No Body

Supposedly, in a small apartment complex in the city of Kumamoto, on the island of Kyushu, and more specifically across the street from a supermarket (a ValuMax?—we're not sure—but across from a supermarket nevertheless), lives Hiroyasu Koga, though Koga is not his chosen moniker any longer. He is now rumored now to be a Shinto priest. Untrue. What's certain however, and is the impetus for such a rumor, is that in a past life he played the role of the man who removed the head of the conservative author Yukio Mishima following the latter's failed coup, serving time in prison for his part. 

Yorick, the deceased court jester in The Tragedy of Hamlet, is exhumed by the gravediggers following a conversation wherein one laments to another that the freedom to commit suicide is a privilege of wealth. Quipping the grave is theirs since they are the one digging it, they remove a skull from a corpse and toss it to the prince who examines it through his grief. Alas, poor Yorick. He knew him well. Act V, scene i.

André Tchaikowsky displayed a natural talent behind a piano at just four years old. Following a youth of flight and hiding from Nazi powers, his enjoyed a successful career as a pianist in his brief adult life, however his true passion lay in composition for opera. Though he penned one, an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice, it was never performed in his lifetime. In 1982 he willed his own skull to The Royal Shakespeare company, in the hopes that it would be held on stage in a production of Hamlet. This would finally occur in 2008 with the part of Hamlet being played by Scottish actor David Tennant.

Scrooge McDuck (voiced by David Tennant 2017-present) is a fictional, Scottish, anthropomorphic duck that resides in the equally fictional city of Duckburg. Possessing immeasurable wealth and impossible longevity, he often recounts memories of life experiences long past. Artist Don Rosa chronicled this past in his collected works, The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Chapter eight of this collection, The King of Klondike, plants Scrooge firmly amidst the Klondike Gold Rush and tells the origin story of his rise to affluence. Upon discovering a gold rock the size of his head Scrooge asks himself if he really wants to be rich, speculating that the cash in will change him, though he quickly answers with a resounding "Yes."

Delirious and dying of dehydration at nighttime, riding out to assist the slaughter of countless buffalo in Colorado (another historic scheme for fast capital in The Americas), the protagonist of John Williams' acclaimed novel Butcher's Crossing wearily slumps backwards in his saddle. As he does this his head lolls back seemingly detached from his body, his eyes rolling in his skull momentarily until they finally focus on the great bowl of the sky. The stars are scattered, glistening across and beyond it, apparently plunging into an unknown infinity through which all matter drifts severed of terrestrial significance.