Beats Entropy: Ignominious death scale

On the way back from Tim Hortons^TM I was almost run down by a short bus. Paratranspo to be exact. While I proved nimble enough to avoid it, the near miss was harrowing on several levels. Aside from the universal aversion to being run over, there was a flash awareness of the ancillary negatives of being laid low by this particular vehicle; the intolerable irony of my body being mangled by the chariot of the lame. And how I could feel their crippled shameful joy, that I might soon be among them…like a crew of damned and handicapable pirates (1) eager to pressgang me into eternal servitude, shackled to an oar.

Worse still, were I to die, was the awareness that the colorfulness of my death would fuel decades of sick humor amongst my friends and ill wishers (2). I could hear their smug, winking, conversations at my funeral:

“Oh did you hear how it happened? He was run down by a short bus when he darted across the street for no reason. Tragic that he couldn’t dodge a transport driven by a retard(3); some athlete he was.”

Then they would laugh and try and disguise it as a mournful sob.

The whole thing brought to mind how important it is to die in the least dignity stripping way manageable. As a courtesy, between friends, I present you the Beats Entropy: Ignominious Death Scale. That you might arrange your own demise accordingly.

I’ve slept with friends and woken up with strangers

Before our bodies hit the bed

the bookends  bled

and strangers made their pardons

for the time they were mistaken

and things they’d soon forgotten