Episode
14 - What Would You Do?
Trace’s backside burned from sitting
too long, but he minded the pressure of the monotonous ticking
more than the metal seat. The group leader, who was conducting
a final exercise before dismissing the group from its first
night of hospice volunteer training, had placed a clock in the
center of the circle of chairs. As soon as the group leader
placed it there, Trace realized the circle of twelve now resembled
a clock. He wondered if anyone else noticed, and he wondered
at what hour he was positioned. The relentless ticking told
him it was a late one, and he started feeling anxious the moment
the clock was placed in the center of the group. He wondered
if this anxiety was the point of the clock rather than the actual
recording of passing time, especially considering its placement.
Realizing the ticking continued to mark passing time, he decided
he would ponder the particularities of the clock later, for
now, he was pressed to answer ten questions in ten minutes before
the clock sounded its alarm, and he had already lost at least
a minute with in contemplations.
He looked at the clipboard propped on his lap
and fiddled with the pencil in his hand before deciding to answer
the questions earnestly. He resolved himself to this goal, as
he scanned the first question: What would you do if you knew
you were going to die in 30 years? Although the time frame felt
distant, he realized he had never consciously considered his
mortality before. He explored his feelings and realized he would
use the time to guarantee his professional success. Dying in
thirty years, he felt his struggles to educate himself would
have been in vain if he had not actualized himself as a professional
by then, and he wrote, “I would fully actualize myself
professionally.”
He read the next question: What would you do
if you knew you were going to die in 20 years? He immediately
pressed his pencil to the paper and wrote a variation of the
first response: “I would live a well-rounded and productive
life.”
Focusing on the relentless ticking his heart
raced, as he read the next question and wondered how much time
he had left: What would you do if you knew you were going to
die in ten years? He rushed to write, “I would complete
my life’s work.”
He suddenly realized he did not know what his
life’s work was, but as the ticking seemed to quicken,
he also realized time was passing quickly, and he had several
more questions to go, so he quickly read the next question:
What would you do if you knew you were going to die in one year?
Trace thought for a moment and knew, given this time frame,
he would release his vice restraints. He had fought to redefine
himself in terms of drugs and alcohol and had removed himself
from the former, but he knew he would let the damn of his vices
run free, if he only had a year to live, and he wrote, “smoke,
snort, swallow, sniff, and shoot.”
Reading the next question, Trace realized his
response to the previous question would remain a constant from
this point on: What would you do if you knew you were going
to die in one month? Thinking of a month of self-destructive
behavior, he knew there would no longer be a need to keep distant
from every damaged person that had formed the only peer group
he had ever known, and the only peer group that seemed to either
not notice or care he was gay, although he never trusted them
with this information. He convinced himself he had stopped hanging
with them secondary to his changing interests as he became more
educated. This was partly true, but he also knew it was a lie
to keep him from dealing with the other one. He felt a rush
of shame, loss, and regret, and he wrote, “reconnect.”
Trace felt the balance of time diminishing
with each question, and he became increasingly anxious as he
read the next question: What would you do if you knew you were
going to die in one week? He immediately knew his old friends
would be too busy circling their own drains to be much use to
him with a week left, so he answered, “spend the week
with my family.”
Trace read the next question before he could
finish writing his answer to the previous one: What would you
do if you knew you were going to die in one day? His answer
came to him with the same rapidity: “spend it with my
parents.”
Trace’s heart outpaced the ticking clock
as he reached the penultimate question and steadied his shaking
hand to answer it: What would you do if you knew you were going
to die in one hour? He wrote “fuck” and saddened
as he realized he rarely managed to do this while living and
would be hard pressed to find a sex partner in an hour. His
skin itched with the memory of Davis, and his cock struggled
to rise between the contrary feelings of desire and loss.
His heart raced as if he was running when a
leaden ring jangled the air and refocused his attention to the
last question: What would you do if you knew you were going
to die in one minute? Trace scribbled the word “cum”
and realized what he would be doing when he got home.
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