The last tomb on the final lane of roses and dirt read, “**_I Asked for It_**.”

We will never know what John Sworthsby asked for, but he was certain he had gotten it, perhaps in a fatal dose.

I was reminded of a time when I felt similarly about diferent things. Perhaps things completely unrelated to tombstones and asking for stuff.

I once was a sailor who ate a lot of spinach. This was before cartoons, if you take my meaning. I was cynical, and the rest of the crew was not fond of me.

“An enemy of the crew is a friend of the plank,” they would say. I cared not.

One day, in the galley, I was eating spinach out of a can. I felt strength in me that I hadn’t felt in some time. And then Borris, the lackey, stepped in to say, “You. Follow.” At first I did not heed his words. I was lost in the rhythm of spinach and vitality. And then I was grabbed by the collar and dragged to the main deck. The whole crew was waiting. They were surrounding the plank.

“You,” they said. “Your time has come.”

“What manner of justice is this that I may be condemned to death for a sour mood? I have learned the secrets of spinach, and now I am myself once again. Do you mean to kill me?”

The captain stared into my eyes.

“If the boot fits.”

I felt shudders run down my spine. He never used that phrase, unless someone was about to die.

They ushered me onto the plank. I took one last bite of spinach and turned back to the crew.

“I allowed myself to become malnourished. You have known not me, but a phantom. I know the axe that kills me is but my own. I asked for it.”

And then they pushed me off and I fell to the sea.

Many days later I came to near a strange, seaside village. The people spoke in parables and riddles, and none seemed to know the day or time. I walked to the graveyard and read my final words on Mr. Sworthsby’s tomb. And then I laid myself down in a hole I had dug and affixed a stone I had chiseled above my head.

It read, “The boot fit.”