The Pea-culiar End of Arthur Pumble

Arthur Pumble was not a man who trifled with chance. From his birth certificate (checked for typographical errors monthly) to his custom-fitted, anti-slip slippers (replaced quarterly, regardless of wear), Arthur approached life with the meticulous zeal of a risk assessor preparing for Armageddon. He wore a helmet in the shower, audited his own breathing for irregularities, and viewed stairs as the universe’s most elaborate booby trap. His life’s singular ambition was to outlive Death itself, primarily, he admitted, "out of spite."

His bungalow, a fortress of padded corners and germ-free surfaces, was a testament to his unwavering commitment to longevity. He had a custom air filtration system that could purify the air of a biohazard lab, a water dispenser that tasted vaguely of purified hope, and a diet so bland it could cure excitement. Every meal was a carefully calculated nutrient delivery system, personally vetted by three independent food safety auditors and then microwaved twice, "just to be sure." He’d successfully navigated seventy-eight years without so much as a papercut, a monumental achievement in a world teeming with potential hazards.

It was a Tuesday evening, a perfectly unremarkable Tuesday, which Arthur adored for its lack of dramatic potential. He sat in his ergonomically correct chair, watching a documentary on the optimal positioning of fire extinguishers, enjoying his meticulously prepared, organic, steamed vegetable platter. He’d just finished a detailed mental assessment of the carbon footprint of his broccoli when it happened. A single, perfectly spherical, utterly unthreatening pea, from his very own, highly vetted plate, decided to stage a miniature rebellion. It rolled, it skipped, it found its way into an airway Arthur had always assumed was impermeable to such innocent subversives.

Arthur Pumble, the man who’d dodged aggressive pigeons, avoided all contact sports, and refused to eat anything that hadn't been boiled into submission, choked. On a pea. A simple, garden-variety pea. His last conscious thought, before the lack of oxygen kindly intervened, was a faint, indignant whisper: "But... it was organic." The irony, of course, was so thick it could have choked a horse. And in Arthur's case, it did.