I have good news and bad news... you're going to die.

How will I die? Your Result: You will die in your sleep.   A peaceful departure into the next life. You are blessed with the good fortune of passing from sleep into eternity. Do not fear sleep. To dream into the next life is a rare gift.
You will die of boredom.
You will die while having sex.
You will be murdered.
You will die while saving someone's life.
You will die in a nuclear holocaust.
You will die from a terminal illness.
You will die in a car accident.
How will I die? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

It was Jim's idea, like so many things good or ill (and somehow, in my heart of hearts, I will have to say it's Nathan's fault; just because). How will I die? I must know! Well, tell the truth, I must not and I don't actually care so much how I die. As one of the random interviewees on Dark Side Of The Moon says, "Well, we all have to go sometime."

When I was young--not sure I should admit this, though I'm not shy about it, either--when I was young, I wanted to die. Not seriously enough to ever try to do anything about it, but fairly serious nonetheless. Fear of failure, long a presence in my neurotically-toned life, was perhaps as much a lifesaver as anything else. "What if I end up a vegetable? What if people think it was just one of those 'cries for help' you're always hearing about?" Failing a suicide attempt strikes me in so many ways as being much, much worse than succeeding. Aside from some embarrassing lifelong self-injury, there would be all the social and familial ramifications (assuming you were conscious enough to have to wade through them). And if you're seriously wanting to die, it's not like anyone's going to make it easy for you to get a do-over, now is it?

That was a long time ago. I am, for some hard to explain reason, sort of happy now. It seems like I've mentioned this before, actually. Forgive me if I repeat myself, it's a prerogative of being a blogger. I'm not especially eager to die, and would actually prefer not to, but I'm also a bit fatalistic about it. Wanting to miss my own death isn't going to keep the Grim Reaper from calling my number sooner or later, and he's more relentless than a telemarketer. There's an old canard that the two things in life that are unavoidable are death and taxes, but a really good accountant or willingness to engage in an extreme lifestyle choice (e.g. starting your own country up) can get you out of one of those.

Anyway, so I did the same quiz Jim did, and based on rigorous scientific factors like my eye color and my choice of The Magician for a tarot card, it has been prophesied that I shall die in my sleep. As good a way to die as any, I guess. I was a little disappointed by the process by which I learned this, tell the truth: in a Bradbury story, for instance, someone who wants to know how they'll die sticks a nickel into an arcade machine and the wax witch whirs and grinds and clicks a bit and you get a proper fortune. But this is the future, in which mechanical fortunetellers have been discarded along with books and people live along the Martian canals in houses with televisual walls and electrical old people--alright, only part of that is true.

I should clarify something: dying in your sleep is good, unless you die in your sleep being run over by a train or die in your sleep in a five car pileup on the interstate. Those are less-than-optimal scenarios. We assume--or at least I assumed--that "You will die in your sleep" is as peaceful as the description makes it out to be, but maybe not so much. Or is it? I guess it depends on whether the train or jack-knifing semi wakes you up, in which case I guess it isn't dying in your sleep, exactly. Oh, and as bad as dying in a fire in your sleep might be, I imagine it's preferable to dying in a fire while you're awake.

Surprisingly complicated, now that I ponder over it. Bears thinking about.

I'm not the least bit surprised that I'm more likely to die of boredom than to die while having sex. I only have to take issue with the label: we prefer to call it "dying of ennui," which is not only fancier conjures up images of pen-and-ink figures in absurdly-large fur coats lounging on divans with equally-bored-and-dying cocktail-holding flappers. I believe my recent beard and moustache will fit nicely, but I believe I will need a hat. And a friend with a crumbling gothic estate. On further thought, perhaps boredom is all I'm entitled to and calling it something French is just putting on airs. Drat. As for the long-odds on sex... well, the less said about that, the better.

As much as I'd prefer not dying, I think I wouldn't be too unhappy if I died from all of the above. It would go something like this: After the nuclear holocaust, Eric drove around the post-apocalyptic landscape until he found an attractive dying woman who he saved from mutant cannibals. While they were fleeing the hungry horde, she began to have sex with him. Unfortunately, the radiation-induced brain tumor in Eric's head constricted blood flow so that he fell asleep at the wheel, causing a car accident that killed him (if only his nymphomaniacal passenger had been less-grateful--she practically murdered him).

Dammit. I left out "boredom."

Also, the sex wasn't very good and went on waaaaay too long. The End.