TEHRAN // Mock condolences arriving by text message in Iran announce the political "death" of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Memorial services, the joke continued, were planned at the United Nations in tribute to his swaggering style each year in New York.
The satire may bring smirks from the many foes Mr Ahmadinejad racked up over eight years in office, stemming from several high-profile feuds with the ruling imams and one disputed re-election. But no one is truly counting him out of Iran's political future.
One way or another, the combative and polarising aura of the soon-to-be former president is not going to dissipate once his centrist successor, Hassan Rouhani, is sworn in on August 4.
Mr Ahmadinejad has remained evasive on his post-presidential plans. A trip to Iraq tomorrow, one of his last major moments in the spotlight as president, will be watched for clues on his next move.
"The only thing that's certain at this point is that Ahmadinejad and his team are just not going to pack up and go away," said Rasool Nafisi, an Iranian affairs analyst at Strayer University in Virginia. "Iran's political system has to be prepared for that."
This is what makes Mr Ahmadinejad's departure such a potential shock to Iran's system.
Since turbulent shakeouts immediately after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran's other former presidents have remained rooted in the system. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who left the presidency in 1989, rose to become supreme leader. His successor, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, took posts within the ruling imams. Even the reformist Mohammad Khatami was careful not to fight back too hard over sweeping crackdowns on the opposition and some of the freedoms he helped engineer.
But Mr Ahmadinejad is the kind of high-profile figure Iran has rarely seen before. He has essentially become a political orphan.
The ruling establishment holds a powerful grudge over his challenges to Mr Khamenei's authority to set policies and pick key cabinet posts, which left Mr Ahmadinejad weakened in recent years. Liberals long ago rejected his firebrand ways, which included anti-Israeli diatribes that damaged his image in the West. And many former conservative backers drifted away when it became a loyalty test of either Mr Ahmadinejad or the supreme leader.
This leaves the outgoing president with a small cadre of allies and pockets of supporters around the country - mainly poor and rural Iranians grateful for his government's monthly handouts.
How he may leverage this remaining clout "is very difficult to predict," said Ali Bigdeli, a professor in international relations in Tehran's Beheshti University.
One intriguing hint was given last week by his closest aide, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who was barred by the ruling imams from the June election as part of the high-level fallout against Mr Ahmadinejad.
"We are not considering formation of a political party," said Mr Mashaei said. "But the media can be effective. The society needs media."
He gave no other clue, but any media venture would certainly meet stiff resistance from the ruling theocracy and the powerful Revolutionary Guard, which hold influence over a host of news services, TV stations and newspapers.
Some pro-Ahmadinejad sources also have floated the idea he would establish an aid-giving foundation known as "Bahar," or "Spring," as a way to keep alive options for a comeback bid in 2017.
Yet other challenges await Mr Ahmadinejad once he leaves office. In early June, a criminal court summoned him over a lawsuit filed by the country's parliament speaker and a parliamentary committee. There have been no further details, but Mr Ahmadinejad and the speaker, Ali Larijani, have waged political feuds for years.
