How To Die in the Outdoors
A couple of Interesting Ways
"Man dies when he wants, as he wants, of what he chooses."
- Jean Anouilh, 1960.
Anyone can die of heart disease. In the United States, in fact, most people do. The process is time-consuming but simple. All you have to do is eat a lot of fat, give up exercise, smoke (especially cigarettes), drink alcohol heavily, worry and watch the quality of your life fade into oblivion. After a while you'll have squeezing chest pain and shortness of breath before the old ticker, clogged from cholesterol and weak from inactivity, ticks its last and you collapse on the living room floor, the bathroom floor and into your mashed potatoes. How very uninteresting!
Here a couple of much more fascinating ways to go out in style!
Eliminated by Elephant
"Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return."
-Genesis 3:19.
Once, more than 350 kinds of elephants roamed with relative tranquility over the face of the earth, not bothered by much, not bothering much. Today only two species remain: the African elephant and the Asiatic or Indian elephant. Entirely vegetarian, they daily consume vast quantities of grasses and leaves, fruits and small twigs, as much as 400 pounds per 24 hours, which they grind with four large teeth before swallowing. Social by nature, they live and move in herds with strong family ties broken only by adult bulls who leave the herd of cows and calves to lead solitary lives, returning for brief tempestuous visits during the mating season.
 An adult African elephant male (Loxodonta africana) may stand above 10 feet at the shoulder and weigh in at more than six tons. His tusks, elongated incisor teeth, grow his whole life and have been known to reach 10 feet in length and 230 pounds each in weight. He can run at better than 20 miles per hour for long periods of time. Gentle by nature, he can be pushed beyond the endurance of his massive patience. An enraged bull elephant (maybe he has been teased too much or maybe he just has a bad attitude) will not be deterred from utterly insuring that you are dead.
He will taste the you-scented air with his trunk, swinging it from side to side and then straight out toward you while his broad ears spread wide to guide every tiny bit of your sounds into his ear canals. His barely useful eyes will glisten wetly as he dances an awkward shuffle, rolling his weight from side to side. Before you realize he has started to charge, dust billows around his chest and front legs as all appearance of awkwardness suddenly dissolves into forward motion accompanied by a shrill and heart-stopping blast. If your heart starts again and fear allows you to run, your dash will cover little ground before his trunk wraps around your waist and you are lifted high over the bull's head. (Note: If he happens to spear you with a tusk, it will be an accident, but he won't care.) The thump of your body smashing with terrific force into the ground will probably end all interest you have in your own death, but your ruin has only begun. Pressing you firmly into the soil, he'll use his trunk to tear you raggedly into approximately two halves. Each half will be systematically stomped until no bone remains unbroken. At last satisfied the elephant will raise his trunk in a final trumpet of glorious victory. Later you will easily assume the shape of whatever vessel is chosen to carry away the pulp that was once a human being.
Moral: Never joke around with anything more than 10 times your size.
Grabbed by Gorilla
"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
-John Donne, 1624.
 Members of the group called"great apes" are divided into chimpanzees (Pan), orangutans (Pongo) and the greatest of all, gorillas (Gorilla). Both Mountain and Lowland gorillas are found only in equatorial Africa where, although shorter than most men and women, they grow to outweigh humans by several hundred pounds, with arm spans that may exceed nine feet. With stupendous strength and extraordinary intelligence, their ability to maim and ruin is more than matched by their quiet and gentle spirits, as is true of all the great apes. Able to destroy just about anything, gorillas are satisfied with a ferocious glare, a mighty bellow and a few thumps on their massive chests. They will charge you in a most realistic fashion, but physical contact with humans ranks among the rarest of incidences. You'll have to work very hard if you want to be killed by a gorilla.
Gorillas live most of their lives with four extremities on the ground, their two feet and the knuckles of their two hands. They perform their bluff charges that way, and almost everything so confronted turns and runs. Should you wade in with fists flying, you might be able to generate a devastating sideways swat or a tremendous bite from a large mouth with giant teeth and powerful jaw muscles. The gorilla will then tend to withdraw. If you are conscious and able, you could counter-attack the gorilla's counter of your attack, and possibly get annihilated, a fate you would infinitely deserve.
Moral: You can't judge a gorilla by its cover.
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