The world's oldest looking man, Freddy Grantabunto died last night aged 77. Ironically, doctors have attributed his death to old age.
A retired Malaysian wood-chopper who spent most of his entire life working in the small village of Juntar, Grantabunto's ratio of facial wrinkles to age was believed to be the highest anywhere in the world. Indeed, some of his wrinkles (in and around his eyes) measured less than 0.03mm apart. Apart from a small section of his cheek, friends say Grantabunto had "hardly any smooth patches of skin left on his face". Experts say he could have "easily passed for a 112 year old".
"He really did look way way older than his years", Guinness Book of Records Human Achievement's researcher, Bradley Tramble revealed.
"very proud of her father's uniquely weathered countenance".
Recalling their first encounter, he said, "we at the Guinness Book were alerted about Grantabunto just last year so we had our people made the trek out to Malaysia to check him out. We weren't disappointed. He's easily the oldest looking man we've seen. The previous record holder, a French nun, was 84 and she didn't have near as many facial wrinkles. Her breasts were appallingly saggy mind you (The Guinness people insist their subjects strip stark naked so they can make a full and fair appraisal of their record claim).
Grantabunto's daughter, Kimi (pictured above bathing her father), a professional poet, said she was "very proud of her father's uniquely weathered countenance".
She said, "My father's face was not a human face but a cliff face eroded not by age but by the gusty coastal winds that blow through the humble wood-chopper's life".
Reflecting thoughtfully, she added, "I loved to bathe my father's wrinkly body and think to myself, yes this man has seen what true suffering is like. As I scrub the dead skin of his craggy back I think to myself "this man my father yes he has lived a noble life of self-sacrificial misery". I have written many poems that express sentiments such as these".
Family have elected Kimi, the first born daughter, to bathe her father's cold, wrinkly corpse as is Malay tradition in burial preparation. She says she may well buy a new sponge to mark the occasion but will have to leave the funeral early to attend a poetry convention in Kuala Lumpur. The rest of the family understand. As Gushavera, wife of Grantabantu (who looks relatively young incidentally) puts it, "Kimi sure does love poetry".
Apart from wrinkles, Grantabunto radiated several other superficial symptoms of extreme old age before his death. Actually even in death his corpse has maintained many of these symptoms.
"That beard. That horrible, untrimmed, ill-maintained, kind of downy looking mane he had growing from the base of his face- that kind of thing you generally only see on Japanese guys who are over 110", Tramble explained.
"Grantabuntu shrivelled genitals also went some way towards belying his 77 years".
He added, "For a Malay man to have a beard of that nature at the relatively tender age of 77 is highly irregular. Generally a man of Grantabunto's age would have a respectable looking, reasonably dense beard and not a clump of cat whiskers like what he had. Heck, with a beard like that, I'd go as far as to say he could have passed for a 120 year old".
Apart from myriad wrinkles, and a crappy, decrepit beard, Grantabuntu shrivelled genitals also went some way towards belying his 77 years.
Tramble revealed, "his penis had almost receded back into itself like some kind of weird tropical flower against the sunlight or something. It was way beyond even the most twisted of fetishes".
Tramble then pointed out, "You know people think working for the Guiness book is all fat dwarf triplets and beards of bees but when you're staring directly at genitals such as those that hung from the body of Freddy Grantabunto, you think this is not how I imagined my life would turn out".
