Death...*
by E. I. Weiner
*... is just God's way of
letting you know She didn't
find you all that amusing
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2010 by E. I. Weiner
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For Ginger, with undying love and gratitude.
And for Luna, my boy.
"What's so bad about death, anyway? Most of the best people are dead, you know."
John Cleese
Table of Contents
I. AKA Death
II. Calendar of Events
III. The Wisdom of Guru Baba
IV. Mr. Darkwell Picks
V. Death Symbolism in Dreams
VI. In Passing
VII. Death Benefits
VIII. Death Channel
IX. Pearly Gate Regulations
X. Der Tod Bag
XI. Become a Mortician
XII. The 33 Stages of Dying
XIII. The Death of Socrates' Rooster
XIV. Coffin Stuffers
XV. Total Fitness for the Dead
XVI. Celebrity Epitaphs
XVII. Weed It and Reap
XVIII. Suggested Additional Readings
Chapter I
AKA Death
The Grim Reaper
The Angel of Death
That Ol’ Eternity Guy
The Long Goodbye
The Somewhat Shorter But Still Remarkably Long Goodbye
The Brief But Noticeably Permanent Goodbye
The Interminable Non-Hello
Shuffling Off This Mortal Coil
Decease
Demise
The Pale Rider
The Rider, Back From Aruba, With Some Color
Quietus
Passed Away
Passed Beyond
Passed With Third and Long
Extinction
Annihilation
Expiration
Kicking the Bucket
Breathing One's Last
Ceasing To Be
Lifeless
Breathless
Most Everything-less
Mortality
Departure
Final Destination
Baggage Claim
Long-Term Parking
Release
Eternal Rest
Vacation Without Pay
Inhalatus Interruptus
River Jordan
Air Jordan
Air-less Jordan
The Stygian Shore
The Stygian Cabana
The Stygian Beachfront Room with Private Bath and Modified American Plan
The Great Adventure
Doom
Fate
Destiny
Buying the Farm
Dividing the Farm to Make Way for Townhouses
Leasing the Farm for a Rock Concert
Moribund
The Last Gasp
Giving Up the Ghost
Asking For the Ghost Back Because You Just Found Out It Was Worth Something
Leasing the Ghost
Bereft of Life
The Supreme Sacrifice
The Four Tops Sacrifice
The Smokey Robinson and the Miracles Sacrifice
At Death's Door
Beyond Death's Door
In Death's Apartment
Rifling Through Death's Underwear Drawer While Eating Death's Food and Playing Death's Sinatra Albums
Curtains
Finito
Outta Here
Sayonara
Ciao
The End
Chapter II
Calendar of Events
IMPORTANT DEATH DATES TO REMEMBER
JANUARY
1 -- New Year's Day
2 -- Official end of winter suicide season
17 -- Romeo and Juliet decide not to have children or respiration, 1503
28 -- St. Tolliver's Day: patron saint of cerebrovascular accident
FEBRUARY
4 -- Sir Walter Raleigh develops hacking cough, 1616
14 -- St. Valentine's Day: official start of spring suicide season
24 -- Great Moments in Modern Medicine: Formalin, a 40%-by-volume solution of formaldehyde in water used to preserve bodies, first demonstrated by Josiah Crenshaw, M.D., on grudging volunteer, not-quite-nearly-dead but alcoholically compliant lab assistant Tully McAndrews, London, 1853
MARCH
§ -- Ash Wednesday: International Crematory Association Convention & Luau, Nagasaki, Japan
13 -- Leo Whorl shoves certain Scrabble pieces down his wife, Gloria's, throat while she sleeps, thus committing murder most vowel, 1948
15 -- Ides of March: Brutus, Cassius and friends perform first Caesarean section, 44 B.C.
APRIL
14 -- John Wilkes Booth graduates last in his Deringer 101 target-practice class at Fogarty's Pistol Range, Arlington, Virginia; he reveals to a friend that he intends to kill "that damned ugly Mary Lincoln" that night at Ford's Theatre, 1865
15 -- Purser Cyril Oglevie rearranges deck chairs on the Titanic, 1912
§ -- Easter. Official end of spring suicide season
24 -- Reincarnation Day: Take your selves to lunch; Shirley MacLaine's birthday
MAY
6 -- Traveling pre-owned dental floss wholesaler Fritz von Fritz tries to impress a stewardess with his flip-lighted-cigarette-in-air-and-catch-it-in-mouth trick as the Hindenburg prepares to dock in Lakehurst, New Jersey, 1937
17 -- Dalai Lama Li Truan is reincarnated as Vegas showgirl Amber Lovecraft; though eager to announce his miraculous rebirth to the world, he decides to keep it to himself for a while after Frank Sinatra asks for a date, Las Vegas, 1962
§ -- MemorialDay
JUNE
12 -- Plague Day, Duluth, Minnesota: Bring out your dead and get a free Slurpee refill.
18 -- St. Guido of Mamaluke's Day: patron saint of brakeless auto collisions made to look like accidents
23 -- Great Moments in Modern Medicine: Josiah Crenshaw, M.D., becomes first doctor in modern times to hold both a beating heart and a living brain in one hand (his left, the weaker one), then bounces them up and down, pretending they might fall, despite strenuous objections to hotdogging it by his staff and the weak protestations of grudging volunteer, unanesthetized lab assistant Tully McAndrews, 1853
JULY
4 -- Independence Day: Avoid weaponry if you have a short fuse
10 -- Dyslexic criminal Frank San Pedro dials V for murder, Houston, 1956
25 -- North American Bungee Jumping Without Cord Competition, Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco. Winner takes victory lap around Alcatraz (current permitting)
AUGUST
9 -- St. Wapner's Day: patron saint of malpractice
12 -- The 42 vacationers on Roma Arrividerci Holiday Tours' "Italy is a Summer Festival" excursion immediately regret guide Giussepe Fantucci's suggestion of "a quick sidetrip to this incredible little pizza joint in Pompeii I know," 79 A.D.
22 -- Newly licensed barber Sweeney Todd accidentally nicks his first customer, apologizes, but not wholeheartedly, 1874
SEPTEMBER
1 -- Adolph Hitler gets midnight craving for kielbasa, sends a few soldiers to Crakow for takeout, 1939
§ -- Premature Labor Day
§ -- Labor Day
29 -- Lemmings arrive at sea, 11 a.m. Free barbeque, 4:30
OCTOBER
4 -- Annual Sylvia Plath Pilot-Light Blow-Out, New York
12 -- Sigmund Freud, at age 2-1/2, discovers he will die someday, blames his mother, father and God (if there were one), but takes it out on his penis
19 -- St. Heebie of Jeebie's Day: patron saint of unstoppable chain reactions
31 -- Halloween
NOVEMBER
3 -- Botulism designated a vegetable by the Reagan Administration, 1986
14 -- St. Thong's Day: patron saint of having to read Ibsen
19 -- Panel of rabbis meet at Masada Ramada and agree that henceforward all Jewish holidays, no matter how joyous, would be depressing and worshippers would be forced to mourn at least one -- but preferably all -- dead relatives, 1543 B.C.
§ -- Thanksgiving. Official start of winter suicide season
DECEMBER
5 -- St. Mookie's Day: patron saint of heavy things that fall off buildings
12 -- Great Moments in Modern Medicine: Robert Nariz -- colleague, hair stylist and insignificant other of Josiah Crenshaw, M.D. -- becomes internationally obscure after discovering symptoms of coma by observing effects of surprise ether-overdose practical joke on grudging volunteer, nonambulatory lab assistant Tully McAndrews, London, 1853
25 -- Christmas
Chapter III
The Accumulated Eternal Wisdom of The Rev. Guru Meher Baba, P.C.
Life is but a casaba melon, and we are but its seeds. And when God eats the melon and swallows the seeds, we become a large round tropical fruit growing in God's stomach. Or, eating so much fruit, God might get the runs, at which time we may be excreted, perhaps to instead grow in God's septic system. The decision is up to God and the state of his digestion at the moment.
In karma, one is rewarded proportionately to the quality of one's deeds on Earth. If one is an evil man, for example, he may come back to this Earth as a slave or an insect or bridge mix. But if one leads an exemplary life along the righteous path, he may return as Megan Fox's horse.
Life is an illusion. So is 3-card monte, but at least with that they let you win a little.
Master Po was sitting under a tree, playing the ocarina and waiting for the Number 42 bus, when a laborer approached him. "Father," the laborer began, which startled Master Po, who had spent considerable time in this region when he was in his 20s, and this man did resemble him, especially around the eyes. But when he realized that this was merely a term of respect, he relaxed and returned his attorney's business card to his knapsack. "Father," the laborer said again, "am I going to die?" Master Po considered this, looked upon the man's face and replied, "Of course you are, you goddamn idiot! We all are! What the hell's wrong with you?" The laborer bowed. "Thank you," he said. "I have been working hard and I forgot." And then he rushed off. Master Po thought long on this encounter, and came to the conclusion that there was absolutely no lesson to be learned from it. It was then he realized that his ocarina was gone, and as he searched the high grass for it he missed the bus and, as a result, the Early Bird special.
The force of Nature, known as ch'i, runs through all things: the earth, the sky, the water, some types of cold cuts and even very obvious weaves offered by the Hair Club for Men. Even after death, your ch'i returns to the immortal flow, but a fat lot of good that does you, you being dead and all.
Death is not an end, but I can think of at least half a dozen more promising beginnings.
Into every home, Death comes as an uninvited guest. Even so, it's only right that he should bring something, like a nice piece of citrus or a coffee-cake ring.
One passes from this life into the next in a split second, and could make the trip even faster with exact change.
In life, there are those who run, those who stand, those who sit and those who simply lie down. Those who simply lie down belong to a better union.
Master Po, carrying a duck under one arm and the last four pages of Mickey Spillaine's "I, the Jury" under the other, found himself on a crowded street corner as a funeral procession passed by. Everyone bowed in respect -- some even shed tears -- but Master Po stood upright, dry-eyed, unbending. Questioned about this insult, he replied, "I knew this man, and he desired no honors upon his death, so I gave him none. You, who did not know him at all, like sheep followed tradition and, in so doing, made a mockery of his last wishes. If he were alive, he would at this moment be sinking his teeth into your sensitive soft-tissue areas. So, which is the insult: your act or mine?" Everyone apologized and praised the wise man's magnificent lesson, which made Master Po glad, because in actuality he did not know the dead man from a hole in the ground, and the only reason he didn't bow was because his shorts were on too tight. Asked about the duck and the Spillaine book, Master Po snapped back that the symbolism was obvious to those on the righteous path. In truth, this was the first he was aware of carrying these items, and attributed it to the Zen Homecoming Mixer he had attended the night before. It was also now that he discovered that he didn't even have any shorts on.
When Death comes for you, first make your peace with your God, then clutch to you your loved ones, take them as hostages and use them as a human shield until Death agrees to your demands for a 747 to a neutral country and $100 million in unmarked bills. It's worth a shot.
Die low, reincarnate high.
Chapter IV
Mr. Darkwell Picks His 10 Worst-Dressed Dead of All Time
For seemingly more years than the oldest sequoias have been on the planet, Mr. Darkwell (also known to authorities in seven states as Elijah Fred Mendota and/or Phyllis Connnors) has been designing dresses (mostly for legumes) and creating his annual Worst-Dressed People Least Likely to Sue Me for Ridiculing Them list, which has made him a household word. Unfortunately, that word is "plunger."
Although institutionalized since last June after a much-publicized near-fatal hissy fit during a rare nasal plantar wart excision, he was eager to take on the challenge of beating dead horses, fashion-wise, during a break in his attempts to pitch the idea of a TV network that would sexually honor a French designer in a studio located below ground halfway between France and England: he calls this the Carnal Chanel Chunnel Channel.
Gandhi -- Does the word shmata mean anything to you? What more is there to say except: Setting fire to those rags was the only acceptable fashion statement. So much for currying favor.
David Carradine -- It's terribly sad when the best thing hanging in your closet is you. Poor Grasshopper -- it must have been something he asphyxiate.
Jayne Mansfield -- Her garb de demise? A real no-brainer: forget the hat, forget the pearls. So much for top-heavy.
Mama Cass -- Where'd she get those jammies -- Sears' camping equipment department? Who wouldn't choke?
Isadora Duncan -- When you over-accessorize, you have to expect the worst. Auto-garrotte-icism.
Walt Disney -- The iceman cometh ... not! First, Mickey Mouse ears, then freeze-dried buns. Hey, Walt Disney, you just died! What are you going to do first? "I'm going to Netherworld!"
Andy Warhol -- Op, pop, fop, lop, drop. What gall!
Jesus -- Who put the "mess" in "messiah"? Bare feet, sackcloth, crown of thorns. You call that dressing for success? But, then, that's his cross to bear.
Samson -- Talk about having a bad hair day!
Mussolini -- All brown and all gray makes Benito a dull fascist. Boring, boring, boring -- from the top of his heels to the bottom of his head.
Eve -- Worst-dressed first lady. When she was naked, who cared? After the fig leaf, who knows? Certainly not our idea of a prime rib.
Chapter V
Death Symbolism in Dreams
In the famous, oft-quoted words of Carl Jung, "We may expect to find in dreams everything that has ever been of significance in the life of humanity. Also, tall Catholic school girls with gigundo bazooms slow-dancing in my yesterday's underwear, slapping me across my nipples with al dente fettucine and calling me `Cheech.' "