Noticed   An old man is found slumped dead at a bus-stop, ticket in hand. On the back of the ticket, tiny purple handwriting reads: " An aspiring short story writer died beneath the wheels of a taxi. Although his life escaped through the shattered bars of his ribcage, his skull remained intact. His brain was taken to a deaf medical theorist whose only conclusion was, 'this man is dead.'   True to his profession, the deceased had been especially unproductive when alive and hardly entertained any thought at all. His few short stories had been well received, but upon his clumsy meeting with the taxicab his status as a writer of short stories was confirmed, for he was only a boy and everyone agreed the short sparsely written story he ultimately wrote was of a tragic length. The doctor declared, 'It's what he would have wanted.' "       - David Thomas