"Oh, he died last night."
"Dude, he dies all the time. And he always comes back."
"I know. But someday, he might not."
The first time Kenny McCormick died, people mourned like there was no tomorrow. Hell, the whole town showed up for the four year olds funeral! After all, he was only a child; he had so much more potential, he had a life, he-
So everyone was startled when he came back. He had just appeared, right next to his parents, before bawling about how scared he had been.
And then he died the next day. And the next.
Soon, it just became a regular rutein for the town. "You killed Kenny! You bastards!"
Maybe it was selfish, but Kenny sometimes wished that they would mourn like they did the first time after every death. Even though they all (probably) meant well, it hurt when he died they didn't bat an eyelash.
"You killed Kenny! You bastards!"
He had died multiple times, sometimes by the ones he loved. His little sister had once forced him to let her straighten his hair, and it had blown up on him, burning her and blowing his head off. Rats had once, for unknown reasons, burst out of his bowels. His dad had once thrown him off the roof, drunk. And one time, he had just imploded. Imploding was painful, but it was a cool way to die.
Contrary to popular belief, Kenny had never actually gone to heaven, or hell. He had never seen Death. He always just floated, in a limbo. Only darkness. Nothing around him. It was, overall, boring, but a welcomed break from his pretty hectic life.
Kenny always knew that when he reached this limbo, he would come back. After all, Death hadn't shown up. But there was always that one moment, in the burst of light right before limbo, where his breath would catch and he would hope, no, pray that there would be limbo. No Death. No Heaven. No Hell.
And it always was.
The sad thing was, Kenny knew that if he ever did die and didn't come back, people would think that he would come back, sooner or later. No one would mourn. No one would really miss him because hey, he was going to come back, right?
Sometimes, people liked to mix it up. How? "You bastards! You killed Kenny!"
Kenny thought it was stupid. They only switched two fucking sentences.
But his friends noticed something over the years; dying over and over again was taking something from Kenny. His usually bright blue eyes lost their shine, and his golden shock of hair faded into dull yellow, hanging limply around and in his face. He was quieter, and didn't give girls-or boys- a second glance. He stared at the floor most of the time. Maybe dying took a bit of his soul away each time. Maybe he just stopped caring about life or something. No one knew.
And then, on a cold day in May, Kenny passed away for the last time. He had simply died in his sleep. No marks, no heart attack, nothing. He had just left.
His parents left him there, but once his body started rotting, they realized that he wasn't coming back. But still, no one came to his funeral but his parents, who just put him in a box and buried him in the weeds. People just kept expecting him to come back. But he never did.
Kenny was surprised when Death came and greeted him, but went along anyway. He was startled that he got into Heaven, because he was somewhat of a nasty person, but decided that it was only because he was a child, just 12 years old.
And looking down from Heaven, he was also startled by how he was right; no one missed him. Life went on.
"Hey, where's Kenny?"
"Oh, he died last night."
"Dude, he dies all the time. And he always comes back."
"I know. But someday, he might not."