“there are but four ways to die,” a sardonic spirit might have said to me,
“there is dying that occurs relatively suddenly,
there is dying that occurs relatively gradually,
there is dying that occurs relatively painlessly,
there is the death that is full of pain.
thus, by various means, they are combined
the sudden and the gradual, the painless and the painful
to yield but four ways to die,
and there are no others.”