Silas Mephisto dead at 169

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It’s only been a week since Silas Mephisto committed suicide as his apartment on Roosevelt Island in New York City, but the world is still reeling from the tragic death of the world’s oldest  person. At 169 years old, Silas was in remarkable health this spring when he granted a rare interview with Bunny Tightwater, lauded editor of such publications as Stool Monthly and Redbook.

We caught up with Bunny as she was enjoying a Macchiato outside the trendy, vaguely Italian coffee shop Tony’s House of Joe, one of the local standbys in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

“Silas Memphisto seemed young, spry even during the interview.  His very veins were filled with a current, a line of energy that was the product of his duel addictions to jogging and cough medicine.”

“Cough Medicine?”

“Silas drank three bottles of Robitussin DX during our interview. He explained that he had chronic coughitis and required a constant stream of the mentholated goo. Except for a brief, fifteen minute span where Silas claimed to have “floated through the room, hovering over myself and his prostrate body while experiencing a profoundly religious experience,” he remained lucid and articulate.”

“Did Silas give any indication that he was feeling suicidal?”

“Quite the contrary. Silas spent much of the interview doting on his pet tortoise Queen Victoria who, at 215 years old, was one of the few creatures on this earth older then Silas himself. “Cupcakes are the Queen’s favorite,” Silas demanded, handing me a cupcake during the interview to feed the ancient thing. He said Queen Victoria made him feel youthful, and gave him a lot more satisfaction then any of the “money hungry sex bots” that he’s dated since his initial thawing.”

“ About the thawing… Silas has mentioned in previous articles about the apparent “Scientific impossibility” of him being preserved for 117 years in one of the support columns of the Brooklyn Bridge. He stated in last January’s edition of Discover that…”

Tha damn scientists won’t leave me alone! They keep wanting to do tests on me blood and stool. There’s only so much shit a fella can squeeze into a cold test tube before he says to hisself “I don’t need this!    I survived, deal with it! After I threatened to stab those quacks at the Center for Celebrity Research And Prescriptions with a scalpel, people started to get the hint. I’m a person, not a freak.”

“…Some critics, even to this day, say that the reason Silas was so resistant to medical tests was that he was a fraud, that he paid a laboratory to fake the results of his age test to prove he was really 160 at the time of his thawing. Did Silas mention any of this to you “off the record” during your interview?”

“He did mention that he used to suffer from chronic cramps in his elbows and knees, and that such cramps had led to his withdrawal from the public eye.  Silas referred to these cramps as “Time Traveler’s Itch,” a type of decompression sickness stemming from his 117 year stasis in the Brooklyn Bridge’s column. If Silas was a con artist, then he might have been the greatest of them all. He never faltered in his story, even under the press’s razor sharp scrutiny.”

I thanked Bunny for her time, paid for her Macchiato, and left feeling just as frustrated and confused about the life and times of Silas Mephisto.

Once called “Samuel Clemins mixed with Colin Farrel,” back in 2000,  Silas had it all.

After his perfectly preserved body was found trapped in one of the support columns of the Brooklyn Bridge nine years ago he became an instant celebrity. Silas’ long, dark muttonchops and deep brown Scottish eyes captured the hearts of the nation and the world.

Before fame and fortune came a knockin’, however, Silas had the humblest of beginnings. Born in Glasgow in 1840, Silas had immigrated to New York City in 1882 seeking “bigger places ta gamble, better women ta screw.”

By 1883, Silas was penniless and roving the streets, moving from stoop to stoop in the immigrant slums of Manhattan’s lower east side. One fateful night, after consuming two pints of bathtub gin, Silas found himself  standing in the middle of the recently opened Brooklyn Bridge, staring down into the murky depths of the Hudson Below. Silas claims that “I was reaching for something shiny near the edge” when he toppled off the bridge, plummeting 135 feet into certain, soaking, death.

Silias lost consciousness when he struck the surface of the water, eventually slipping into a coma. Undercurrents pulled him towards a nearby submerged support beams, eventually sucking him into a small recess created by two crumbled bricks. The recess has small clusters of moss that created a minuscule amount of oxygen, enough for the comatose Scotsman to survive. His body then entered a state of “Mephisto Hibernation” as it is now called, where the human body’s metabolism slows down to that of a giant tortoise, allowing the vital organs to survive and flourish well beyond the average human’s lifespan.

Once Silas’ miraculous story hit news stands, the whole world wanted a piece.

First came the medical experts, flying in everywhere from Fargo to Figi to see the living miracle of a 160 year old man.

Age test after age test proved positive while the medical community collectively scratched their heads.

Next came the law. Silas allowed himself to be strapped to every lie detector test known to man, even endured electric shocks in a highly controversial CIA sweat session.

His story was airtight. Everything was true.

Finally, came Hollywood. Joel Silver penned a bio-pick about Silas only two months after his thawing, calling it:

Silas Memphisto and the Transformers vs The Kingdom of Doomskull

Silas, lacking even the most basic understanding of what a motion picture was, gladly cashed Silver’s check and moved into a spacious condo on Roosevelt Island. He later lamented his initial rush to profits in an interview with Playstool, calling this chapter in his life the “I was a Dumb Shit” period.

“Everybody wanted a slice of ol’ Silas pie. Did ya see that pile o shit Silver talked me into? I didn’t know what a transformer was, didn’t even know what a toaster oven was fer fuck’s sake, and here comes this crook waving a piece of paper with two million dollars written on it. Two million dollars! Do you have any idea of how much money that was back in 1883? There’s wasen’t that much money on the whole fucking planet, let alone in me pocket. I was rich, but it didn’t last. Lasses far and wide wanted ta be with me too back then too, every actress on Broadway sent me flowers an’ kisses an’ little perfumed cards. I made the beast with many a pretty face but none of em were really beddin’ down with me, they were all beddin’ down with me money. When the money dried up, so did the honeys.”

Silas was a media darling in the year that followed his thawing. He could be seen hitting up the trendiest nightclubs in Manhattan, usually with several young women in tow. He eventually married Bridget Nimble, the host of NBC’s morning show “Because There’s Nothing Else On,” but the union ended quickly with allegations of abuse and drug use on both sides.

“I didn’t have time to figure out what everything was, so Ijust kinda went for it. There was one time I was walking in SoHo with Bridget, when we was married, and I passed by a shop selling a toaster oven in the window. I couldn’t fucking believe it! That little bit of metal plugged into one of them magic holes in the wall and cooked food in seconds. Seconds! I tried to tell Bridget how amazing it was, but she was too busy texting on her electronic telegraph doohickey to notice. That was the problem with Bridget an me. I needed someone to guide me through the past century or so, ya know, tell me about the two fucking world wars that happened and such, but Bridget didn’t care about the past. I don’t think she even knows about the world wars, or cares much about people in general. But she always cried when those damn “save the fucking pets” commercials came on the electric box. One thing that hasn’t changed in the past 117 years is that women are still bat shit crazy.”

After a solid year of “Mephisto Madness,” the craze began to dry and the world lost interest, especially after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 when Silas infamously declared that:

“Ya fuckers shouldn’t have built those towers  so damn high if ya didn’t want em to fall.”

The final curtain fell on Silas’ public stage when the planned sequel for  Silas Memphisto and the Transformers vs The Kingdom of Doomskull was put on permanent hold pending the settlement of a class action lawsuit against “pornographically bad cinema.”

Penniless, and slipping into obscurity, Silas began to jog, contribute sporadically to Men’s Fecal Fitness magazine, and guzzle Robitussin at an alarming rate.

Only now, after his death at the age of 169, is the world once again taking note of Silas.

“The world has lost an important, unique and somewhat crude individual today”

–           The Wall Street Journal.

“Not just a man has died today, but a man with an unusually strong digestive tract. The world of Stool owes Mr. Mephisto a hearty thank you”

– Dr. Leopold, cofounder of the Center for Celebrity Research And Prescriptions

Many questions remain after Silas body was discovered by his weekly jogging group only last week. At the forefront of these questions: Why did Silas, who to friends and family appeared to be healthy and happy, take his own life?

This reporter, during his research into the last days of Silas Memphisto, uncovered a shocking clue. Found in the pocket of Silas’ sweatpants post mortem was a ticket stub to the movie Avatar: 3D.

Silas usually avoided the Cineplex, movies tended to both frighten and confuse him. One famous instance in 2000 saw Silas fleeing from a screening of “2001: A Space Travesty” in terror because “There were fuckin’ Martians in there, real god dammed Martians!”

What caused Silas to brave his legendary fear of technology to see James Cameron’s latest blockbuster? Could the images presented on screen have shattered Silas’ fragile psyche?

No official suicide note was found, but scrawled on a notepad in Silas’s kitchen was the message:

I think I’m in love.

She’s real tall and blue

But damn…

Legs from here to eternity

Ma always told me

Don’t matter who you love

Long as she’s Catholic

I don’t think my dream girls catholic

But she could learn

Only two ways I can be with her

I could get on a rocket ship

Or take this whole bottle of ASPERIN

I can’t afford no rocket ship

Take care of Queen Victoria while I’m gone

Make sure she gets her daily cupcake

They’re her favorite

Cryptic last words from one of History’s most misunderstood men.

Silas Mephisto will not easily be forgotten, but this reporter is hoping that somewhere out there, he’s looking down on us with his blue skinned girlfriend and his dead relatives, smiling and saying his famous, oft-repeated catchphrase:

“Get those damn cameras out of me face or I’ll stab ya!”

SILAS MEPHISTO: 1840 – 2010 RIP