"If only I could molt," I said.  If I could unzip this rubbery carapace from the inside out, emerging as someone else.  Freddie Sayers.  James Spader.  Rod Laver.  Duke Ellington.

Another sort of molting.  Some hospice workers say that a puff of smoke or fog rises up from the newly-lifeless corpse.  It quickly dissipates, by all accounts that I have counted.