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[Trigger warning: Death, pain, suffering, sadness]

I.

Some people, having completed the traditional forms of empty speculation \u2013 \u201cWhat do you want to be when you grow up?\u201d, \u201cIf you could bang any celebrity who would it be?\u201d \u2013 turn to \u201cWhat will you say as your last words?\u201d

Sounds like a valid question. You can go out with a wisecrack, like Oscar Wilde (\u201cEither this wallpaper goes or I do\u201d). Or with piety and humility, like Jesus (\u201cInto thy hands, o Father, I commend my spirit.\u201d) Or burning with defiance, like Karl Marx (\u201cLast words are for fools who haven\u2019t said enough.\u201d)

Well, this is an atheist/skeptic blog, so let me do my job of puncturing all your pleasant dreams. You\u2019ll probably never become an astronaut. You\u2019re not going to bang Emma Watson. And your last words will probably be something like \u201cmmmrrrgggg graaaaaaaaaaaHAAACK!\u201d

I guess I always pictured dying as \u2013 unless you got hit by a truck or something \u2013 a bittersweet and strangely beautiful process. You\u2019d grow older and weaker and gradually get some disease and feel your time was upon you. You\u2019d be in a nice big bed at home with all your friends and family gathered around. You\u2019d gradually feel the darkness closing in. You\u2019d tell them all how much you loved them, there would be tears, you would say something witty or pious or defiant, and then you would close your eyes and drift away into a dreamless sleep.

And I think this happens sometimes. For all I know, maybe it happens quite a lot. If it does, I never see these people. They very wisely stay far away from hospitals and the medical system in general. I see the other kind of people.