Waiting for death, alone and unafraid

Edwin Shneidman knows what the end will be: You're driving down a road in the desert, and the engine suddenly stops.

By Thomas Curwen
LA Times
February 28, 2009

The silence of night never lasts long. It ends somewhere in the 5 o'clock hour with the purring of the heater and distant strains of Sam Cooke.

Edwin Shneidman looks at the clock -- an hour and a half since turning off the TV and closing his eyes.

"Mrs. Wiggles," he shouts. He knows that that's not her name, but he likes the joke.

Sitting in another room, Pauline Dupuy turns down the CD player and puts her Bible and crossword aside. She stands and walks down the hall into his room.

"My knee hurts."

"Would you like a pain pill?"

"Yes."

"Tramadol or Vicodin?"

"I don't care."

(More here.)