Buried beneath a mound of leaves and six feet of dirt, I died.

If I had lived another one thousand years, dying in a wooden box would have never occurred to me, nails piercing the top and sides of the coffin because my captors missed their aim while swinging their rusted hammers.

Everyone must die in their own way. I assumed I was to live to old age and die naturally. I never smoked, and only drank occasionally at my wife’s business parties. My friends often commented I was healthy as a horse. So living to an old age seemed a safe bet. I always figured my wife would die long before me.

My last thoughts as I laid there stretched out in a pine box were a jumble of many things: my family, fear, trying to breathe, survival, anger, and surprise. I had a difficult time trying to accept that I was going to die that way. How could that happen to me? I was a nice guy, right?

The box itself tormented me, too. It was barely six feet long, making it hard to fully stretch out, my knees and toes in pain.