Aw. Look, I get the desire to tell people, I do. But there’s so much fun in giving hints and letting them figure it out for themselves.
I would have said that Cecil is the smartest man in the world so he’ll never die, at least as long as Creative Loafing wills it. And then I’d mention that he’d already had two other almost deaths, when each of his former editors left.
I think people get the idea that the fun is in hiding, when it’s really in helping people become smart enough to see the truth on their own.
I’m assuming he already wrote all of the answers that he needs for the column to last indefinitely, he’s just waiting for the questions. I see no reason that the staff couldn’t do that for him after his eventual demise.
I think it’s clear Cecil is an immortal human from the far future and has achieved time travel, only by way of information transfer; not physical presence. He amuses himself by answering our silly questions in a way we might be amused to answer some of the questions our ancestors had. Of couse, he’s careful not to give up any information we have yet to discover as it might have devistating consequences in his own time.