Sorry, I had left it until the last minute and decided it would be funny to write something that made absolutely no sense. Unfortunately I only realised after I typed it that I probably stole inspiration from the title of that Harlan Ellison short story.
I had buried my mouth in an overgrown graveyard. For months I had gone without, just a smooth stretch of skin from my nose to my chin. I absorbed my calories elsewhere these days, and speech had become expensive. I did not want to find myself paying an extortionate amount for every one of my yelps of pain at the guilt factory. I had chosen the graveyard where I had buried most of my descendants, knowing no one else would disturb the graves.
Now I needed my mouth back to scream at the polite young lady who was teaching me how to be happy. I dug at the mound until my shovel hit something gelatinous. I had burst the membrane of the coffin pod, and the foul stench that filled the air reminding me of a rabbit I once accidentally ripped apart. I wanted to gag, but had no mouth to do so.
My great grand-daughter lay peacefully in the pod, and clutched in her left hand, just where I left it, was my mouth.
The reattachment process was unpleasant. I had to roll up my mouth tightly and thrust it up one nostril. Then, with a surgical hook I had stolen from the hospital, I poked it up the nostril then down the nasal tube. From there it remembered where to go. My mouth was a tiny pinprick at first, then slowly blossomed across my face until my lips and tongue and teeth were fully formed. One of the teeth had fallen out and was in my great grand-daughter’s pod, but no matter. I could speak again.
I spat on her pod as a sign of respect, and hoped she would feel the warmth in the afterlife. Then I strolled out ready to shout and swear and scream until I had to file for bankruptcy.