Cause of Death

By MAX TADLOCK
Illustrated by JOHNS
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 they did 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 first time.
I've always read a lot and sometimes things I've read do get mixed up with things I've done. But the things still happened—they happened to someone . 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. Already there are too many silent things in this. There must be no silent laughter 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 patient back after he's died on the operating table. Doctors reviving dead soldiers, if they haven't been gone too long.
It's not like that at all. I was truly dead—for three days. It was almost 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 the swimming. When I think about it too much, I almost feel myself that I am exaggerating a bit.