Deathday

Deathday

  By

  Shane Griffin

  Smash Words Edition Published by Poupichou Press

  First Published in Print in Potato Monkey 2004

  Copyright Shane Griffin 2000

  #

  Sam opened the door to his apartment and stumbled inside. He crashed about for a few moments in the doorway before switching on the light. He dropped his bag and lab coat on his small green two-seater lounge. Sam was a scientist, more specifically a chemist. It had been a long day in the lab and he had once again blown a great opportunity to ask Anna, a colleague that he’d had a crush on for nearly two years, out to dinner.

  Sam ran his hand through his light brown, almost blond, hair in frustration and headed for the kitchen. That was when he spotted the red flashing screen on his computer. Sam put aside his hunger and diverted to it. A red flashing screen was not to be ignored since it meant that he had received a priority government message.

  Sam had grown up with deathday notices as commonplace, in fact he remembered vividly when his father had received his, but it still caught him by surprise. He read the notice once more, hoping desperately that he had somehow misread it. Surely it had to be a mistake he was only 25. It was no mistake and any colour that was left in his face after reading it the first time now vanished.

  He two weeks left to live and there was no arguing with that. Deathday notices were right 98.8 percent of the time. He printed out a hard copy of the notice and stared at it blankly. He supposed that he should be thankful. In the old days you had no idea when your time was up. For some reason this thought did not comfort him. Equally his hunger now escaped him.

  After sitting on the lounge, dumbfounded for nearly 20 minutes, the full realisation of what little time he had left fell squarely upon his shoulders and he decided resolutely not to waste another second. Time was too precious.

  The first thing he did was call his sister. She was with one of the gas mining crews working on Jupiter. She wept when he told her and begged him to forgive her for not being able to be there for his last days. He understood, though it deeply saddened him, for even if she had some way of leaving Jupiter immediately it would take three or four weeks to get back home.

  He spoke to her for over three hours on the holographic linkway. She was still weeping when she promised him that she would call every day and then switched off.

  Sam left his holophone and slumped down onto his lounge once again. He was physically and emotionally exhausted, yet he was reluctant to sleep, it seemed such a waste of the time he had left. He looked at his watch for the exact time, it read 1:24am and 32sec. Having a deadly accurate grasp of the time was something he had always been pedantic about. This was, until now, a feature of his personality that he had thought petty and strange. He watched the seconds tick by for a while as he contemplated ringing his mother. It was very late, but he rang anyway.

  His mother took the news well, considering she was still half asleep. She was not the type of person to show much emotion, but Sam could tell that she was devastated.

  “I know you will probably have a lot of loose ends to tie up in the next two weeks, but you must come and see me first,” she insisted, holding back the tears that welled in her eyes with remarkable vigour.

  “I guess I have no excuse this time,” he joked half-heartedly. His mother did not laugh, she did not smile, nor did she cry. Instead, she looked at him in the most forlornly sympathetic way that he soon found tears meandering down his own cheeks.

  Sam spoke to his mother for another hour before she insisted he went to bed. After hanging up the holophone he walked back again to his lounge and flopped back into its comfortable grip. He had no intention of sleeping if he could avoid it. He sat idly on the lounge and looked around his apartment, trying to memorise everything about it. He quickly realised that each time his eyes rested upon something memories washed over him like waves crashing upon the beach. It was very overwhelming at first for it was as if his brain, having found out the end was nigh, wanted to sample everything that it had experienced just one last time.

  Sam now scanned the entire apartment piece by piece and his mind feasted on every memory it could devour until finally his eyes came to rest on his lab coat. He picked it up and inspected it more closely. The complex mix of chemical aromas reminded him of the lab where he worked. The coat was stained through use, chemical stains that would never come out. He had never really taken much notice of them before, but now their random spattering intrigued him. In their own way each of them told a story of a unique part of his life. He inspected each one individually and tried to remember how he had come by them.

  Sam’s labour was, for the most part, fruitless until he came to a fresh coffee stain that he had gotten when Anna had bumped into him by accident. It was just a small moment of his life, insignificant, but it made him remember her. Anna was beautiful. She was a short energetic woman with a delicate yet expressive face. Her hair was dark brown and shoulder length, though she had always threatened to cut it shorter.

  It was not Anna’s looks that attracted Sam, however, it was her personality. Anna was a most dynamic person, one of those special people who inadvertently touch the lives and hearts of all those around them. The type of person people clamber to talk to and do favours for. Sam was no exception. The one difference with Sam was that he had fallen deeply and completely in love with her.

  A sense of frustration welled up inside him the more he thought of Anna. Suddenly he flung the lab coat across the room and let out a deep sad sigh. For two years he had been working up the courage to tell her how he felt and now it was too late!

  Sam shut his eyes to block out the thought of Anna and soon found his frustration subsided as sleep captured him by surprise. He did not sleep long, but by the time he awoke again the sun had just risen.

  #

  Sam woke with a start and the very odd sensation that he had overslept his own death. He checked his watch; it was 5:57am and 12 seconds. If he did not leave soon he would waste the better part of a day that he could otherwise be spending with his mother. He leapt from the lounge and with the chaotic, but efficient manner of someone who was used to being late, he ate breakfast and packed an overnight bag.

  As he rushed out the door, still gnawing on a piece of toast, he made sure he grabbed the hard copy of his deathday notice. Although it was his most heavy burden it was also his ticket to doing almost anything he pleased. The walking dead had rights above and beyond any living person.

  Sam hailed a hover taxi, waving it down with his deathday notice. He climbed into the cab and the taxi driver flicked on his emergency lights, which flashed bright pink on top of the taxi, and sped Sam to the train terminal on his command. The taxi arrived at the terminal in less than ten minutes, a trip which normally took over thirty five. However, a vehicle carrying someone with a deathday notice had complete right of way, even when driving on the wrong side of the road.

  Sam stepped out of the taxi and turned to pay the driver, but he had already shut the door and sped off. Everything was free when you were a dead man. Sam just shrugged his shoulders at the disappearing cab and went to catch his train. He boarded the very next supersonic to Melbourne. Sam liked riding the supersonic from Sydney to Melbourne. It was such a smooth tranquil ride that the hour long journey always passed quickly. This time though the trip seemed to take forever and he called his mother as the train passed Canberra to make sure she would be there to meet him at the station.

  #

  The train eventually pulled in at Melbourne station and Sam stepped from the train. He stood still on the platform, clutching his overnight bag in one hand, and waited for the crowd exiting the train to disperse.

  The sea of people soon thinned enough for him to spot his mother. His m
other was slightly taller than average with greying hair and a somewhat plump figure. He was only two metres away from her when she finally saw him. She smiled, though he could see by the redness of her eyes that she had already been crying. He clutched her tightly when he reached her and he began to weep.

  “Come on, let’s go back home and we can both cry together,” she said and they walked arm in arm from the platform.

  Sam hesitated at the front door of his mother’s house. Memories washed over him again. Although this was not the only house he had lived in as a child it was the place he had stayed the longest and the one that he considered home. It was the house his father had died in. It was for that reason that his mother had refused to move out, even to be closer to her son.

  “Are you Ok?” asked his mother.

  “Yes, it’s just that seeing this place brings back so many memories. Memories that I wish I could have all over again, just one more time.”

  “But you do. Every time you remember you relive your life, in here,” replied his mother, pointing to her heart. Sam smiled and then flung himself into a strong hug with her.

  “I wish I wasn’t leaving you ma,” he said, breaking into tears once more.

  “I can look after myself. All I want is for your last two weeks to be happy. Besides you will never leave me, not really, because you will always be inside my heart.” Sam started to cry again and his mother ushered him inside and made a pot of tea.

  For the rest of the morning Sam talked with his mother, they hugged, they cried and they laughed until they cried again. After lunch they left the house and went to the beach, just like when he was a kid. When finally they returned home in the late evening Sam felt happier, but there was still a nagging hollow somewhere inside his heart that made him feel incomplete.

  “Ma, I have to go back to Sydney.”

  “Why?” asked his mother, her shock and disappointment obvious.

  “I have to tell someone that I love them.”

  His mother smiled, “I guess this is not the time to hold back.”

  Sam looked at his watch, 11:45pm 18 sec, it was now too late to catch the last train to Sydney and his mother quickly capitalised on this, convincing him to stay until the next morning. Sam gave in and he talked to her about Anna well into the next morning. Soon his mother was falling asleep where she sat and decided reluctantly to go to bed.

  Sam couldn’t bear the thought of sleep so he sat in front of the television to watch his favourite movie of all time, a classic from the late nineteen hundreds called Blade Runner. He sat contently on his mother’s lounge as the movie started; he only closed his eyes for a minute…

  #

  Early the next morning Sam stood on the platform with his mother as the doors to the first Sydney train slide open.

  “Don’t say goodbye yet, but make sure you call the night before it happens,” said his mother as she embraced Sam for one last time. Sam agreed, but when he watched his mother through the window as the train moved off it felt like he had said goodbye and he was already dead. He even had the proof still in his pocket.

  #

  Sam stood in the narrow corridor and looked into the lab through the small window in the door. He could see her there working at the bench doing a titration. She looked happy and it made Sam wonder if he should say anything at all to her.

  With a deep breath he entered the lab and his palms began to sweat. It was as though she knew he was coming because he was not even half way across the lab when she looked up from her work straight at him. As he approached she smiled and gave him her usual cheery hello.

  “Listen, Anna, do you have a few minutes to talk?” asked Sam nervously.

  “For the moment, no, actually,” she replied politely.

  “I have a problem and I really need to talk with someone,” pleaded Sam.

  Anna looked at him seriously and her smiled disappeared.

  “Ok no worries. Just let me finish this.”

  They went to a coffee shop not far from the lab to talk, but Sam couldn’t work out exactly how to tell her he would be dead in ten days so instead he launched into a rambling monologue about the weather. Soon it became plainly obvious that he was skirting around the real issue and Anna cut in on his speech.

  “Sam, what was the problem you wanted to talk to me about?”

  Sam looked at her blankly trying desperately to bide enough time to gather all the right words in his head. It didn’t work so instead he launched into the oldest excuse in the book just hoping that it would work.

  “Well, I have this friend who just got a deathday notice a couple of days ago, that’s why I haven’t been at work. The problem is not just the deathday notice though, you see my friend…my friend is also in love with someone he works with. In fact he has kind of had feelings for her for some time,” as Sam spoke it felt like a great weight was lifted from his chest. Just describing the way he felt made him feel whole. The relief for him was so great that he was almost smiling by the time he finished. “The dilemma my friend faces is whether or not he should tell the person that he loves them knowing full well they can never be together. He asked me for some advice, but I don’t know what to tell him. I really need a woman’s opinion. What would you tell him?”

  Anna had been listening intently through the whole explanation and took a few minutes to contemplate before she answered. When she did it cut Sam so deep that he almost flinched. “No, I wouldn’t tell her, not if he really loves her. You would just cause her pain and confusion.”

  “But can you imagine my friend spending the rest of his life not knowing?” countered Sam.

  “Yes, but your friends pain will be for much less time than the one he’s in love with.”

  “I guess you’re right,” replied Sam quietly. The two talked for another few minutes, but for Sam the damage was already done and he was just relieved that he had not actually told Anna the way he felt.

  That evening he went back home and spent most of the night watching movies that he wanted to see for one last time. For the first time since getting the notice of his death he didn’t feel restless. In fact he felt so at peace inside that he went to sleep of his own free will.

  That night, however, he dreamed of Anna. It was such a vivid dream that it woke him. He rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but he couldn’t get the dream out of his head. He looked at his watch, it was 7:23am and 43 sec. Time to get up anyway, otherwise he would miss the sixth day of the last two weeks of his life.

  After breakfast he started packing a travel bag so he could spend his last days with his mother and his best friend Martin doing all the wild things he had ever wanted to do. The only problem was, no matter how hard he tried he just could not get thoughts of Anna out of his head. He fought valiantly against the urge to go back and see Anna right up until the taxi reached the interstate terminal. The taxi driver was not pleased by the change of destinations at the last minute, especially for a free fare, but Sam didn’t care, he had to tell Anna how he felt.

  When Sam arrived at work he found Anna in her office doing some statistics on her computer. Sam knocked politely on the open door, but entered and sat in the chair opposite Anna’s desk without waiting for her to invite him.

  Anna looked up from her computer at him her brow creased, more in concentration than annoyance. To Sam it looked rather sweet.

  “How did everything go with your friend?”

  “What you said to me yesterday seemed the right thing to do, so I took your advice.”

  “Good,” replied Anna looking visibly relieved.

  “There is only one problem. I wasn’t completely honest with you yesterday when I told you it was my friend who had the problem,” said Sam tentatively.

  “Relax Sam, I know you were talking about yourself yesterday. News about someone’s deathday travels fast you know.”

  “Then you know that the person I am in love with is you,” Sam offered nervously.

  Anna took a deep breath and woul
dn’t look directly at him when she spoke.

  “I was hoping that it wasn’t, but I had a suspicion that it was.”

  “But if you knew all this yesterday then why didn’t you say something?”

  “I had the hope that it would be enough for you to tell me indirectly and leave it at that. I should have known better, I should have told you then what I must tell you now. You are a really nice guy Sam and god knows I cried myself to sleep last night thinking about you dying so young, but there is no way you can really be in love with me. We hardly know each other beyond casual friends. It’s because you’re going to die, you need to latch onto someone and for some reason you have focused everything on me.”

  “I promise you that is not true. It’s just that it has taken something like this to make me realise that I am in love with you.”

  Anna looked at him in the same forlorn way in which his mother had over the holo-phone.

  “I know that you really believe that you are in love with me Sam, but your image of me is an ideal one. It’s not real love you feel, real love takes time to develop and time is something we don’t have.”

  Sam felt a stake drive through his heart and sat silent for a long time while Anna continued to clack away at her computer intentionally avoiding any eye contact with him. Sam wanted to leave, he wanted to go outside and scream until his lungs burst. Instead he sat silently in with Anna in her office while she worked, he felt compelled to stay. Even though his heart had been broken something inside him told him to persist, maybe it was some type of emotional survival reflex, he didn’t know. To make things more confusing Anna made no attempt to get him to leave.

  For the next three days Sam found himself in the company of Anna. He followed her around in the lab, sat with her in her office, ate lunch with her, but most of all they talked. Sam made every effort during this time to reveal everything about himself and have Anna do likewise, which she did reluctantly. The more they discovered about each other the closer they seemed to become, but no matter how hard he tried Anna would not give him any indication as to how she felt about him even when he repeatedly told her that he loved her.