Bones Speak a Universal Tongue

This is how you die:
Bending in to grab the stand for your Christmas tree. The shotgun propped in the backseat falls forward and opens a hole in your hips. Holiday cheer goes whistling through like buckshot.

This is how you die:
Drowned in the shared bathtub. He leaves the water running, over your face and down the drain. Your housemate finds you when she barges in to complain. She is horrified, but unsurprised.

This is how you die:
Without cause or reason your heart stops, and you fall to the floor amidst your employees. They autopsy you, still breathing, and find nothing. Your cyborg heart beats, and beats, and you rise, still the same, Lazarus returned confused.

This is how you die:
On the clock, crushed beneath the wheels of the train you never see coming. The buzzer at your waist never went off, the untrained manager’s face at the window is bloodless and horrified. They will rule it an accident; your killer will return to work, but not to life.

This is how you die:
Looking for help, shot in the face through a closed screen door. They will find alcohol in your stomach and the red ruin of your face, smeared across the air bag you’d dragged yourself away from. The phone in your pocket is dead, dead, dead.