Tick Tock

                As the clock’s thin hand glides over the 12, I realize that is the last simple rotation I will ever experience. Such a modest thing, a clock, but when you only have 60 more ticks left in your life, everything becomes so much more important. I never thought I would find myself counting down the seconds of my last minute, yet here I am. With each tick of the second hand, the realization sinks deeper and deeper: I am earnestly about to die. Gone. Forever. Perhaps I deserve this, no, I do deserve this, but, at the same time, it all feels so terribly inhumane. I guess I never attempted to empathize with anyone who has stood in my current position because no one like me should ever stand here, no one who always demonstrated impeccable citizenship should ever receive a death sentence. But I slipped. The hand glosses over the three: forty-five more ticks. With only three-fourths of a minute remaining in your life, you may think one would begin to really consider what happens after death, but, for me, I chose to ponder my funeral. What colors everything would be, what pictures my family would use etc. Would anyone even come besides her? At least I can join the small club of individuals who knew the date of their own funeral weeks before death. 30 more movements. Now, I begin to search for some small joys, those little things you overlook daily but make your life worth living. The list proves short and, soon enough, only 15 more. Despite my efforts, the only thought in my mind proves the consideration of her last seconds. The ones I ended. I have the clock to remind me of the impending destruction, but she had nothing to forewarn her. So, as the second hand reaches nears the top, I think only of her. The hand strikes 12 and, for a short moment, the hand and I are one, both beginning our falls down to 6. But mine comes faster as the floor beneath me disappears, and I sink into my death.