3 Short Stories: Weird Fictional Deaths

 Here are three parts of a slowly ongoing writing exercise: "7 Weird, Stupid Ways to Die". More to come!

1. I could be in Hong Kong, accompanying my fiancé on a work trip. I’d take a ton of pictures and drink tea and eat gummy snacks that taste like roses. I’d try different foods and stroll the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade.

“There’s nothing like this at home, right?” My love would half-whisper as we walked along.

         Instead of answering, I’d curl my fingers around the crook of his arm. 

We’d check out all the Chinese dragons we could find. I’d use the word “awesome” too much. When he kissed me, I would taste the memories made in college and at our apartment on East 31st and at the Imperial Room and I would pull away from the kiss just hoping that I wouldn't sigh from the overwhelmingly lovely biological tug in my brain.  

After dinner, we’d watch the first two Die Hard movies and pass out. I would remember the time my fiancé put his long hair in pigtails for a minute just to make me laugh. Why not live a simple life in shiny, busy places? I would call this relationship “home”. My heart would slow over the course of three hours and stop in my sleep. 

        2. I could be working in LA as a window washer. I’d wield a squeegee for a living and often spend summers at Mom and Pops’ place across the country. They’d have to be proud, and well past surprise at the way I’ve built a somewhat odd resumé. I used to clean movie theaters where films were shown on 35mm. I was a dog walker before that, and a maintenance worker at a frozen yogurt shop three days a week. I was employed by a soul food truck for a year when I was younger, preceded by babysitting and self-publishing two horrific romance e-books about a recovering villain, an astronaut’s daughter, a drug dealer who looks a lot like Sam Rockwell, and a twist ending I can no longer recall.Who knew I’d make those choices? My life’s story hasn't previously been written. It would have played out in real time, made entirely of improvisation, like my move to this city, my getting paid to actually keep something clean, and the time I didn’t strap in properly and fell twelve stories.Someone at Reader’s Digest wrote a piece about me. The incident impacted a lot of people,  witnesses, featured on the local news for the next two nights. Besides, twenty-eight is too young to die. I wanted to visit parts of Europe and Australia, to get something published by The Paris Review and start a blog reviewing different types of whiskey and gin, to master the art of making butter cream frosting and get my first manicure. I was hoping to start working as an extra on movie sets and move into a more likable home – maybe a bungalow or something. There were episodes of Archer on my roommate’s DVR that I was going to watch.

F**k that “bright light” s**t. This sucks. 


3. So it turns out I didn’t just have a cold.

    I was carrying something more around simultaneously; it may have been bacteria, which is the idea I’m leaning toward, or it could have been a genetic nightmare that waited for years beneath my bloodstream, dormant, planning to make me regret my DNA for more than bad acne and psoriasis. The only thing I know with certainty is that I had a very rare condition that destroyed me in the way that landed me in jail, a court-mandated psychiatric evaluation and later, an urn. The experience, in its entirety, was terribly eventful. I was dangerous. First, I spent almost two months in a frozen state that resembled a coma, except my eyes were open and I was very conscious. Unable to move any part of my body, I was forced to make my loved ones feel frightened and heartbroken, exhausting their resources, attempting to feed and hydrate my motionless trachea and jaws. It was horrific. You see, it was my The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, but without hookups with beautiful people, without a book to my name, and lacking a Marlon Brando joke. Encephalitis lethargica can do that.