Forty-five. Forty-six. Forty—forty-six seconds. The buzzing in my ears grows louder, then stops. Silence. Too much silence. 

 So this is it. The end. 

They say your life flashes before your eyes in your final moments, but mine does not. The only thing I see is the result of my choices, hanging over me like judgment.  I do not feel pain. I feel numb, except for the regret, heavy and pressing down on my chest like a stubborn toddler refusing to move.  I remind myself for the fifth time. I am dying. Not that I could forget, not with the sight of my body disintegrating before my eyes. Disintegrating? No, that is not the right word. Melting is better. Yes, melting away slowly, literally.  

The sight reminds me of a candle burning down. Wax dripping, slow and sure. I do not want to melt away, but how do you save a candle that walked into the flame? I wish I could walk back out. But there is that saying about wishes and beggars.  

Glancing at the wristwatch still fastened firmly to my wrist, I can tell it has only been a few minutes. I wish the time would move faster. Me and wishes again. I will do a soliloquy, an internal monologue, a show in my head. If life will not spare me from dying, I will at least spare myself from boredom. I will tell the story of how I died.   

***** 

 It was just yesterday when he walked up to me.  A middle-aged man. Short. Round-bellied. Flat head. Odd-looking, though I only realize that clearly now.  I was at my desk in the wide hall that I and eight others called an office. Eight people I referred to merely as colleagues, even though they called me friend and constantly reached out. I was filling in a report that was not due for another three days.  He walked straight to me and sat in the chair opposite. 

 “Good evening,” he greeted. 

 I looked up. His teeth gleamed white, but slimy green stuff clung to his gums. The sight irritated me instantly. I looked around to pass him off to someone else, but the room was empty. Only him and me. The clock on my desk read 6:20 p.m. I felt a whiff of sadness as I realized they no longer informed me when they left.  The man sat across from me and smiled.  

“How are you, Mr…” He called me by name. 

 My name. Strange. I cannot remember it now. Is that part of dying? Forgetting your own name? Anyway, his voice was wrong. Too soft for a man his age, like a teenager’s voice trapped in an older body.  I raised a brow, my right hand inching toward the top drawer where my gun waited. It was black steel and familiar. Funny that I cannot recall my name, but I remember that gun perfectly. I had always left it at work after nearly losing it once on a raid.  

“How may I help you?” I asked instead of answering his question.  

He pointed at the closed logbook on my desk, my name scrawled across its cover.

 “What would you give,” he said, “to have things turn out differently?”  

The fluorescent light above his head cast his face in uneven shadows. He looked unnatural.  

“Humans are like sponges,” he continued. “Floating down the river of life. Thoughts, emotions, beliefs, they flow through us. In and out. Live that way, and you stay light. But when a sponge clings too tightly to particles, holds too much, it grows heavy. It turns to stone. And stones do not float.”  

My patience thinned. I sighed, rubbing my eyes with the heel of my palms. “Why do I always get the crazy ones?” I muttered. 

Then to him I said, “I am not in the mood for a philosophy lecture. I will give you the number for the state clinic. Call them. Book an appointment.”  I scribbled a number on a yellow sticky note and slid it over.  

He looked at it, then said softly, “Nineteenth of January.”  

The words froze me. Gooseflesh prickled up my arms. His expression shifted. For a second, I saw the look of satisfaction flash across his face like a fisherman feeling the tug of a big catch. It was gone before I could pin it down. 

“Nineteenth of January,” he repeated. “The day you made the decision that cost you. Literally.”  

His words pulled me back nine months. The memory struck fast and sharp. A quiet neighborhood. Four p.m. Sunlight gilding a two-story white-and-yellow house. The smell of bread drifting from next door. Inside—dusty furniture, three briefcases of cash. Phone call. Sirens. Handcuffs. Death glares. More sirens. Then newspapers. Award of Excellence. Hospital bed. Packed bags. Divorce papers. Broken mirror.  

“Mr.” His voice cut through my thoughts. “You have regretted that day ever since. Always wishing you could go back. But how much do you mean it?”  

Confused, I snapped, “How do you know about that day? Who are you? Who sent you?”  I pulled my gun, voice shaking on the edge of a shout.  

He only laughed. That voice again, too soft, grating. “One would think you would know better than to bite the hand that feeds you, or wants to feed you.”  He raised a perfect brow and pointed a well-manicured finger at my desk. A brown card, beautiful, sat there. I did not know when he put it there.  

“That is your invitation,” he said. “To swim against the current. To turn the tide. Better an oscillating sponge than a stone, is it not?”  He seemed unfazed by the gun I held to his head. 

“You still do not understand,” he sighed. “They said you would doubt and call me crazy. I see now that I should have believed them.”  

He stood up, looked at me like he could see my soul, and said, “Do something different this time, will you?”  Then he turned to leave.  

“Who are you?” I shouted. My gun clattered onto my desk.  From where he now stood at the door, he turned. I froze. His form had shifted. Suddenly he was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She opened her mouth, and a toddler’s voice answered:  

“Who we are does not matter. But if you must, we keep the river. We turn the tide.”  Then she was gone.  

I was trembling. My eyes dropped to the desk. The card lay there. It was plain, except for the words “Expires in 24 hours” scribbled on the surface.  The clock read 7:02 p.m.  I quickly picked up my car keys with only one thing on my mind: to drive home and drink away the disturbing experience with the strange man. 

Then I picked up the card, and that was the last thing I remembered.   

********   

It was 11:40 a.m. when I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was lights. A torchlight. The second were the faces of Tim and Jim, my colleagues next desk, laughing.  “Phew! Thought you’d died on the job and left me with your boring cases,” Jim grinned.  I opened my mouth to tell him off, but a sound came out instead. Laughter. I laughed? Strange.  

Mathilda appeared, dropping a cup of coffee and a plate of biscuits on my desk with a wink. “Your phone’s been ringing nonstop. Unlike you to nap at work.”  

“Thanks, M,” I called out before I knew what I was doing. 

Wrong. Strange.  

Then it started to click. Jim had been dead for a month now, killed on a lone raid after Tim resigned. Mathilda had been transferred back in February. And yet here they all were, alive, laughing, as if none of it had happened. 

My gaze drifted to the calendar on the far wall. The date made my stomach twist. January 19th. No. It felt like a prank, a very wicked prank or a very bad dream.  The phone on my desk began to vibrate. I froze. My phone. But when had I even gotten one? I hadn’t owned a phone since—God, no. My thoughts tumbled over each other, dread clawing its way up my throat.  I answered anyway. 

 “Consider this a gift,” a voice said. Oddly familiar. He rattled off an address and cut the line before I could respond.  

The shock jolted something loose in my memory. Pieces slid back into place: the strange man from last night, the way the date had felt wrong from the moment I opened my eyes, the calendar that swore it was January when I knew it should be September. And now this call. It was just like the ones from nine months ago. We’d called them “prank calls” until I’d decided to humor the caller and check out the location they kept rattling out. Turns out the calls were a tip, a drug lord’s hideout, one we had searched for for years.  Was it happening again? Had I gone back in time? Was this it? My second chance? Miracles happened in movies and stories. Why shouldn’t I get one?  

Quickly, I stood up from my desk, the day’s duties now forgotten and my mind clearer than ever. I knew what to do. I couldn’t move fast enough. The day couldn’t move fast enough. 

It took everything in me to sit through the two-hour briefing, but the moment it ended I was out the door. The drive was no relief either; forty-six long minutes spent inching through traffic before I finally broke free. Still, I reached my destination with time to spare.  I drove my car to the same street, parked at the same spot, same bread smell, same house, same painting. A quick glance at my wristwatch showed it was two fifty-five p.m. I remembered it all too well.  In fifteen minutes I would walk into the house, find the money, and place a call to the station nearby. Within half an hour, the team would arrive, set up an ambush, and take down the culprits along with the rest of their crew. In the weeks that followed, I would expect some kind of reward—a share of the cash, perhaps—but all I’d receive was a photograph in the papers and a polished plaque: Award for Excellence. I’d thought the opportunity was a chance to finally afford the life I deserved. I’d felt cheated, betrayed by my bosses. So I’d started drinking, at first, it was just to dull the sting of disappointment but the bottles became more frequent and I became addicted with the escape,  and then it started affected everything. My family, my performance at work, my relationships. Then came the gambling. I lost everything my wife and I had saved. She left, and I sunk even deeper into drinking, until one day I woke up in a hospital bed.

That was how it played out the first time. But not this time. This time, I would take one briefcase. Just one. Enough to change everything. I’d hide it away where no one could ever find it.  I’d get back the life I lost. 

I moved quickly, counting each step as I went. I knew this place by memory alone, every corner etched into my mind. When I entered the living room, it was all exactly as I remembered, down to the placement of the money.  The moment I saw it, a surge of something close to joy rushed through me. 

Without hesitation, I went straight for it. But resting on top of the briefcase was a card, a card I recognized instantly, the same one the strange man had left me.  I lifted the case with one hand and the card with the other, heart hammering. This was it, I told myself. 

Remembering how I had woken up here, I braced for something, anything magical; a puff of wind, a crack of thunder, smoke curling around me, something to carry me back to the present, this time with the money in my possession.  But nothing happened.  

Frowning, I looked closer at the card. It wasn’t quite the same anymore. The words on its face had shifted: Choices have consequences. On the reverse, a new line stared back at me: Time up.  I didn’t understand. Panic crept in as I turned to leave, but the way out was gone. 

The door I had entered through had vanished. The windows too.  

“This must be a mistake,” I muttered, breath catching. “Maybe I missed a step.”  

Then I saw him—the bald old man. He emerged as though the wall itself had given birth to him. He simply stepped out of the wall. 

“Hello again,” he said. His face carried a trace of sadness, but I was far too impatient to care.  

“What does this mean? I don’t understand!” My voice cracked with desperation.  

“You made your choice,” he replied evenly. “You’d rather cling to this than move on, live truly and fully? Now you’ll sink. I’m sorry it had to be this way.”  And with that, he turned, walked back into the wall, and was gone.  

I lunged after him and slammed into cold plaster. And then panic took over. For the next four hours, I searched for an exit, clawing at every surface, retracing every step. I shouted until my throat burned, begged until my knees gave way. I put the money back where I had found it, as if bargaining might undo whatever curse had been sealed. I threatened, I wept, I leapt against the walls as though force might open them.  

Nothing.  

Each passing hour stripped me of strength, dragging me deeper into despair. Every door remained closed, every window false, every plea unanswered.  This couldn’t be it. Not now. Not here. Not like this.  Surely someone would come looking for me. That thought kept me alive longer than I realized. But hope only lasted as long as my strength. 

When my body began to fail, so did my faith.  Weakness set in first. Then the melting.  Which brings us here: me on the floor, watching as my right hand dissolves completely. I hadn’t even noticed when my left arm disappeared, nor did I hear the soft clatter of my watch hitting the ground. Piece by piece, I am slipping away.  I’m not angry anymore. Anger takes too much. All that remains is regret.  

I regret hurting my wife, I regret losing family, I regret never going to Jim’s wake. I regret never getting that farewell cake from Matilda. I regret not living, truly living, while I had the chance.  Most of all, I regret that no one will mourn me. No one will call my name, cry over my grave, or even remember that I was here.  

And my name. What I would give, in these last moments, just to remember my name.