One minute more

An hour to live.

I look at all the books on my shelves that I never got around to reading. Any one could have been my all-time favorite. I look at those I did read and try to remember storylines, main characters, themes. It is difficult, I’ve forgotten so much that I question the value of the time I spent reading them. This takes five minutes. Fifty-five minutes to live.

I go to the pantry and look at all the cans of food I never got around to eating. I check a few nutrition labels. All that fat, all that salt, all that sugar I could’ve ingested. I check a few expiration dates - several have had their last hours yet they persist entombed in aluminum, maybe still edible, maybe not - Schroedinger’s cans. This takes eight minutes.

Forty-seven minutes to live.

I go to the living room, flip on the television. I check the DVR - all the shows I never got around to watch. All these are programs that I once believed worth watching. A fourteen part Ken Burns document. Sorry, Ken. Half a season of Modern Family, after they started phoning it in. Meh - should have erased that a while ago. The CNN docuseries on the Royal Family. Oops. This takes seven minutes. Forty minutes left to live.

I pick up my phone and open Photos. There are more than three thousand photos on my phone, most of which I haven’t looked at, unless you count taking them, which I don’t. I wonder what I thought I’d ever do with them - make an album? Show them to the grandkids? (Gotta have kids to have grandkids.) Many of the photos were taken in bursts, meaning that there are like dozens of nearly the same shot, perhaps none of them good. Didn’t cost anything to take too many photos, not even time. This takes twelve minutes. Twenty-eight minutes left to live.

I go to the attic. It’s full of boxes. The boxes are full of things I once cared about - clothes, comic books, that wetsuit I bought to compete in a triathlon. Didn’t need it, the water temp was high enough that wetsuits weren’t allowed in the competition. Wonder if it fits? I could wear it now, but I don’t put it on. I’m not cool enough to die in a wetsuit. This takes ten minutes. Eighteen minutes left to live.

I go out on the terrace and look at the trees. They sway gently, the leaves shimmy creating a white noise that blocks out the highway and the cacophony of my thoughts. I seek calm. I seek peace. It takes a while but I find it. It lasts for a few seconds, then gives way to reality. I start to cry. This takes eleven minutes. Seven minutes left to live.

I go to the garage. The device is all prepared to operate. I take a few final breaths. I’ve always enjoyed the smell of the garage - moldy, gassy, oily, greater than the sum of its parts. Three minutes left to live.

I climb into the device. It’s suppose to take three minutes to work. I hesitate when closing the lid. In that moment I wish my life didn’t have to end. I think, there’s so much more I had to do. I want more time. But then I remember how I spent the last fifty-seven minutes and decide that I’d have just wasted that time too. I relax. I put my head down and wonder how the device works. Then I die. This takes four minutes.