Zuexius, a Greek painter, died of laughter. The Bluebeard of Gambais was killed by guillotine. Joseph Haydn, the famous classical musician, died after a long illness but his head was stolen by two men who bribed his gravedigger and has not since been found. William Wallace—a Scottish knight who lived in the 13th century—was hanged, drawn and quartered. However tantalizing it may be to imagine, no evidence exists of an Iron Maiden ever having been put to actual use. William Holden, handsome actor and once one of the biggest box office attractions of the 1950s, slipped on a rug, hit his head on a bedside table, and bled to death. The last words of Gary Mark Gilmore, who demanded the death sentence be implemented to punish him for the two murders he’d committed, was executed by firing squad, was “Let’s do it.” Andrea Meyer, German metal musician, died of wounds inflicted by bow and arrow. Jose Rey Escobedo, about whom little is known, died in quicksand. Grace Olive Whiley, who claimed to have tamed 300 venomous snakes, died after an Indian cobra bit her while she posed for a photographer. Gee Jon, who was a member of a Chinese gang, died of lethal gas. Boz, king of the Antes, was crucified with 70 of his nobles. In southeast Asia, elephants were employed to crush the bodies of criminals. Because he refused to grant the Japanese permission to use the convent of the Holy Spirit Sisters as a brothel, William Finneman was bound and thrown overboard off the coast of Batangas City. Soraya Manuetcheri, a 35-year-old Iranian, was stoned after unconfirmed accusations of adultery. Buster Edwards, who owned a flower shop and was a member of the gang who committed the Great Train Robbery, died of hanging. Zelda Fitzgerald died in Asheville, North Carolina, when the hospital where she was staying caught fire. The body of Peter Martinez, otherwise known as “Petey Crack,” washed up on a New York City beach with his feet encased in concrete and his head wrapped in duct tape. For the attempted murder of Henry VIII, Richard Rouse, who had laced porridge with poisoned yeast, was chained and dipped in boiling water until he died. On 9.11.19, ten years after having been diagnosed with dementia, my mother woke up happy for the first time in a long time, and then passed away. Three weeks later, my otherwise healthy grandmother, only days shy of her 101st birthday, fell out of her wheelchair, fractured some bones in her spine, and died the next day. I suspect I too will die, and as fantastic as it sounds, so will you, and in a way, because time is not real, at least according to physics, we already have, and like the majority of the 107 billion people who have gone before us, we won’t know why or how, and only the ones we leave behind will tell the stories of how we left
