Lantern Review: Issue 5

Kristen Eliason

KO -, n.
Fig. 18: red rock and waterfall

  1. Late; deceased; dead-as-a-doornail; passed on; passed away; on the other side; looking down on us; in our hearts; got his wings; is no longer with us; is always with us; gone on to a better place; gone to live with God; taking a dirt nap; kicked the bucket; gave up the ghost; bought a pine condo; croaked; gone into that good night; sleeping the big sleep; gone to feed the fishes; breathed his last; cashed in his chips; bought the farm; gone to the city of angels; shuffled off this mortal coil; dearly departed; checked out; mortified; watching over us wherever we go; gone to live with his beagle, Bagel; gone to the raven’s haven; filling the graveyard shift; crossed over; wandering the elysian fields; gone the way of the earth; he’s gone; we think he’s gone; ex. ko-kesuke, the late Mr. Kesuke
  2. Where the hell is he?
    We look for days, and by we, I (do not) mean you. You (she) sit(s) in the basement looking through her old books for him, peeling old pictures of him out of non-acid-free-non-archival-photo-albums, searching every internet search engine for him, for something she wanted to know, some proof. Some people searched in the reservoir. Others started downstream and worked back to the base of the waterfall. Some people aided the Utah Fish Preservation Project. And then like blood rising to the surface of an oxygenated pool, the divers found him quietly ascending in the water.