"Congratulations! It's a boy," the doctor said to my parents as I was laid on my mother's arms. My mother started to weep hysterically.
"Oh gods," she choked out, between her loud sobs, "he's going to die now isn't he? It says the Fourteenth of July right here!" She couldn't have been more touching until she was hit playfully in the head by dad.
"Look at the year honey, he won't be dying until he's about fourteen or fifteen," my father's never been good at math, but I'm thankful since I get to sneak some spare change out his wallet.
Don't misunderstand. I don't do drugs. I just want to spend my last days having fun. I'm seventeen now, three months from dying a mediocre death. A conclusion to a flat ballad of nothing but teenage foolishness. I would probably end up dying before experiencing a very bad hangover, or from running on an eighteen-hour run on some video game, dusting up one of my friends' couch.
Oh, right. I haven't told you how people die here. The date is defined, the time is not. You may not know if you'll live until 23:59 of that day. Chances are, you won't. I once saw a man in an expensive-looking coat—and probably more expensive-looking articles of clothing underneath, drink his last coffee, before suddenly freezing up and flaking away. Slowly turning into ash. Nothing left of him and his pricey outfit. I guess once you die, you don't get to have a merit of being rich or doing good. Not at all. You just die.
I remembered, when I was a kid, I asked my dad once why I had the date of my seventeenth birthday on my arm. I remember him telling me there was a surprise for me that day. Beautiful fireworks, he said. Now when I remember that moment, I groan at his dark sense of humor and effort of keeping a kid innnocent from thoughts of a cruel death.
At least I can go out with a bang, dad. I spit onto his grave as I walk away from it for the thousandth time.
