Dead

DEAD

You never know when, you never know where, and you never know how.

You never know when, you never know where, and you never know how, but we all will die one day, some tragically, some unexpectedly, some peacefully, some prematurely, and some expectedly. It is inevitable.

These are snippets of life and of death. Read on to realize what happened to others and you may discover what may happen to you.

*

The Tragic Death:

Jenny was a pretty blonde girl, her thoughts were like everyone else's, who waited with her on the platform for the 5:15pm train to arrive at the station, away from there and thinking of all the things she had to do once home. Mindlessly not paying any attention to the danger that lurked around her. She wanted to get home. She needed to get home. She had class tonight and wanted to get something to eat while cramming for her final exam.

Now, the delayed train interrupted her thoughts making her frantic with schedules and time frames. She felt pressured and anxious. Now, she only thought of where was the stupid train. Only, something was wrong, the train was delayed and the crowd anxiously waited impatiently for the arrival of the train to take them away from there, away from the last leg of work, and to take them home.

Sarah was late. She was never late. She prided herself on being on time, on being logical, practical, and on never losing her head when all of those around her panicked unnecessarily and lost their heads, but her heel broke on the way to the train station. Uncharacteristically, she was discombobulated by her delay and subsequent late arrival for the 5:15pm train.

Always, she caught the 5:15pm train that would get her home exactly, by 5:40pm to feed her cat, Mr. Whiskers, make a cup of tea, and watch the evening news. An anal accountant, who looked like a spinster librarian or an old maid school teacher, the sameness of her routine was important to her. Now, out of sync with her need to maintain her scheduled habits, her mood, quite dependent upon precision and exactness, was ill-tempered. The later she was, the crazier she became.

Always, she stood on the spot where that pretty, blonde girl now stood. Always, she was the first one on the train, as the front door opened before all the others and opened directly in front of her. She hustled herself through the crowd trying to claim her rightful spot behind or beside that pretty, blonde girl. By stepping on some toes, jostling some waiting passengers, and annoying the others waiting longer, she managed to make it to the front, an arms reach behind the pretty, blonde girl.

Now, 5:25, the crowd was nearly doubled in size from the typical crowd that waits at the station at this time of day and with more people pouring off buses and adding to the growing crowd. As more people arrived on the platform, a foreboding feeling of consensus emerged that not everyone was going to fit on the train and those in back would have to wait for the next train. Time was ticking and everyone wanted to get home and get away from the smelly, hot, and crowded train station. People in back started inching and jockeying their way forward trying to gain a spot in front. Yet, when would the next train arrive? Would that train, the next train, arrive equally as late or would they follow up with a...there.

A whistle blew and an express train flew in past the crowd, flew out of the station, and it was gone to the next stop without picking up any passengers. Definitely, something was wrong. Another excruciatingly long ten minute wait heralded the rumble of their 5:15pm train at 5:35pm. Now, the crowd was massive, more than three times its normal size.

"For your safety," crackled the loudspeaker, just as the train entered the confines of the narrow station "please stand behind the yellow line."

A push, a bump, and a jostle from behind, as the crowd surged ahead, Jenny stumbled forward leaning precariously and teetering on the edge of the platform. She could not maintain her balance for long and with her arms flailing frantically, she screamed falling. Just as the train reached her nearly hitting her head and upper body, a hand, that of a kind hearted, hero of a man, emerged lunging his form forward from somewhere in the crowd, pulling her back, and saving her from certain death but at his own risk and at his own unfortunate peril. Unable to stop his forward momentum, he continued bursting through the crowd.

The crowd, as if connected together as one, gasped and took an involuntary step backward. The man who saved Jenny was now squeezed like a tube of toothpaste between the platform and the train. In a heroic effort, he lost his balance and fell just as the train rumbled past, lurched forward, and parked itself in the station.

"Someone call 911!"

People ran to his aid and what they saw amazed them. There was no blood, guts or gore. There was the man perfectly okay. It was a miracle. His body above his waist was perched against the train while the rest of him was stuck somewhere down below, and he was alert and talking.

"I'm okay," he said. "I'm okay," he repeated to the crowd raising his hands in victory like he had just won a game of tennis. "I just have to get this damn train off of me," he said with an uncomfortable chuckle and a pained grunt.

Again, the crowd stepped back in horror but for a few people who knew better and who stayed with him at his side consoling him. Jenny held his hand, her tears showed not only her gratitude for him saving her life but also her dreaded concern for him.

"I'm glad that wasn't me," said Sarah looking at her watch and hustling herself away from the train and from the unpleasantness of the incident intent on taking a taxi home to maintain the uniformity and timeliness of her schedule. "It might have been me, had I been standing on my spot. There is a reason for everything," she said without emotion, "a reason for everything," she repeated mumbling to herself for no one else to hear. "God's will. Today is my lucky day. Maybe, I'll stop and play the lottery," she said looking at her watch, again.

The paramedics arrived asking everyone to stay back. The police arrived and, taking one look at the man, assessed the situation. They had seen it before and it was not a pretty sight. They cleared the station and the train of passengers and arranged with the Metro for those waiting for trains to board buses. The station was shut down for several hours while they made plans to extricate the man from the train before moving the train.

"I'm okay," said the man, again, assuring himself, as well as the paramedics. Yet, they knew differently. As soon as they removed the train, his body, twisted like a pretzel below and temporarily holding his vital organs and blood in place, would explode. He was mortally wounded beyond saving.

"What's your name?"

"Freddie." Freddie looked at the paramedics. "I'm okay...right?"

"Do you have family to call, Freddie?"

"Yes." His eyes read the eyes of the paramedics that he was not okay and that he was dying.

"They stepped away allowing Freddie some privacy to call his wife, his girlfriend, his mistress, and to say his good-bye to all of his children, legitimate and illegitimate." With a cough, a choke, and a spurt of blood, he died a few minutes after he made his call.

Meanwhile, Sarah, suddenly feeling charged with her good fortune of skirting certain death, had she not broken her heel and been standing on her spot, was intent on grabbing a taxicab ahead of the elderly woman walking with great difficulty ahead of her. She side stepped around her and, stepping off the sidewalk, yelled, "Taxi!"

She never saw the bus that knocked her several dozen yards in the air and violently crashed her down so much like a rag doll on the pavement. She laid dead in the street her body on one side and her head on the other. "Shit," she said looking at her headless body, "now I'll never make it home on time." Quietly, she closed her eyes.

*

The Unexpected Death:

Freddie received the call at work that his twin brother, Eddie was taken by ambulance to the hospital. No one would tell him anything. No one knew anything to tell. All they knew was they were working on him in the emergency room.

He packed up his work to take home, told his secretary that his brother was suddenly taken to the hospital, and that he would be gone for the day. He had a bad feeling, a premonition that this was it, that this was the big one. He removed the thoughts of his brother's impending funeral from his mind. He could not go there.

Freddie expected the worst. His brother, albeit a twin was always the sickly one. Born premature at less than 3 pounds, he had developmental problems all through his life. Freddie, born weighing nearly 6 pounds, the healthy one, the 12 letter athlete in high school, the track star in college, and the tri-athlete now, was never sick a day in his life.

He worried about his brother. Always, he felt guilty with the thoughts that, maybe, in the womb, he had, somehow, stolen the extra nourishment that his brother needed to be as healthy as he was. Perhaps, it was as simple as the location of where he was in the womb, as opposed to his brother. Unfounded, but, believing it to be true and believing that they both, as twins, should have had the same birth weight, he felt responsible for his brother's ailments, nonetheless.

He thought of all the things he did with his brother, the ballgames at Fenway Park, the drinking down at O'Malley's, the bonding filled with laughter and tears when reminiscing about past times, the vacations to the lake where they fished, the excursions to the mountains where they hiked and camped, the long drives to the shore where they ogled topless women, and the week long trip to Disney World and Universal Studios where they had a blast. What would he do without his twin? They were so very close, closer than any brothers could be, the twin bond made them inseparable throughout life. Maybe, Eddie's asthma reared its ugly head, again. Maybe, they found something wrong with his heart, finally, as they suspected all along. Maybe...

He never saw the stop sign in his rush to drive pedal to the metal to be with his imagined dying brother at the hospital. Fortunately, the truck braked and swerved avoiding a fatal crash. Unscathed, the near miss collision scared the shit out of Freddie. Now, he was shaking in a panic worried that his brother lay dying or already dead without him there at his side. He pulled the car over to the side of the road, parked, and collected himself before continuing to the hospital. He took a breath, closed his eyes, and tried to relax.

Eddie was waiting on Freddie to give him a ride home from the hospital. He had missed a step on the steep cellar stairs and had broken his ankle. With a cast on his left ankle and walking with the aid of a crutch, he hoped his brother had received the message he left on his cell phone.

It was the next morning before they found Freddie slumped over the steering wheel in his parked car dead of a massive heart attack.

*

The Peaceful Death:

"Freddie's dead."

"What?"

"Freddie. He died. He's dead."

"You're kidding. Freddie? Bostonfictionwriter? I can't believe it."

"Yes, believe it."

"How? Was it during hot sex with two women?"

"No."

"Was he trying to make a comeback in boxing and he died of a heart attack?"

"No."

"Was he trying to save another baby, again, from a burning building?"

"No."

"Did he finally agree to donate his brain to Harvard for medical research?"

"No."

"How, then?"

"He was writing a story for Literotica and was surrounded by his usual consortium of female admirers like they always enjoy doing while he is writing. Jen was on his left reading over his shoulder while kissing his left ear and rubbing his left thigh and Sally was on his right reading over his shoulder while kissing his right ear and rubbing his right thigh. Ashleigh was in-between his legs giving him a blow job while he wrote, which is the way he always wrote."

"Yeah, I remember her making that deal with him when he told her that he was going to write stories for Literotica and she laughed in his face and said, what you write stories? You cannot write stories. You cannot write. You are so scattered with your thoughts, unable to focus, and I am so certain that you will not finish even one story that I will give you a blow job for every story that you do write. And for every story that you start and do not finish, you have to go down on me."

"I know and he wrote 15,000 stories in 15,000 days receiving a blow job every day for more than 41 years."

"Wow! That is amazing."

"What's even more amazing and kind of sad for her is that, by their agreement, he never had to go down on her because there never was a story that he started that he did not finish."

"So, how did he die?"

"He died peacefully while she blew him for the last time."

"That's how I want to go with my cock in a woman's mouth. Way to go, Freddie. Rest in peace, Bostonfictionwriter."

*

Premature Death:

"Wow! Look at this! I can't believe it. It made the front page of today's newspaper."

"What did?"

"He was on his honeymoon, can you believe it? The poor bastard."

"Who?"

"Freddie, he was honeymooning in Bermuda and did a little too much celebrating. He took a wrong turn on one of those motor scooters and drove off a cliff. It was in the middle of the night and he was drunk."

"What about his wife?"

"Wife? You mean his widow?"

"Yeah, what about his widow?"

"Well, she's rich now, filthy rich. She inherits all that lottery prize money he just won, forty-two million dollars."

"Geez, he played that loser number for decades. And, then, when he finally, won, he's dead. Isn't that a kick in the ass?"

"Yeah, but he was so young. This is so sudden and so premature. He had so many stories to write and so many others to submit. He showed me all the stories that he had planned on dumping on Literotica in the middle of December, as a surprise move to win the Survivor Contest."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, he told me back in July that he had enough stories to earn him nearly 2,000 points."

"So, where are the stories?"

"In this box. I was going out back to burn them."

"Burn them? Let's split them and enter them in the Survivor Contest."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, Freddie would have liked that. Think of it as a tribute to Bostonfictionwriter."

"Okay."

*

Expected Death:

Freddie raced his motorcycle everywhere. The police were so tired of chasing him that they just drove to his house, waited until he showed up, and arrested him.

"Freddie, what is wrong with you? You're going to kill someone. You can't be driving down Main Street at 100mph in a 20mph zone. Besides, you don't even have a license anymore. We pulled it last month."

"Ah, there ain't no one around when I come home at midnight. You cops are paranoid. Besides, I wasn't going no 100mph, I was only doing 60mph."

Then, it happened, that fateful day of the police prophesy. He entered the intersection too fast and when he saw a street full of people, in an attempt to avoid them; he took the turn too tight, and flipped his Harley. The motorcycle careened and tumbled end over end striking people as it went and landing in the middle of a crowd of Japanese tourists posing and taking photos who, having just arrived from Tokyo and unable to adjust to the time change, were out roaming the street at midnight.

There in the street were three mini-skirted Asian women sprawled out dead.

Everyone expected Freddie to kill himself on that bike but he survived with nothing more than scrapes and bruises.

The police feared that he might do something crazy like kill himself, so they removed his belt and shoelaces leaving him with his small notebook of stories that he had posted on Literotica to read and to give him some solace.

Later that night, alone in his jail cell, unable to live with the grief of killing three innocent, mini-skirted Japanese women (such a waste), he took his own life by eating his own words, particularly, eating this story, by removing the pages from his notebook and swallowing them. He died of suffocation.