CAUSE OF DEATH By MAX TADLOCK Illustrated by JOHNS [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction November 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] 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. But I have proof, proof which no one has ever seen but the doctors and those who found me. See how they keep me swathed in these cloths and how the darkened room hides my eyes? Anyway, I'd be ashamed to show myself, for the mark of death is too terrible and people would be even more afraid of dying than they are now. * * * * * You see, I could have done it in the winter, only I was worried about the cold. I might not have been able to get back at all. But it was too warm when I chose to do it. I should have known better. I've read a lot about keeping things. You can't preserve them in the hot weather; that's why the doctors put those dead soldiers in ice chests, but I didn't think about it enough. I made some other mistakes, too, but I couldn't have known. I guess what started it all was something I read a long time ago, perhaps in a story, or an agricultural bulletin, or maybe in an encyclopedia. Anyhow, it was something about pigs being able to just die if they want to.