Challenge #02285-F095: On Swift Wings
The ability of the human body to survive immense injury while also succumbing to the most bizarre things has always fascinated me.
For example, you hear of people falling out of airplanes and landing on the ground after crashing through trees, yet only suffering a sprained ankle and some bruises...
... and on the other hand there’s events such as the death of famous whiskey distiller Jack Daniels, who died from a blood infection caused by a broken toe which stemmed from kicking his safe in frustration after forgetting the combination. -- Anon Guest
You hear about them all the time and the reputation of their entire race swells until every last one of them seems like a phenomenon. Did you hear? One of them survived an entire fleet of Vorax whilst armed only with a Scootie Puff and a rubber band. Did you hear? They fell from an unsurvivable height and survived anyway. Did you hear? They had a fever beyond even their temperature tolerance and they still made it.
There's legends like Phineas Gage, who survived a metal rod right through their skull. There are numerous tales of Humans who have shot themselves in the head, only to live to talk about it later. Did you hear? One of them had their entire face ripped off by machinery and they sewed it back on... Hundreds of stories of barbaric, pre-Shattering surgery flood the rumour mills. The one about the Human who had their hand surgically attached to their leg to keep it alive until their mangled arm recovered enough to re-attach it. The thousands of cases of Humans who had holes in their brain cases. The Humans whose muscles turned to stone. The Humans whose entire bodies turned against them. The Humans who... Who should have died.
Less well spread are the genre of stories where Humans perished through foolish accidents or sheer bad luck. The Human who landed head-first on a set of decorative metal fence spikes. The Human who attempted to fly using a deck chair and a bunch of expired weather balloons. The Human who walked through a glass wall, did their shopping, and then dropped dead after they collided with a bollard. The Human who kicked a safe in anger and died from the infection. The Humans who killed themselves by attempting to avoid much, much milder consequences. The Human who attempted an assassination, jumped off a bridge, broke their leg, took cyanide... and died in jail after the authorities took them into custody. It's the Humans who tell those stories.
They all start with, "Hey I know someone who..." and get wilder from there. They know someone who took a shit on a landmine. Who attempted to masturbate with a belt sander. Who knew what they were doing right up until that fatal moment when they would know no more. Then they laugh.
Humanity's resilience knows few bounds, as does their capacity for illogical death. There's one who was patently unkillable, who'd pick up everything venomous, poisonous, or otherwise dangerous only to smooch it and put it back from whence it came. That Human died thanks to an unpredictable attack from one of the most phlegmatic, peaceful creatures known to Humankind. The roughest, toughest, most resilient can end like a candle flame in a stiff breeze - suddenly and without warning.
Some are told they have months to live, and stretch it into years. Some are the fittest creatures to walk their planet, and blink out of life between one step and the next. Nobody, not even Humans, can predict a Human's survivability.
Which may be one of the many reasons why they have the reputation they do.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Seamartini]
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Does the Archive have Darwin Awards in it? XD
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