Dramatic Dying

Dramatic Dying
January 6, 2017
J. Glenn Eugster
Fontana Free Press

The television show of long-ago, "Have Gun Will Travel", taught me how, if you were shot, you could die with a dramatic flair. Kids of my day were given toy guns taught to shoot at the earliest age and I loved the idea. More importantly however I enjoyed getting shot and falling to the ground, uttering memorable farewell statements with facial and body movements, before appearing to die.

When I was very young my mother would leave my sister and I alone in our East Hills, NY apartment while she bought groceries while we sat on the couch and watched television. I loved my sister but her arrival caught me by surprise and no one told me why she suddenly appeared in our lives. Initally she didn't seem to do much beyond sleeping, bodily functions and watching television with me. On ocassion I tried to play with her and one day I introduced her to dying dramatically.

Without warning I doubled over, twisted my body on the couch next to her mumbling garbled goodbyes, before falling to the floor. She was surprised at first and encouraged me to get up. My face was flush with the carpet and my eyes were closed as I lay motionless below her. Soon her pleas for me to get up turned to the question, Are you dead? What could I say? In my mind I was.

As the minutes passed my sister began pleading with me sobbing, please don't be dead, please don't die. She ran to the kitchen, got a glass of water and splashed it on my face. Over and over she repeated her plea not knowing that her brother had watched far, far too much television and took pleasure in torturing the young child he was Ill-equipped to care for

My game became boring and my sister was borderline frantic so miraculously I came back to life and told her that I had been knocked unconscious. She seemed glad to see me and began breathing again shortly after my mother returned home. Lord knows what she told mom but being in charge is tough and I think I did a good job. My sister eventually got over the trauma and seemed to grow up quicker after that day. Good things often do hurt.