Let's Play Dead
By Senaa Ahmad, first published in Paris Review
Anne Boleyn keeps dying at King Henry VIII's hands, but she never stays dead for long.
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Plot Summary
King Henry VIII has Anne Boleyn decapitated, but once he leaves, she puts her head back on her body and returns to the palace. She does not confront Henry about killing her but continues the morning as if it wasn't unusual for her to be there. Henry has her hung a few weeks later, and it is a quick death. She wakes up hours later, cracks her neck back into place, and then returns to her room and sleeps. Henry and his advisors do not know what to do. Anne enjoys being alive. In the next attempt to kill her, Henry drowns her himself. Anne sits up and spits up bathwater after she dies, and Henry helps her back to her room. Anne's ladies are on her side and try to show support through minuscule acts. Henry continues to invent new ways of killing Anne, and she develops new resuscitation methods. Henry tries to kill her by having her throat filled with silk scarves. Then, everyone in her life insults her, killing her of a broken heart, but she still lives. Anne gets stuck in a ravine created by Henry and does not die. She tells Henry that they don't have to keep living this way. Henry and his men kill Anne by injecting her with poison that liquefies her. They then perform an autopsy, remove her organs, feed them to dogs, and set her corpse on fire. Henry thinks she is finally dead but finds her asleep in his armchair.
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