Let's say, once upon a time- someone died. It doesn't matter how. Accident, sickness, a tragedy- as long as they were young, and it was sad. They died and were buried in soft and rich soil. And suddenly- they woke up again! They emerged, brushing off wet dirt and squinting and blinking in the sudden sunshine. And they realized- even though they were coughing dirt out of their mouth, and stretching abused and complaining muscles, they were alive. Thinking, breathing, walking, talking. The same old thoughts- but flesh renewed, skin whole, health returned. And then? They went home. But when they returned home- everything was covered in a layer of dust. No one was there waiting with a lamp in the window. Food was gone or rotten, the windows were open, and no note was left. That wasn't the worst part though- the worst part, the worst part was when they picked up a treasured photograph (Family? Lover? Friend?) laying with glass cracked on the ground, and they cut themselves, slightly ever so slightly. Blood did not come out.
Something not red, but an off white, cream color leaked from the wound. The white of enzymatic action and slight yellow of digestive compounds. The white hyphae of a fungus underneath the thin layer of tough, imitation flesh- threading through barely visible, but still there- meat and bone. A rotting carcass. And thus- a walking talking copy made through the dumb, unthinking action of a fungus. And I will tell you now, so that you don't have to find out like they did- Saprotrophic fungi can have very specific enzymes. Some are a little more opportunistic, but some can only feed on one species. They found this out by trial and error. No bread and cheese, no rich comfort food, no thin broth could pass their lips. A piece of meat was allowed into their (and here is where they felt their errant, differing biology) and eagerly attacked by slithering hyphae, but it was cow- Bos Taurus- and thus not the right species. This was a fungus that ate people. Undigestible, no nutrition. No way to add more substrate, so this was it. When a fungus reaches the end of its food in that current vessel- it blooms. It spores. It takes all the nutrition it has gained all that time and forces it all into gorgeous fruiting bodies- the mushroom. A few weeks at most until that happened to them. Rough estimation. Walking ghost period. And thus they went out into the city and ordered coffees, not drinking the drink, whatever it was, but enjoying the warmth in their hands and read books. They went out away from the city too, and looked at flowers and stones and the sky and the moon and the moon again, when it was a little fuller. They pet dogs and cats with moldering hands that did not reveal the mycelium underneath. They visited a museum, maybe. Spilled hot tea on themselves and winced, even if the pain wasn't sent by proper neurotransmitters or nerves. Wasn't even felt by them, really.
Maybe even got a job, for money, for a movie ticket or to buy trinkets from the farmer's market an hour's drive away. Talked to people- made friends, even. Doing all the things a human might do. Not sleeping though- fungi do not sleep. Just thinking, about things hidden in the dark and the light of the day that revealed them. And intrinsic, biologic urges. And thus the core that was them grew smaller and smaller each day, as they burnt up and decayed and the new them, the fungus, grew and ate. And eventually, sometime between a morning tea and an evening walk, they went and sat down in a cemetery to finally bloom. Maybe they would get lucky- maybe even just one corpse in there would be prepared without fungicide, so another corpse could get up, blink in the sun with new, inhuman human eyes, and dance into the city to get another, brief taste of life.
THE STORY HAS NOW ENDED. Would you like to go back home?