PDF

Nostradamus Dies of Gout. Nostradamus Dies of a Broken Heart. Nostradamus Crosses a Bridge that is Yet to be Built.


by Jason Lee Norman


Nostradamus died of gout on a Friday evening. He would be the first person in history to die of complications relating to gout. Spiked rods of crystallized uric acid pushed their way through his synovial fluid just as he composed a quatrain about the end of the world “first the skies will fill with volcanic ash, then the oceans will catch fire”. The last thing Nostradamus wanted was to die of gout. The second last thing he wanted was to compose a quatrain about the end of the world. Nostradamus, as few people knew, was really an optimist. Before Nostradamus died of gout he lay his enlarged and inflamed foot on a foot rest. The slightest breeze set him into agony. His wife Henrietta and his oldest daughter were downstairs in the den. Henrietta was drinking camomile and his daughter was drinking warm milk, to help her sleep. Upstairs, Nostradamus - covered in sweat - failed to stifle a sneeze and the vibration coursing through his biggest toe brought him to tears. Nostradamus squealed for Henrietta to come upstairs and chop off his foot. Henrietta grabbed the sharpest knife from the kitchen and came into the study where Nostradamuswas composing a quatrain about the end of the world.
            “I was composing a quatrain about the end of the world,” Nostradamus whined.
            “How sad,” cooed Henrietta, “Will there be volcanic ash?”
            “Yes. And oceans of fire”
            Henrietta knelt in front of Nostradamus.
            "I will cut off your foot my darling. I will take away all the pain."
            Nostradamus shook his head, “I will not be alive come morning”

Nostradamus died of a broken heart on a Tuesday morning.

Before Nostradamus died of a broken heart he was lying on his bed listening to Leonard Cohen. Nostradamus was in love with a girl who did not love him back. Nostradamus was in love with a waitress at a restaurant that served breakfast all day long. The last thing he wanted was to die from a broken heart because, as most people know, Nostradamus was an optimist. Everything Nostradamus tried in order to woo the waitress had failed. All of his love poems turned into quatrains about the end of the world.
            "All iPhones will become defective. The brown pelicans will drown in oil" Nostradamus became the 4000th person to die of a broken heart.

Nostradamus was first and foremost an apothecary. His cures were known throughout many kingdoms. But there was a recession on and Nostradamus had to take odd jobs to make ends meet. When he was commissioned to build a new bridge for a city that was split in half by a river, Nostradamus was told two things: the bridge must be built using local materials and if not completed in a year the punishment would be death.
            By day Nostradamus made sure the scaffoldings were straight and the materials were local. By night he planned his funeral, occasionally stopping to compose a quatrain about the end of the world.
            "All bridges will collapse. Gift cards will become useless"
            Nostradamus knew nothing of building bridges. The only thing he knew is that the world had ended before and would someday end again - vaguely resembling his cryptic visions.
            Nostradamus died on a Sunday. He became the third person in history to die of a missed deadline.
Endcap