Short story

A 2,000 word story about the notion of dying and being aware of it. Do the rules of ethics and morality change when you know you haven’t got much time left? Do you need to be alive to experience the consequences for social rules to matter?

Time

Craig stirred his coffee in a lazy circle, placed the spoon on the table and took a sip. It was cold. He’d no idea how long he’d been stirring it. When you’ve been told you have an inoperable brain tumour, it’s difficult to concentrate. He looked around the café and watched others around him - reading newspapers, chatting, talking to a waitress, assiduously choosing what they might eat over the next hour. Near him was a fat woman in earnest conversation with a girl, maybe her granddaughter. She was wearing a thick woollen coat and her hair was tightly curled underneath a hat like an upturned bowl with a feather in it. What was she doing dressed like that? She must have thought she looked smart. The girl was in faded torn jeans, sold as new like that, no doubt; hanging neatly in rows along the walls of shops that he did not dare go in because the musak pouring out of the ceiling would have damaged his eardrums.  

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The gran was telling the girl what she thought. A piece of her mind, they used to say. The girl looked bored. What they each considered important in life did not match. They had no idea what was important. He was going to die. He hadn’t long; a few months perhaps. How about that for importance? Whatever that woman thought was an issue serious enough to drag the girl out for the afternoon to tell her what’s what was wasting her time. It didn’t matter what the girl was or was not doing. As long as the woman still had her grandchild.   As long as she was alive, for Christ’s sake.

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He thought of phoning Angie. She was at work. No, not fair. How would she deal with the news in the office? He’d wait for a face to face. But then what was fair? He laughed to himself, impressed to be thinking of being fair when he wasn’t even going to see his 43rd birthday. Why the hell did he imagine life was fair or, if not fair, that people could add a little fairness to it to balance things out a bit? Who was going to add a bit of fairness to his death? What would they do? Make it a bit more comfortable, less painful, quicker? If he assumed six months what was he going to do with it?

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People were supposed to do all the things they had intended to do. Maybe he would jump out of an aeroplane. He’d never done that, always intended to but never….. a sudden thought. Life’s rules really had changed. You get a bit of training before you jump, technicalities, pretend jumping, confidence building, how to work the reserve chute. And all because, if you don’t, you risk your life. Now, there was no risk. It didn’t matter if he forgo the training. It didn’t even matter if he jumped without the parachute.  What a thrill, and the only cost would be the few more weeks he would have had knowing his life was about to end. Bit of a ‘win win’ when he came to think about it. There’d be a bit of scraping up to do and he’d let Angie know beforehand. She’d understand. He could leave a note to exonerate her and the flying club. That would only be fair. He gave a chuckle.

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‘Will you be eating today, sir?’

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He looked up to see a waitress hovering over him, staring at him strangely. The granny gave a quick, curious glance over her shoulder at him and turned back to her discussion. He realised he’d been laughing out loud. Probably think he’s a bit of a nutter.

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‘Er, yeah. I’ll have a baked potato, with prawns, thanks.’

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But then was he bothered if they thought he was a bit strange? What people thought of him was now monumentally unimportant. They would have forgotten the incident by tomorrow and he wasn’t going to come in here again anyway. And what if he did? So he’s a nutter, all part of life’s hues and colours. And it wasn’t just conventions that no longer mattered. It wasn’t even the rule of law. He could see through the window to the crawling traffic outside and temporary glimpses of a bank, a jeweller’s and a small supermarket the other side of the road. He could take a few things, or at least attempt to. He imagined his name attached to the label ‘bank robber’. There was a certain romance about it. A bit of Clyde without the Bonnie. They’d catch him but that could take a few weeks given that he’d absolutely no form. Then they’d arrest him, bail him and after about a year put him on trial.  Except the prisoner’s box would be distinctly empty. He struggled not to laugh out loud again.

He wouldn’t want to take anything major, just a necklace, a bottle of champagne or a bit of cash from the till. Not very fair but he wasn’t intending to spread fairness around, just a touch of unfairness. And he’d now acquired plenty of that. Losing a necklace from your shelves is not quite on the same scale as losing forty fucking years of your life.

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The baked potato arrived. The gran and her granddaughter were still there and were now chatting and smiling. Whatever troubles they had appeared to have been resolved. As he picked at his meal he could see the possibilities of his new-found freedom expanding towards the infinite. Flying to another country without a ticket, breaking into the houses of parliament, walking down Regents Street naked. Ideas ranging from the criminal to the banal flowed through his mind. He began to wonder why people considered the detail of their lives so consequential when, given a bit of time, they had no consequence whatever. Was it so important what they got for tomorrow’s dinner when, within a few days, they wouldn’t even remember it? All the clothes they bought, holidays they arranged, even the job they did and the place they lived in lost its consequence eventually. Ironic how they thought, because they’d got the time, decades for the girl on the next table, events took on an importance when time actually diminished it.

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But then where did that leave him? With no time, had he acquired consequence? For everyone in the café he was an irrelevance unless they read about him in the papers. Some nutter walking down the high street naked. Then after a month they’d forget about that too. He could create his own importance. A few days in a police cell would be interesting and take a chunk of the time he had left. Planning a robbery could even be fun. The gran and the girl got up to leave. They didn’t look at him. Why should they? The girl took her gran’s arm as they walked towards the door. He turned back. The girl had left her bag over the back of her chair, long handled, almost touching the floor, all in red leather. Maybe he could call out to her before she reached the street. But he could also take it and enjoy the contents. His first new experience. He got up and unhooked it. But then what was in a young girl’s bag that would be so interesting? Just full of objet d’arts of irrelevance to him. He marched quickly to the door as they were closing it behind them.

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‘Excuse me, you left your bag behind.’

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‘Oh my God,’ exclaimed the girl, ‘thanks.’

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‘You really must be more careful,’ said the woman. ‘You’ll forget your head one of these days.’ Craig inwardly sighed. Did people still say that? ‘That’s really very kind of you,’ the woman continued. ‘There are some papers in there that are really most important. University acceptance.’ The woman started to beam and turned to the girl.

‘It’s no problem.’

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‘Let me buy you a drink.’ The woman started to fumble in her own bag.

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‘No please. It’s really no problem. I’m glad I could help.’

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‘Well, you’re very kind. I won’t forget. It’s nice to know there are people like you still around.’

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‘Thanks again,’ said the girl as they turned and walked away.

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Craig walked back inside, dumped a £10 note on his table and returned to the street. So the rules hadn’t changed. He was still returning lost property to their rightful owners. He couldn’t work out whether to be angry with himself or feel noble. Maybe both.  A girl, due to graduate in a few years, an entire life for the taking and she could have had a story to tell about her bag being stolen the day she got her acceptance. She would have survived that but he wasn’t going to. There was his chance to spread a little misery and inconvenience around and he blew it.

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He saw the girl again a couple of minutes later saying goodbye to her gran. He crossed the road to avoid further conversation, reached his car and set off for home. A lot of phone calls to make and emails to send. That was also spreading misery but he had no choice about that. He turned into the long lane out of town, one of the main reasons he and Angie chose the house. A few buildings dotted along the sides, trees and distant hills, a lovely way to get home.

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A car drove up behind him. A bit close. He was doing 40, any faster wasn’t safe. He chuckled – there was conventions and rules showing up again. He could see the driver and a passenger in the front seat, maybe someone in the back, young lads, laughing, having a bit of fun.  Craig increased his speed to 50. The turns in the road did not allow for anything further. The lads still stuck to his bumper. Stupid arses, this was dangerous. Craig’s eyes widened. This was the moment to throw convention away, gifted to him. He could see that neither was wearing seatbelts. He reached a stretch of road that was fairly straight for perhaps a half a mile and accelerated to 70. If they dropped back then he would let them be. But they stuck to his rear, too close for Craig to read their number plate. Young guys, their whole life ahead of them risking it all for a bit of temporary fun. Well, it was going to cost them.

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Here was the moment. He imagined a deer jumping out of the hedge. With all his weight, he jumped on the brake. The tyres screamed. He saw their car veer madly away from him but too late. The lads’ car gave a mammoth side swipe to his rear and rolled over, past his bonnet, landing on its side several yards down the road facing the way they had come.

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His door still operated. He unclicked his belt and got out. He seemed to have no injury but the rear of his car was a complete mess. Craig walked slowly to the other car. Water and fuel were seeping out over the road. The people inside were very still. An arm protruded from a broken window. From the body on the back seat. It was female. Craig looked closer. He could see a handbag. Long handled, red leather.

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‘Good God, what happened?’ ‘You all right mate?’

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Craig turned to see other people walking up to the scene from other cars now stopping behind and in front. 

‘I’ve phoned for an ambulance,’ someone said.

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‘I think,’ said Craig, ‘you should also be phoning for the police.’