Dehiscence

This is how you die this time: on a crowded bus, with your back to the door. The throng pushes against you, and the rind peels back, expelling you out into traffic. You drift for a second on the air, eyes open wide to the morning sun, light and feathery, heart beating slow to the rhythm of your commute.

You tuck and roll, or try to, but the ground slaps you down and drags itself across your body, tearing clothes, ripping flesh, bludgeoning your head, back, and arms. You are shattered and splintered before the Lexus, its wheels still freely spinning, its driver’s face, hands, joints all paralyzed, crashes into and through you.

Your head peels like a grape.

All in all, a painless death, too quick to feel or appreciate. By the time you have registered the moment it’s over, kindling doused by a cool spadeful of earth. Your organs, prime specimens, help 43 people across the country: liver, kidneys (left and right), right eye (the left is ruined), pancreas, lungs, intestines. They put warning signs on the buses in your honor: DO NOT LEAN AGAINST THE DOOR.