COMING UP WITH A COMPLETE LIST OF WAYS TO DIE

Early on three people I knew died from things I had never heard of, those being cancer of the pancreas, secondary infection from an antibiotic-resistant superbug while in the hospital and toxic shock. These came as a surprise to me. Naturally there were ways to die that I was aware of, even at my tender age, like drowning, heart attacks, car crash, tuberculosis, eaten by a shark and head chopped off with a sword. I knew about stroke, which my uncle had had. We visited him in the hospital where he lay in a terrifically complicated bed, his eyes watery and skin blending into the linen, and my aunt told us we were lucky to still have him. “Family hug,” she’d demanded wetly. I was in my own thoughts. I'd heard about strokes and he'd survived. OK. My course of action was obvious. I began a list of every way to die that I could think of. I started with the big ones. Starve. Die of thirst. Freeze. Burn. These were easy. Drink poison. Eat something you're terribly allergic to. Explode. Train crash. Bridge collapse. As I compiled the list I gained momentum, and I found also that no one else I knew died by any of the causes I had listed. Fall on wet rocks. Squashed by a truck. Electric shock from home appliance. Ride bicycle into a hole. As my project advanced I found that my list did not become more difficult to compile but rather easier. Fall off a cliff. And be pulverized by meteorite. And have your necktie caught in the gears of a lumbermill conveyor belt. And be bayonetted by a foreign soldier. Yet more as I swayed along the streets of the city, jotting my notes in an exercise book. Tree fall. Lighting strike. Needlestick. Tongue swallowed. Gut twisted in a knot. Elevator cable snap. Bystander in the crossfire of a deadly game played by two desperate spies. Revenge of a slighted enemy. My friend William rode his bike home from school and, busy waving to his cousin, rode straight into an open drain. But he survived. And so I knew I was doing the right thing. Stray arrow from an archery field. Fall from scaffolding and land on exposed rebar column. Quicksand. Kitchen knife dropped on leg nicks an artery. Swim in the lake at dusk while the sky darkens and you lose the shore. And that's not to mention the endless traffic accidents, the myriad wild animal maulings, the infinite diseases. Say nothing of the murders. I felt compelled to share my list with publishers. I showed them my the exercise book and to a man they laughed and congratulated me and sent me away. Creatively spurred on I reimagined my medium, transforming the prose into a beautiful and intricate tapestry, in the style and format of Bayeux but representing and reflecting contemporary and traditional folkways, illustrating with great emotion the many ways to die that my life's work had articulated. And I showed it around, to galleries and tapestry enthusiasts and, later, simply passers-by, and said look at this, understand it, and no one you love will die, of these things, anyway, and perhaps if we were to continue this project together they would not die at all, not until they reach the very limit of human mortality and succumb sweetly and entirely at peace to old age. And they all looked at it in disgust and they said we hate it, it's ugly, it is the product of a neurotic and unstable mind. And I said you have to read it if you want to live. How do you not get that. You must read it if you want to live. Many of the specific ways to die were now forgotten to me, the totality being the more important meaning for me to recall, but still I believed in every one of them individually and knew they were true and I was right. You must to understand that if you want to live.

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