The 1000 Imagined Deaths Of My Neighbor (Highly Abridged)

He could be strangled by an octopus, slowly drowning in an inky pool, suckers stuck all over his skin. He would still be saying how it was “fucking bullshit.”

He could be crushed by a vending machine, which ate his dollar and provided no Doritos. In which case, his last words would be “Jesus Christ, this is so fucking stupid.”

He could slip on his pristine hardwood floors, made slippery and sticky by the spilling of booze from another binge. And when he fell into his glass coffee table, shattering the glass and piercing his jugular, his full volume karaoke scream fest of “Come Sail Away” would be cut mercifully short.

He could crash his Silver Jaguar, after driving around drunk and blasting “Californication” at full volume, over one of the windy roads. In this case his last words would only be a high-pitched scream.

He could be bludgeoned to death by his significant other who, after the 9999th time of him berating her about how he “has to pay for all of the food” how “it’s bullshit that you’re a mother who can’t do laundry” and “seriously, dude? That’s stupid, you need to grow up.” As his rantings ascended, higher and higher, growing more and more shrill, finally in one fell swoop of a frying pan he would be silenced. His last words would be “I know, I know, I should just pay for everything. You’re just so stupid, dude, just shut the fuck up. I know, I know, I always have to –”

Or, he could get in a fatal scuffle with police, after knocking on everyone’s door at 1:00 A.M., telling them to call the police on his girlfriend because she scratched his arms. His last words would be telling the police to Google him and asking “do you know who I am?”

Or, he could crash in a plane on the way to some set where one of his clients was shooting—the one he finally had to see in person after five hours of yelling on the phone in his apartment hadn’t mended the situation.

Or, he could get so wound up on cocaine, which had him ranting and screaming all night, that his heart simply gives out. He would then collapse like a bloated, later-days Roman emperor, railing at the oncoming Goths and the lack of fresh grapes.

Or, he could accidentally time travel back to the Middle Ages, then swear and take the Lord’s name in vain. He would be tarred and quartered, and his last words would be “dude, seriously? You guys are losers.”

Or, he could kill himself, realizing that the rising debt he amassed to live an L.A.-ist lifestyle he could never afford by staying home all day berating everyone was crushing in on him. The leases, the loans, the Best Buy payment plans, the maxed out credit cards, there would be no last thoughts, just last shames.

Or, the constant coughing and smoking could be lung cancer. A long life of hospital visits would follow, procedures that would result in a slow slide downward.

Or, he could be impaled by a unicorn, because somehow people like him always live to be 80, 90 years old.