Day Two: "Ghengis Khan died of a nosebleed."

Day Two.

Ten thousand days.

That’s twenty seven point three nine seven two six zero years recurring, or about twenty seven years and four months (approximately).

It’s how long I have left to live.

Maybe.

If I’m lucky.

That takes me to the grand old age of eighty.

That’s not too much to ask, is it?

Really it’s a totally arbitrary figure. I might live till I’m a hundred. Then again, I might be dead next week. Who knows?

I could be hit by a bus or a car. I could fall off a ladder. I could trip over a misplaced man-hole cover and hurtle headlong down the exposed hole. I could be struck by lightning. I could be fried in an industrial accident while unintentionally passing by the factory, having got lost in some city somewhere, and taking a wrong turning.

This would be a particularly ironic death, as I have managed to avoid working in factories these last thirty years.

Once upon a time it would have been considered my destiny to end up working in a factory, thus lessening the odds of me dying in this particular way.

Shall I go on?

Genghis Khan died of a nosebleed.

Aristotle died when a passing eagle mistook his bald head for a rock, and dropped a turtle on it to break its shell.

Those last two facts are as approximate as everything else in this text as I can’t say for certain whether either of them are actually true.

It only goes to show how bizarre are the possibilities of death.

Myself, I am most likely to die of the cumulative effects of alcohol and tobacco, these being my particular weaknesses.

I would like to invent a romantic death for myself, but I can’t.

Let’s just say I will die, at some point, and in some way.

I only hope it will be relatively painless.

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