Faking a death, especially your own, can be easy under the right circumstances. The two most difficult factors are: passing off the absence of a body without question and staying gone. We are in an age of technology; everything is monitored and nothing is forgotten. But if nothing is forgotten, do we know where to find it? There are multiple cases of people faking their own deaths and still being able to stay in the same country, for example, Bennie Wint and Arthur Bennett. However, most of these cases began in the '90s, when the internet was just blooming.

To recap, I am a college student with little to no debt, I do take medication but nothing I couldn’t go without for a time, and I don’t have any outstanding criminal charges. I’d be scot-free committing the death, but trying to maintain it would get murky. So, ignoring the sociopathic tendencies it requires to do this, let’s explore types of death. A hiking accident seems complicated. I’m of the belief that something from a body would still remain, not just blood and clothes, but bones and limbs. To be honest, I’m mostly getting rid of this option because slashing open a vein is too metal for my dainty self. Drowning, uncreative and typical, doesn’t work either. My parents know I have a fear of deep water. My best option would be to leave the country and get a fake death certificate in a Central American country, preferably due to an accident. It wouldn’t require me to harm myself physically, nor do I have to obtain a decoy body. It’s also easier to ditch my phone that way; smashing it in a street somewhere would suffice.

I am not a person who changes their physical appearance often. I’ve had the same haircut for several years as well as my natural colour. People often have a hard time deciding what colour my eyes are naturally. If I were to dye my hair, get a new cut, and slide on some contacts, I don’t think I’d have to change my name. I would have to keep a low profile, maybe that of a backpacker. But changing my hair and eye colour every three months could work. There is a hitch in this clumsy plan though. I love my hair—I mean family and friends—far too much to ever cause them the pain of faking my own death. A girl can get gone, but she can’t stay gone.

Phoebe Strike

Phoebe Strike is a 21-year-old snarky college student with a strong love of comics, good beer, dry humour, and old movies. She’s an aspiring fiction and content writer who enjoys writing humour pieces as well as slice of life. Her plan is to hone her skills in whatever writing industry she can get her hands on.

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