Blink.
I was on the ground. Memories were there when I reached for them, a seamless flow with no recognizable gaps or cutouts, but faulty nonetheless. I had been standing a second ago and now I wasn't. I must have fallen at some point in between, but I couldn't remember going down.
Missing time was never a good sign.
I blinked. My glasses were gone and the world was a vague blur beyond two feet. I'd never find the damn things again. It was hard enough when I forgot where I put them down in my room, let alone outside.
And it was cold. The concrete dully pressed against the side of my face was absolutely freezing. It was fall, but I should have dug out the winter coat anyway. It just wasn't worth the aggravation anymore, shuffling everywhere with my hands stuffed in my pockets and my face turned away from the wind.
I had been going… home, looking forward to crawling under flannel sheets and a perfectly reasonable number of blankets when…
Blink.
Someone was screaming. They sounded far away. Flyaway wisps of hair fluttered in the corner of my narrowing vision and I had just enough energy to be annoyed and embarrassed by them—why couldn't my hair ever stay where I put it?
Petty, irrelevant thoughts. Moving on.
Nothing hurt, but I was dying. I knew, or was pretty sure that that's what was happening, even if I couldn't quite recall why exactly.
But I wasn't terribly worried. There was a clinic a fifteen minute walk from my apartment and ambulances screamed down the streets all the time. Drivers in the area were very conscientious about them. They usually got out of the way quickly.
I'd probably be fine. I just needed to stay calm and wait for the paramedics to get here and think about how I was going to pitch this incident to my mom. She always had been fiercely protective and that hadn't changed when I moved out. I couldn't imagine how she'd react to The Phone Call but I knew it wouldn't be something soon forgotten.
I can't fucking believe this
It's so cold, I wish I was warm
And then I died.
Just like that.
Pretty anticlimactic, huh?
.
I have dreams every once in a while where I can't breathe. I'm never worried about it at the time because it seems so natural. There's no air in the room, so of course I don't have to breathe. Obvious.
It's the restriction that gets to me, like being trapped in a slowmo shot I can't escape. No matter how much effort I put into it, or how badly I want it, everything moves at the same… slow… steady… pace. There's no rushing, no hurrying. Everything happens in due time.
Death is a bit like that.
There's something about it that should bother me, would bother me if I was fully conscious, but as it is, it doesn't even register as a mild concern. It's a background detail, noticeable but not really important.
When I'm moving so incredibly slowly forwards—unknowing and uncaring of my final destination—there's a lot of time for me to think. About my life, about my choices.
About every funny story I've ever told and every beautiful thing I've seen, all the people I've known and the songs I've heard, the food I've eaten and all the books I've read, the places I've been and the movies I've watched, and every single inconsequential daydream I've had when I should have been paying attention to something else.
It takes a long time.
Exactly as long as it should take.
And when I've finally reflected on just about everything there is to reflect upon—
(that asshole shot me—I hope somebody fucking kills him)
—time speeds up again.
.