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I also learned how to use fire-breathing as a Conflict Resolution skill from the best.

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Fearful cries welled up from animal and man alike. The lions threw themselves at the bars of their cage as the flames raced up the central beam to the canvas above us. It was all I could do not to laugh when the clowns ran. It was an effort I lost when I saw that one of them was a midget. The strongman shook his head, trying to clear it of the blow Iâd knocked him down with. I donât mean to imply that Iâm a prize-fighter here; he had absolutely pummeled me before I landed that shot. Every inch of exposed flesh swelled with the dull ache of rising bruises, and I was pretty sure Iâd lost my front left canine in his knuckle. But eventually he stopped. Eventually he left me for dead, figuring that the puddle of oozing meat beneath his boot-heel couldnât possibly hold any semblance of life. And so I seized my opportunity. But here he was now, coming around, and I was again trying to take in enough oxygen to ignite the kerosene in my mouth before he could reach me. He strode forward in purposeful, furious bounds, and just before his arcing roundhouse connected, I tossed the lighter up into the air between us. His blow connected, and the contents of my mouth exploded outwards. The abrupt trauma caused my perception of time to slow temporarily: I saw the first shining droplet contact the flickering lighterâs flame; the tiny, almost imperceptible explosion soon mirrored a dozen times over; a hundred; a thousand. As the fireball engulfed the two of us, I embraced the baffled strongman and put my lips to his ear. âFor Dio,â I whispered.

"Dio" is the fourth most common word heard just before death. The other three are "Oh shit, it's."

*** Coffee. My mouth tasted like coffee and a little bit like cheese Danish, probably because it was full of coffee and a little bit of cheese Danish. The constant, clattering rattle of my fellow office workers typing was somehow amplified and made hollow, bouncing off the walls of my cubicle. One half of my hand was asleep, split down the middle vertically: The ring and pinky fingers gone numb. Something about the height at which I held my mouse did that, I presumed. I fumbled it over and closed Firefox. I swallowed my coffee; it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. âShit,â I mumbled in shock. âWhatâs up, man? Everything OK?â Stanley, my friend in the cubicle opposite me, poked his head over the wall like the neighbor from