The first signs were somewhat easy to ignore. Scratchy throat, hoarse voice, slight difficulty swallowing. The show must go on. But as the small tears and burning sores in the pharynx of the esophagus became larger, so did the difficulty of each swallow. He tried to mask his feebleness for the sake of entertainment, keeping in mind that major complications were more likely to happen when he was distracted or if an injury was present. He understood the lurking occupational hazards, yet he kept pushing forward. Before long, he developed a serious infection. It migrated from his cavernous pharynx down his sinewy neck between the trachea and the spinal column, embedding itself behind the left bronchus, where the esophagus pierces the flappy diaphragm slightly to the left of the middle line and joins the cardiac end of the insatiable stomach. Underneath all that skin and pinkish muscle, his condition was a matter of life or death, hence the indescribable, mysterious, agonizing pain.
Public interest in sword swallowers has significantly decreased over the last few years, but there were usually enough people in the audience to keep him going. So he kept going. However, there were only so many painkillers his body could handle on any given day. One rainy evening, with only a dozen observers in the audience, he chose a sword with a bejeweled handle and an extra thick blade, heavier than most of his other ones. As he carefully lowered it into his throat, he felt its weight first on the back of his tongue, then in his throat. He stood in the middle of the stage, his neck bent backward at a ninety-degree angle, his body straight as an arrow, his arms dangling to the side. The spectators clapped enthusiastically, not realizing what was unfolding right in front of their eyes. He closed his eyes and let nature take its course.
His lungs, unbeknownst to him, had become paper-thin from the infection, and therefore deflated in a manner of seconds, which, naturally, made him drop to his knees, but in a theatrical manner—he was a showman, after all. With his last breath, he managed to signal with his right index finger for the curtains to come down. The small audience roared with approval. Behind the curtains, in the privacy of the dark stage, he took his last breath, doing what he loved the most in this world: entertain people. Outside, it stopped raining and the clouds parted, and so did his insides. He was eventually laid to rest in a nearby cemetery, with the sword still inside him.