A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Read Free

of my demise: When I know I have only so much more time left—for example if I do in fact have AIDS as I believe I probably do, if anyone does, it ’ s me, why not—when the time comes, I will just leave, say goodbye and leave, and then throw myself into a volcano.
    Not that there seems to be any appropriate place to bury someone, but these municipal cemeteries, or any cemetery at all for that matter, like the ones by the highway, or the ones in the middle of town, with all these bodies with their corresponding rocks—oh it ’ s just too primitive and vulgar, isn ’ t it? The hole, and the box, and the rock on the grass? And we glamorize this process, feel it fitting and dramatic, austerely beautiful, standing there by the hole as we lower the box. It ’ s incredible. Barbaric and base.
    Though I should say I once saw a place that seemed fitting. I was walking—I would say “ hiking, ” if we were doing anything but walking, but since we were just walking, I will not use the word “ hiking, ” which everyone feels compelled to use anytime they ’ re outside and there ’ s a slight incline—in a forest above the Carapa, a tributary of the Amazon. I was on a junket, with a few other journalists—two from Reptile magazine—and a group of herpetologists, a bunch of chubby American snake experts with cameras, and we had been brought through this forest, on an upward-meandering path, looking for boa constrictors and lizards. After maybe forty-five minutes under this dappled dark forest, suddenly the trees broke, and we were at the top of the trail, in a clearing, over the river, and at that point you could see for honestly a hundred miles. The sun was setting, and in that huge Amazonian sky there were washes of blue and orange, thick swashes of each, mixed loosely, like paint pushed with fingers. The river was moving slowly below, the color of caramel, and beyond it was the forest, the jungle, green broccoli chaos as far as you could see. And immediately before us there were about twenty simple white crosses, without anything in the way of markings. A burial ground for local villagers.
    And it occurred to me that I could stay there, that if I had to be buried, my rotting corpse heaped on with dirt, I could stand to have it done there. With the view and all.
    It was odd timing, too, because earlier that day, I was almost sure I was leaving this world, via piranha.
    We had anchored our boat, a three-story riverboat, in a small river cul-de-sac, and the guides had begun fishing for piranha, using only sticks and string, chicken as bait.
    The piranhas took to it immediately. It was a cinch—they were jumping onto the boat, flopping around with their furious little faces.
    And then, on the other side of the boat, our American guide, a bearded Bill, was swimming. The water, like tea, made his underwater limbs appear red, making all the more disconcerting the fact that he was swimming amid a school of piranhas.
    “ Come in! ” he said.
    Oh God no way.
    Then everyone else was in, the chubby herpetologists were in, all their limbs in the bloodred tea. I had been told that piranha attacks were extremely rare (though not unheard of), that there was nothing to fear, and so soon enough I jumped from the boat and was swimming, too, relatively content that, even if there was some feeding frenzy, at least my odds were better than if I were in the water alone^while the fish were gorging on someone else, I ’ d have time to swim to safety. I actually did the math, the math of how long it would take the fish to eat the other four people vis-a-vis how long I ’ d have to get to the riverbank. After about three or four minutes, each one panic-stricken, trying not to touch my feet to the muddy ground, keeping my movements minimal so as not to attract attention, I got out.
    Later, I tried out one of the guides ’ dugout canoes. After a few of the herpetologists had failed to stay afloat in it, I was convinced that I, being so very