The Last Day

A month before the fateful day, I arrived home from work punch-drunk and tired from the cycle home. The day after payday was always an ordeal. Overtime not paid, bonus schemes calculated wrongly, subscriptions wrongly
deducted from the wage slip. It seemed that some Fridays, not one of the 500 employees got paid the correct amount.

'There's a letter there for you Bobby, I tacked it on the notice board,' cried my Mother as I made my way in from the shed out back where I had set aside my bicycle. I didn't want to see it again until Monday morning.
I went to the board and found it pinned amongst the clutter. It was in a brown government-like manila envelope with a window, through which I could clearly make out my name and address in bold Times New Roman font. There was no stamp or frank on the front, which was a bit strange but maybe it had slipped by in the mailing process. Nonetheless, it had reached its destination.

I tore the envelope open. There was one plain A4 sheet inside.

FAO: Bobby Dillon

This letter is to inform you of your upcoming death. You should receive this correspondence exactly one month prior to your demise. Do not throw this letter away. Do not dismiss this as some kind of sick joke. THIS IS REAL!
You will die on Monday October 21st of this year. We are expecting you on this date.

Because of the sheer importance and weight that this letter brings I have outlined a number of events that will happen in your future in order for you to understand the seriousness of what I have corresponded to you. I will
state one event that will happen to you personally, one that will happen to one member of your family and one that will happen on a worldwide scale. All three events will happen tomorrow (Saturday 21st September).

1. Bobby Dillon: You will meet a girl called Yolanda Sykes. She will be five feet ten inches tall with blue eyes and blond hair. She will also be blind. Do not even try to quiz her, as she knows nothing of this letter. She is merely a person you will meet just once in your life.

2. Josh Dillon: Josh will score the first goal in a 3-0 win in his soccer match. The goal will be a header and will be scored in the 26th minute of the first half.

3. Worldwide: The ferry ship - 'The Heart of Eiger' will sink in the North Sea causing the loss of 213 lives. The true final figure will not be announced until the following Tuesday.

I have left your own personal forecast a little vague, as I do not want you to avoid a certain place at a certain time if I were to include them here. Don't dismiss these prophecies as a joke and don't try to lose heart when
you find that they are indeed true. Also do NOT divulge the contents of this page to anyone.

I read the letter again and then a third time. The words were crystal clear and yet no clearer. It had to be a joke, a prank, some sick whacko's idea of a good time. After all, nothing could predict the future with that clarity.
But there was no signature, no address, no signs of any sort that could be used to possibly trace the origin of the prophecies.

That night I placed the letter in my bedside locker before finally dropping off to a fitful sleep at around 4 a.m.

The next morning I walked with Josh to the soccer pitches at the school grounds. Ordinarily I didn't go to watch Josh play but today was different. I waited on the sidelines and started the stopwatch exactly when the referee
signalled for the beginning of the match. I didn't really believe that what I had read in the letter could come true but I didn't disbelieve it either. As the match wore on and the score remained 0-0 my stomach began to tense
up. I constantly looked at the stopwatch, willing one team or other to score before the 26th minute ending all this nonsense and opening a way back to my ordinary humdrum life.

But nobody put the ball in the onion sack.

Minute 26 started with a corner to Josh's team and he made his way forward to the penalty box. I half laughed at the possibility of this scenario unfolding before my eyes but yet I was terribly uneasy. I looked at the stopwatch again and minute 26 was twenty seconds old when the ball was
floated in to the box and met viciously (for a nine year old at any rate) by Josh's forehead. The ball flew into the top corner of the net, 1-0. Josh was delighted, running towards me on the sideline acting as if the goal had just won him the World Cup.

I smiled back at him but it was an effort to do so. Inside, I was hollow. That shook me to my roots but I remained at pitch-side until the end of a 3-0 victory for Josh's team. By then, my nerves were frazzled.

I spent almost ten minutes frantically pacing up and down outside the dressing rooms whilst my proud brother got dressed inside. Just before he emerged, I spun rather sharply and knocked somebody to the wet grass.
Immediately I bent to apologize.

'I'm sorry, so sorry,' I started, 'I'm not myself. I'm miles away. Just not paying any...'

As I helped the girl with the blond hair and blue eyes up from the ground, I froze. She was beautiful but that was not what stopped me dead in my tracks. She was also blind. Her cane still lay on the grass, her dark glasses
alongside it.

'It's okay,' she replied, 'really it's fine. I guess I wasn't looking where I was going either.' She laughed at the irony of that but I remained silent. Then she seemed to panic just a little.

'Hello, are you still there?'

It took me a second or two but I managed to croak a response.

'Sure, I'm still here. I'm sorry but you're so beautiful.' It was corny and trite but yet it was true. Also, it bought me a little time to bend down and pick up her things.

'Why, thank you very much,' she replied, not really knowing I guess, what else to say to some guy who had just literally bowled her over and then called her beautiful, all in the one breath.

I handed her the cane and glasses, apologized again and then asked her what her name was. It was forthright but yet something that I had to do. I had to know.

'Yolanda,' she replied, 'Yolanda Sykes.'

By now Josh had appeared and I grabbed him and walked briskly away from the pitch and on towards home before my legs decided to fail me. Once home, I turned on the T.V. and caught the lunchtime news show. Sure enough, a ferry
ship had gone down in the North Sea with the loss of many lives. The newscasters did not know how many had perished in the disaster but I did. I went to my room without a word and took the letter from my locker to study
once more. I reread the lines as my mind whirled. They had all been true. I couldn't comprehend it but now I believed it.

What else could I do after all?

I did hardly anything that weekend, the shock of my newly discovered news weighed me down like an anchor. I didn't sleep, didn't eat, didn't leave the house but I did think. I thought about my upcoming end. I thought about
tying up all loose ends before I'm whisked away from this life. I believed the message. No matter which way I tossed or turned it in my head, the bottom line was that it was undoubtedly true.

Monday came and I took a half-day from work to see Mr. Hatfield of Greenway Insurance Brokers. I set up a policy that only paid out to my family upon my death. Hatfield was surprised that I didn't build in a payout for myself
when I reached retirement age but I decided not to leave him in on that particular gem of information. There was a 21-day initial period whereby if anything happened to me, then no money would be paid out. October 21st fell
just outside this range so my family was safe.

With their monetary future pretty much secured I felt a little better but not much. I walked around with a knotted stomach and a heavy heart. The knowledge of death is far worse than ignorance. "What you don't know won't
hurt you", as my Dad always said. Not knowing when your end will come, living on a knife edge of existence whereby life could be snatched from you at any time was far better than the cold calculating understanding that you would die on a certain date.

My last weeks were spent trying desperately to right any wrongs I had done in my life, doing whatever I could for my family and wallowing in a fair deal of self-pity. But I thought about my invincibility also. If I was destined to die on October 21st then no matter what I did between now and
then, it would not result in death. A part of me wanted to take more risks. Step out in front of oncoming traffic or go bungee jumping from the cliffs. Another part wanted me to explore this great world that I would leave behind
- see the Great Wall of China, swim the Barrier Reef.

However, I did none of those things. I wanted to spend my last weeks with those I loved most - my family. Instead I simply contemplated life, my place in it and my upcoming demise. I cried like I've never cried before, hard, heavy tears drowned my face and filled me with a dread reserved for those who know their own fate. Yet all people are aware of their own expendability but because they do not know the exact date and time of their demise, they live life instead of preparing for death. I, though, fell heavily into the
latter section of society.

I snatched very little sleep in those weeks and every night I always ended up looking at my younger brother and sister as they slept peacefully in their beds. Their innocence of the world was a joy to see. The two of them were full of life instead of living on borrowed time like myself. I pitied
and hated myself all at the same time but my heart was lightened a little bit by those early morning glimpses of my siblings. I loved them both just as much before I found out about my own situation, as I did after, and that was the best thing of all. At least my feelings were not forced down a particular channel due to my own selfish dilemma. As for Ma and Da, well, I have always loved them as they have loved me.

I tried not to make it too obvious over those last weeks and it was all I could manage, not to let anything about the letter slip. I had told them it was a tax form from the government and they had believed me. Why shouldn't
they? It was a darn sight more credible than a letter foretelling my own death. I decided against leaving them a note. After all how would I explain it?

The fateful day came, the last day, and I prepared to go to work as per usual. I could have stayed at home I guess, and hid under the covers but somehow I figured that death would find me no matter what. And if it was to find me then I didn't want it to happen under the roof of my family. I left
earlier than usual, as I simply couldn't face any of them at the breakfast table. I kissed Sherie and Josh on the foreheads as they slept. I simply glanced at my parents before sneaking out the back and getting the bike from
the shed.

I snatched a look at the local newspaper on the front doorstep as I walked the bike from the yard. The headline blew me away. "Blind Girl Recovers Sight". A picture of Yolanda Sykes was printed beneath the banner. The word
"Miracle" jumped from the page at numerous junctures. I picked it up and read some of the text whilst rolling the bike forward.

"Yolanda, who has been sightless since birth with what doctors insisted was an incurable blindness, suddenly started to regain her sight a month ago. It was a very slow process at first but yesterday at St. Mark's hospital, a
laser scan on both eyes concluded that she now has perfect vision. 'I cannot believe it,' stated the excited 21-year old, ' this truly is a miracle."

I threw the paper back on the front step, my mind whirling over what I'd read. A miracle? A month ago?

I cycled down the Long Hill, my mind working overtime trying to take in everything and managing nothing, all at once. The wind swept through my hair as the bike trundled along. What was the significance here?

I never saw the truck that had jack-knifed as it spun too fast around the corner towards me. I just managed to avoid it. It would surely have killed me there and then. The truck plummeted off the road and I laid the bike down
to rush back and see if the driver was okay. My body felt funny and I was a little light-headed but I simply put it down to shock. After all, it was my last day and I had just avoided a definite killer accident. Waiting to die sure was stressful.

Nothing prepared me for what I saw on that road though.

I was looking at myself on the road. My body was bloodied and torn. My bike mangled beyond recognition. I almost collapsed. How could this be happening? How can I lay eyes on myself, dead? Other people stopped their cars and
rushed over. Some cried, some vomited but all were shocked at the carnage before them. None of them saw me - the version of me who had managed to avoid the truck. I tried to touch them but my hand simply passed through
their bodies. I spoke but nobody heard me.

I was dead. My last day had come. But yet I still existed. Is this what happens to everybody when they pass on? It was like nothing had happened. I still had a sense of being, I could still physically touch my face, my arms, my hair, my bike, I could even feel the road beneath me. But yet I could not be heard or seen by any of the living?

Another envelope lay by my "other" bike. I tore it open.

Help those you can. Provide comfort for others. You are one of the chosen few. Take this gift of death to help those in life.

My last day had come. And it would last forever.

Biography

I am 33 years old and hail from Waterford, Ireland. I am married with three beautiful kids - two boys and a girl.
I have a BSc (Hons) in Applied Computing and work as an I.T. consultant for Guinness.

My true love though is writing. I have been writing short stories and novels for almost 14 years now. I constantly read and I am forever scribbling my far-ranging thoughts down on paper.