The Last Hour

Fifty years. That's exactly how long I'll have been alive by 8:27 tonight, and it's the oldest I'll ever be. I feel a strange separation from life - it all seems so distant and irrelevant now. I am but a fleeting shadow cast by the pure vastness of time.

At 8:27, I'm going to die. I suppose that's not an unusual statement. We all die, and the Corporation has made it easy. Fifty years is what you get, to limit our population and keep the world's resources in check. You live for fifty years, free of deteriorations of the body and mind. Cancer, infections, dementia. All long since conquered by the genius scientists working for the Corps. Then, you die. It's simple. A painless lethal injection, delivered by microchip. But here, so close to finality, I hesitate to accept my fate.

It's 7:20 now. In the evening, so just a little over an hour left. The conflicted thoughts in my mind tear my body in two - a gnawing anxiety that I should be doing something, savouring this last hour - crossing swords with the heavy gravity of apathy and the feeling that nothing I do now could possibly make a difference.

Without thought, I reach for the familiarity of a glass flask on the oaken side table beside me. The fiery spice of brandy burns away the cold lump of apprehension in my throat. I'll not wallow in my sorrows, wasting the last hour of my life. A decisive stomp puts me up on my feet. A confident thrust of my right arm, and I've donned a snug trench coat. At once, the tension in my body melts away, and the warmth of a smile spreads across my face. I'll take a walk in the forest beside my house, breathe in the crisp, cool air one last time, and settle down on the bench by the tranquil lakeside to die. A pleasant end to a pleasant story, that's what I'll make of tonight.

Time escapes me. I'm lost in peace. I glance at my timepiece. 8:26 and 42 seconds. I feel my heart begin to pound as reality slams into me. This is it. A deep breath, one last lungful of the beauty of this world.

8:27 exactly.

8:27, and 25 seconds.

8:27, and 42 seconds.

8:28, and 7 seconds.

Impossible.