Excerpt: End Stage

Maybe this is just me, but I feel as though if someone has to break the news to you that you’re going to die, they should make more of a production out of it.

It should be a day long event at the very least, if not a good week. They should send you on a cruise first. Or to Mount Kilimanjaro. Or Disneyland. And they should make sure you ride all the good rides too, and load up on a whole lot of hot dogs or cotton candy or whatever else the Disney folks are trying to coax into poor unsuspecting stomachs these days so that when whoever’s got the unfortunate job of telling you that you will very shortly be kicking the bucket, you’ll have had a wonderful day and most likely be on a massive sugar high and even if given that you still manage to be as floored by the news of your imminent death as someone without the exciting build up would be expected to be, you’ll be able to look back on the event and say, “Well, yes, that was a really lousy thing for him/her/it to tell me, but it was such a good day otherwise, and I did get to meet Mickey Mouse…”

No one thought to do this for me, and I will most likely be bitter about it until the day I die. Which apparently isn’t all that far away.