"Bob! Bob!"
Bob could feel Cecil tugging at his sleeve as his arm dangled over the side of his bunk, and he squinted irritably at his brother. "Cecil, for the last time, I'm not switching places with you."
"It's not that!" Cecil whispered. "I'm still scared of dying!"
"Oh." Bob opened his eyes a little more. His brother was now old enough to understand that death was real, and not just something from their mother's beloved Shakespearean tragedies. "Nearly everyone is scared of dying, Cecil. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
"I'm not ashamed!" Cecil said indignantly. "I just don't want to die!"
"I know," said Bob, "but death is a part of life that you can't avoid. You simply have to live your life and not think about it too much."
"I wish I could choose when to die," said Cecil. "Then I could live to be a hundred, or even two hundred!"
"Be careful what you wish for," said Bob. He secretly feared living too long, to the point of outliving any possible descendants, and then dying alone in some retirement home, mistreated by uncaring staff and his brilliant mind wasted away. Bob decided that he'd rather die doing something noble and heroic, and be remembered that way forever.
Years later...
Bob never thought that his life would end like this: blown up by his own brother, with his former archenemy clutching his foot. This definitely wasn't his ideal death.
"Well," said Bart, "I guess this is it. Thanks anyway." Bob grudgingly admired how calm Bart seemed in the face of death; most kids would have probably been crying or panicking.
"You know," whispered Bob, "I could snip the wires. We'd fall to our deaths, but we'd save the entire town. Bart, how would you like to do something incredibly noble?"
"Do we have to?" asked Bart, with a very tiny bit of fear in his voice.
"Yes."Be careful what you wish for...Why didn't I listen to my own advice?