I've spent a concerning amount of time debating death.
How I will die.
What's the worst way to die?
What's it like?
I've narrowed it down to two.
They seem pretty obvious to me.
Top two ways to die: fire and drowning.
I think most people would agree on fire. I've laid awake at night in my bed imagining waking up to the smell of smoke. I've seen myself struggling to get out of my bed quickly enough, smoke billowing into my room as I try to shake free from the confusion of sleep. I imagine not being able to get out of my room. Of realizing what's about to happen.
Realistically, most people die of the smoke inhalation long before the actual flames begin to whip and tear and seer the flesh.
But then I ponder on some crazy scenario where I'm at the gas station and the pump won't shut off and a nearby person drops a cigarette and I see in horror the hot rock drop and the line of fire coming for me. How dying as I feel the burns scorching across my legs and arms and torso would have to be the worst way to go.
Then there is the drowning.
I almost drowned once at the beach on vacation with my parents. I'd gone too far out into the waves and before I understood what happened the sand was no longer below my feet and my body was being rolled in the waves.
How I'd thrashed and gasped for breath whenever my face would break surface. How every time I did, salty water burned down my throat and out of my nose.
I vividly remember the panic.
How I knew exactly what was happening.
My father dragged me out, but the experience easily made it to the top of my list of ways to perish.
I'd imagined if he hadn't gotten to me. How I'd keep getting pulled under until I couldn't fight it anymore and just had to let my lungs fill with the burning water, my eyes bulging and body screaming in pain as my life is sucked out of me while I'm filled with the water until I eventually lose the battle and pass out from the lack of oxygen.
Those are the easy top too.
But then there are others. So many others. There are infinite ways for a human to die. We are truly so entirely fragile when you sit and think about it.
Something I tend to do.
I think about getting swallowed by a whale. Of being in a plane crash. Of getting hit by a train. Of slipping and falling off of a mountain's edge. I think of standing in line at a Starbucks and a drunk driver slamming through the front, flattening me underneath its force. I imagine carrying boxes of stuff from one room to the next and tripping over the dog, falling onto the glass coffee table and the broken shards of the table slicing into a vital artery.
I am the epitome of intrusive thoughts.
I think I'd like to know when I'm going to die. To have some sort of warning beforehand so that I know it's coming. But then I think of how much that knowledge would lead my life. How I'd obsess over it until the ultimate day comes and all I've made of my life is dreading what I know is coming.
But then not knowing?
Having no clue?
That doesn't sit right with me either.
We are all supposed to just live our lives and go about each day without knowing who will be the last person we ever speak to. What our last words will be. The last meme we shared on Facebook. My last meal?
