the speed of death experiment.

there is a small, colourful (for lack of a better description of the premises) school down the road from my house that teaches children english. that's all fine and dandy, except for the fact that they have a large red sign just by the front gate that reads

DEAD SLOW

as if this is somehow possible.

just the other day, i had the good fortune of bumping into one of the teachers as she was leaving the school late one evening and locking up the gate. "nice sign," i pointed out, assisting her gaze with a pointed finger, in case she missed the point. she looked at me somewhat bewildered, until i spoke again. "exactly how fast are the dead, anyway?"

this was an extremely pertinent question, which she was unable to answer, probably because she had already gotten into her car and locked the doors. so i decided to take it unto myself to find out. i've been reading sophie's world, so i'm tempted to experiment with the natural world these days.

hence i present to you, using all the laboratory knowledge that a junior-college education has bestowed upon me:
the speed of death experiment

aim: to calculate the speed of death
theory : a living thing is considered dead when it can no longer grow or have sex
dead things aren't really known to move a whole lot (rolling over in one's grave does not count)
if placed in a controlled environment, and watched carefully, the speed of death can be measured using this formula commonly found in rocket-science:

speed = distance / time

the specimen :

a dead bee.

observations :
hours / deviation (cm)
0 / 0
1 / 0
2 / 0
3 / 0
4 / 0
5 / 0
6 / 0
7 / 0
8 / 0
9 / 0
10 / 0
11 / 0
12 / 0

conclusion and deductions:
after 12 consecutive hours, the bee did not move at all. it did flinch twice, which was rather creepy, but science always, always favours the brave.

--

i finally met the same teacher again today and related my experiment to her with a kind of joy that only a true scientist can understand. i concluded that the words 'dead' and 'slow' are hence incompatible and suggested that the word 'dead' should be replaced with 'rather' or maybe even 'quite'.

in response, she immediately provided a crude but effective alternative, and i thought it to be very kind of her to entertain and encourage my work. although, i'm not so sure what others might think of a sign that reads

BUGGER OFF.