=Lucky Me=

It's the most ungainly, unwieldy trophy I've ever seen and I'm apparently the winner. But what is it for? There is no plaque that gives any indication whatsoever. It's a complete mystery. The thing looks like a cross between a coffee urn, a mechanical crab, and a malignant fetish out of an H.P. Lovecraft tale. I might as well have been dead for most of my life and I would never have realized it  if the trumpet salute announcing the award hadn't finally woken me from my stone-cold slumber. What could I possibly have done while snoring my life away to have won such a thing? To have won anything? What kind of booby-prize is this, anyway?

Now that I examine it more closely it seems to me it's not a trophy at all. But what it is, I still can't say  It may not even be mine. For one thing, it hasn't got my name engraved on it anywhere. What made me think it was mine? Someone might have just left it with me, like an orphan. That can't make it my responsibility, can it? I don't have to think of it as my child, do I? Maybe I can leave it behind, too? Maybe I can find someone still sleeping, slip it in their arms, and sneak away before they wake? Then it can be their problem. Let them figure out what to do with it. Then I can walk blithely on and finally live the rest of my life without having to bear some awful mysterious burden.