“It becomes theatrically important, after you die, what your last few days are like.

“For me, it was just like any other weekend in my life. I didn’t eat a last meal, I didn’t jerk off any more or any less, I didn’t climb a mountain or end up swinging from a noose with Mozart’s Requiem in the background. But suddenly it’s important exactly what I did, because they are the last few days, and what you do in the last few days, down to your last lunch, becomes a fairy tale.
“If you force me to make my last weekend a microcosm of my existence, and what my existence means to you, then I’ll tell you how it went and who I played. But first things first: It was an accident. I’m not some fucked-up star who couldn’t deal. I could deal; I just couldn’t sleep.” — from Lisa Taddeo‘s fictional, diary-like riff on Heath Ledger‘s final days, written as if it came from the “other side” (i.e., William Holden-in-Sunset Boulevard-style), in the new Esquire magazine.