So as any regular visitor to this site knows, I’m slightly obsessed with my death, which really isn’t a shock at my advanced age. Often, this spills out into reality and my regular life, as it did yesterday when I was talking with my boss about famous last words. I was speculating that most times when faced with their imminent demise, most people are not as composed or eloquent as Nathan Hale, nor do they have the time to come up with something pithy.
A few months ago, I did a Friday five about what I hope my last words will *not* be, so this is a variation on the theme.
Instead, I’m taking a guess at what I think might be
FIVE OF THE MOST COMMON LAST THINGS SAID
1. “AWWW [*insert your favorite expletive*]!!!” – Seems obvious to me that in many untimely deaths, there’s probably a split-second just before the end where the realization that the Grim Reaper has actually arrived is made, and it is not a welcome moment. [*Spoilers alert, I guess, for a 23-year-old movie*] I always think of that moment in Always when the Richard Dreyfuss’ character realizes that he has not, in fact, safely pulled his plane out of the fire and sort of shrugs before everything explodes.
2. “What the—” – Not unlike the previous comment, but this one involves an element of surprise or confusion, like when someone steps through a hole in the ice, falls off a high wire or is in a bigfoot suit and is about to be run over by a motorist or two.
3. “I think I can get there before *IT* does!” – This one would be in situations such as when someone is racing to make a turn first at an intersection, or trying to beat a train to a crossing, or badly underestimating the distance to safety and the speed of an angry grizzly bear. (Or, if you’re being literal, the speed of a psychotic killer clown.)
4. “Stop!”– Or not.
5. “Oh my [*insert your deity of choice*]” – Calling out for assistance or intervention from the maker that arguably contrived the situation and is about to met seems a bit futile, but in a moment of extreme duress, it’s probably more of a reflexive thing to utter. Hey, I’m an atheist and I’ve been known to exclaim it from time to time just because it’s such a common phrase.
As always, I hope my final words are more along the line of “Okay Salma … just *one* more time …”
I think I can wrap up what you are saying in this little poem I wrote which somehow was also written by E Dickinson.
Dying
I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.
The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.
I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable,-and then
There interposed a fly,
With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
I could not see to see.
Can’t believe she stole this from you …