The Great Wallingford Wurst Festival

It's an annual event in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle. From near and far, the sausages come to be eaten.

For many, this is the culmination of a lifetime of striving and struggling. Like other so-called undead foods—creatures once alive as animals and given a temporary new life in burger, nugget, or wiener form—sausages want only to die again. Perhaps the first time caught them unawares.

As pigs, they were ignorant of the mechanism of their own destruction. As cows, they missed the stun gun as they approached. As chickens, they may have known nothing of the scalding tanks. But now, as sausages, say, they know. They have shed their innocence. A world-wise understanding was extruded into their casings along with them.

They see it coming this time around. Which is why the Great Wallingford Wurst festival sausage relaxes so intently. On the grill, his flame-retardant Hawaiian shirt like a second skin, he fans himself, relishing his long undoing. This time, he can enjoy it.

Previously, we'd peeked in on pig fantasy camp.

Now we travel farther down the road toward sheer mental breakdown and arrive at sausage fantasy camp. Whether as cowboys—every pork product's dream—or boffo show biz-types, the sausages are "living" "life" to the fullest. For now.

Until their second death, so sweetly longed for, is upon them.