The Curse

Josh Ritter is a journeyman singer-songwriter who happens to have written one song so good it feels as if an AI downloaded my brain and handcrafted one single track just for me.

The Curse is the story of a vampiric mummy who is buried in a pyramid. A beautiful woman finds his corpse and her grace revives him. His heart begins again for the first time in thousands of years. The cobwebs can be shaken off he really is alive again.

She writes about his life and becomes a famous scientist for her exploits. He pretends to be dead and lies in the Smithsonian to be gazed upon. Every night she comes by and he gets up and they talk about the world and he’s alive once more. And everyday he is gawked upon from all over the world. And this is the cycle. The onlookers who kill him and the beautiful woman who makes him feel alive.

Only after decades of this arrangement does he finally get up during the day time revealing to the world that he is in fact alive and that he no longer wishes to pretend for them. By this point the girl has become old and frail. He watches her die. He is cursed to live forever more and wonder if he gave too much to the world and too little to her. Or maybe he got enough. Or maybe he did too much for her and ruined her life.

As do I.