Reaching the ultimate secret was no problem ...
but could I follow it up with an encore?

About this thing, I couldn't stand to have them laugh. Not the way theydid about the swimming.

"Oh, come now. No one could learn to swim by reading a book.Five-eighths of a mile the first time in the water!"

And they laughed. I guess I laughed, too. More than any other thing,I've wanted people to be happy. But I never swam again—only that firsttime.

I've always read a lot and sometimes things I've read do get mixed upwith things I've done. But the things still happened—they happened tosomeone. And people ought to believe.

I'd like to tell people now. I'd like to say, "I died once."

But if they laughed, it might be later and I'd never hear them. Alreadythere are too many silent things in this. There must be no silentlaughter as well.

They might think I've got myself all mixed up with things I've read.Things like surgeons pumping life into a heart to bring the patientback after he's died on the operating table. Doctors reviving deadsoldiers, if they haven't been gone too long.

It's not like that at all. I was truly dead—for three days. It wasalmost too long; I suppose I made it back just in time. I don't know.

My reading was what started me on this, just the same as with theswimming. When I think about it too much, I almost feel myself that Iam exaggerating a bit.

But I have proof, proof which no one has ever seen but the doctors andthose who found me. See how they keep me swathed in these cloths andhow the darkened room hides my eyes?

Anyway, I'd be ashamed to show myself, for the mark of death is tooterrible and people would be even more afraid of dying than they arenow.

You see, I could have done it in the winter, only I was worried aboutthe cold. I might not have been able to get back at all. But it was toowarm when I chose to do it. I should have known better. I've read alot about keeping things. You can't preserve them in the hot weather;that's why the doctors put those dead soldiers in ice chests, but Ididn't think about it enough. I made some other mistakes, too, but Icouldn't have known.

I guess what started it all was something I read a long time ago,perhaps in a story, or an agricultural bulletin, or maybe in anencyclopedia. Anyhow, it was something about pigs being able to justdie if they want to.

That always stuck in my mind. It's a pretty wonderful thing, you know.Imagine just being able to die if life didn't seem worth living, or ifyou were lonely, or maybe just because you wanted to.

Oh, I told lots of people about it. You know how sometimes a lull comesin a conversation. Then I'd say, "Pigs are able to just up and die ifthey want to."

But nobody ever paid any attention to me at all. They seemed to ignorethe remark. One man did say once, "What the hell are you talkingabout?" but even he wouldn't listen when I tried to explain.

Perhaps it was just too improbable. Besides, people don't like to thinkabout death. They talk about it sometimes and sometimes they broodabout it, but they never really think. It has always been too unknownand that frightens them. Then they only fear and stop thinking.