Hashed

Recently, I sent my brother an email.  In that email, I mentioned that I was a little bit hashed.  He emailed me back, and asked what "hashed" meant.  This was my response:

Have you ever made hash browns? It's really easy, from my perspective, but let me tell you what it's like from the potato's perspective.

I opened my eyes blearily in the morning light. This was an interesting place I'd come to. I was used to the dark underground of my youth. I was happy there. Then, somebody had pulled me up out of the ground, brushed me off, and stuck me in a pile with a few of my friends and a lot of others I'd never met before. It was very bright, and I did my best to shield myself from the sunlight. Of course, without arms, or even any muscles, that was quite impossible. Eventually, I was buried under other potatoes. It was almost like being back underground. I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.

I woke to the sound of a rumbling that sounded much like the thunderstorms that had brought life-giving water. I eagerly awaited the rain, but soon realized that I was moving. I was being bounced and jiggled and felt the weight of many other potatoes on top of me. It was uncomfortable. I didn't know what was happening, and I went back to sleep in self-defense.

How much time had passed, I didn't know, but I woke to find myself in some sort of a box with other potatoes. It was open to the sky, but it was the strangest sky I'd ever seen. It was flat, and grey, and had ten suns that I could count. Occasionally, the creatures that had pulled me up from the ground would come and poke at my companions. One by one, the other potatoes in the box got picked up and taken away. Eventually, it was my turn. The fingers around my midsection felt strange. They picked me up and placed me in another container with a few of my companions. They were all asleep. I decided to join them.

When I woke up, it was morning. I could see the sky, the blue sky, out of a little square next to me. I saw the people that had picked me up earlier wandering around, making clashing noises with various instruments. It was a very interesting place. I decided to stay awake. Suddenly, I was picked up again. I was carried over something that was very very hot. Fortunately, the heat only lasted a moment. Then I was put under water. I'd never been completely underwater before... for the first couple of moments, it felt wonderful. Then, I started to feel as though I would drown. I was taken out of the water just in the nick of time and set on a hard surface. I caught my breath. This was too hard. I needed to go to sleep again. Just as I was closing my eyes, I was picked up again. This time, I was pushed hard against a surface. The pressure grew and grew until it was was too much to take. Just as I thought I was going to die, I began to slide. As I slid, I felt pain searing along my body in three different places. The pain was excruciating. Then the pressure let up, I was slid back to my original position, and the pressure began again. I tried desperately to go to sleep, but the sliding began again. This time, I realized that there was pain in the original places, plus a line of pain on either side of the first three. The fingers holding me started to pick up a rhythm. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Pressure, pain, pressure, pain, pressure, pain. I soon realized that I was getting smaller and smaller as pieces of me were shorn off by each new swipe of pain. There was nothing I could do. Finally, when I was too small to be held anymore, I was tossed into yet another container, atop the small pieces of myself and my previous companions. The container was moved, and I realized that we were going closer to the heat I had felt earlier. Suddenly we were dumped out and I landed in heat like I'd never felt before in my life. I heard a dreadful sizzling and popping sound around me, and I smelled the stench of burning flesh. As I closed my eyes for the last time, I heard a sound that I did not comprehend but that somehow was profoundly important, saying, "Mmmm... Nothin' like hash browns in the morning."

That's exaggerated, of course, but that's what the word "hashed" refers to.

I should probably be more careful how I use it. I don't actually feel like I'm being shredded and then drowned in hot oil.

I'll also never look at hash browns in quite the same way.