitudes of David Robinson and Avery Johnson's graves.
This "grave-site" ended up being right in the middle of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and of course he could not be buried there. So Sean Elliott was cremated - the thought among the mourners being that his ashes would be spread exactly on the desired point, carried by a boat. But enduring the harsh January in a boat would be somewhat rough, even over saltwater, So the mourners again compromised a bit, and instead of mixing Elliott's ashes with the lake at the coordinates from his will, the mourners baked Sean Elliott's ashes in a (my sources tell me) very tasty rye bread and served it to various birds that passed by on the San Antonio sidewalk where they were gathered. At these birds the mourners laughed and laughed, for the birds' various chirpings reminded them of the deceased. An aging Tim Duncan even gave a particularly chirpy bird a friendly shove - the call-back was at once virtuous and ridiculous, not to mention fitting. The joke was well-received by the mourners.
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Now Sean Elliott was awake and immediately said aloud, "What an absurd dream that was," speaking in a voice perfectly fitting the sentence. "Bill will love this." Elliott was not concerned about the image of his corpse and ashes - he knew that dreams were not representative of reality. Their only function, really, was to serve as a conversation piece, he supposed.
===
As per his will, Elliott was to be buried in seemingly random coordinates. The grave was to have latitude exactly halfway between the longitudes of Elliott's mother and wife's graves, and also to have longitude exactly halfway between the longitudes of David Robinson and Avery Johnson's graves.
This "grave-site" ended up being right in the middle of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and of course he could not be buried there. So Sean Elliott was cremated - the thought among the mourners being that his ashes would be spread exactly on the desired point, carried by a boat. But enduring the harsh January in a boat would be somewhat rough, even over saltwater, So the mourners again compromised a bit, and instead of mixing Elliott's ashes with the lake at the coordinates from his will, the mourners baked Sean Elliott's ashes in a (my sources tell me) very tasty rye bread and served it to various birds that passed by on the San Antonio sidewalk where they were gathered. At these birds the mourners laughed and laughed, for the birds' various chirpings reminded them of the deceased. An aging Tim Duncan even gave a particularly chirpy bird a friendly shove - the call-back was at once virtuous and ridiculous, not to mention fitting. The joke was well-received by the mourners.
===
Now Sean Elliott was awake and immediately said aloud, "What an absurd dream that was," speaking in a voice perfectly fitting the sentence. "Bill will love this." Elliott was not concerned about the image of his corpse and ashes - he knew that dreams were not representative of reality. Their only function, really, was to serve as a conversation piece, he supposed.
