On the tenth day of the last two weeks of his life Sam was fed up with indirect probing. They sat together outside eating lunch on a warm sunny day. Anna had just finished marvelling at the beauty of the clear blue sky when Sam asked bluntly, “Anna if things were different and I wasn’t going to die in the next few days could you love someone like me?”
“Anna hesitated for just a moment then looked directly into Sam’s eyes as she spoke.
“It is pointless to answer a question like that.” Sam was about to insist on an answer when she stood hastily to leave. “I have to be alone for a while so I will see you tomorrow Sam.”
Sam watched her leave with mixed emotions. He was sad to see her going and terrified that he was trying too hard with her and was actually driving her away, but he was also happy beyond his wildest dreams. Her hesitation had been only a slight one before she had given him the non-committal answer, but it was an important one. Now he was sure that she felt something for him. Now all he had to do was get her to admit it to herself before his time literally ran out.
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For the next two days Sam was tentative with Anna and tried not to push her too hard even though with every passing moment he became ever more desperate for her to even mumble those three words that would make his life complete. Anna seemed to respond well to his company and was more than happy to see him although her concern about him grew as the time passed. On the last day in her office she asked him why he was not spending his last moments with his family.
“Because I am in love with you and I want to spend the rest of my time with you,” he said with a sad smile. She responded by fidgeting uncomfortably, shaking her head and averting her eyes from his.
“I don’t care if you don’t like it, but it’s true.”
“I’m not the ideal you see me to be.” She said flatly, her hands clasping and unclasping slowly.
“Anna I going to die sometime today! What do I care of ideals? Just let me love you for one day!”
“I can’t!” replied Anna in frustration, her hands clasping and unclasping frantically now.
“Why?”
“Because I’m afraid I’ll fall in love with you too! I couldn’t take losing someone that I love.”
Sam smiled grimly.
“It’s already too late to stop that from happening though isn’t it?” Anna was silent and stared at her feet. “Please Anna tell me,” he pleaded softly.
“Yes…I have liked you for a while now and in the last few days no matter how hard I try to resist I am drawn to you, more strongly than I could have imagined. I thought that it was just sympathy at first, but it is more than that.”
Sam had never, up until this point, had any physical contact with Anna, but now he reached across her desk and took her hand in his own. As he touched her a fire ran up his arm and he was drawn to her as never before. It seemed that she felt it too because she rose from her seat and came to him. They embraced for almost ten minutes, no kiss just an embrace, but it seemed like it passed in seconds. As he let her go from his arms Sam tried to make sense the reason why he had not spent the better part of his life in their grasp.
She took his face in one hand and looked into his eyes lovingly.
“To answer your question, yes I could have fallen in love with you if things were different,” she whispered. He kissed her on the forehead and sighed heavily.
“Thank you…that’s all I wanted.”
“It doesn’t have to end with words you know. How long before it happens?”
“11:52 pm and 38 seconds tonight,” he said his throat catching as he spoke.
“Then we still have about ten hours left. Let’s go!”
“Where?” asked Sam as he battled with a confusing mix of love desire and fear.
“My place, there’s no way the you’re going to spend his last moments with me sitting in an office.”
#
“Just give me a few moments and then come in,” said Anna seductively as she entered the bedroom of her apartment. Sam wasn’t about to argue with that and overcame his sense of an urgent dash through the door after her by looking around her apartment, the place where he would die. It was sparsely yet tastefully furnished with all wooden furniture the centrepiece of which was a large hard wood coffee table.
“I’m ready,” called Anna.
“I just hope I am,” thought Sam nervously as he entered her bedroom. As soon as he entered he noticed that she had unplugged her alarm clock and it lay face down on the floor beside the bed.
“Take off your watch and leave it on my coffee table,” she said softly.
“But the time…”
“Forget the time. Let’s just spend our last moments together not knowing.”
Sam did as Anna asked. When he came back he undressed and climbed nervously into the bed beside her naked form. His nerves disappeared, however when they embraced again under the covers. From that point on everything seemed so natural, so right. That night they shared a passion that neither one of them would ever feel again. They were joined in a way they could never be again.
They made love many times in the last hours before Sam’s scheduled death, stopping only to eat or talk sweet nothings. Sam often asked to check the time, but Anna refused to let him.
At 11:41pm and 17 seconds they finished making love for the last time and Anna drifted into a light sleep only a few minutes later. Sam looked longingly at the door to Anna’s living room. After a few crucial minutes he decided to go get his watch. He picked it up, but refused to look at it until he was once again lying in the bed beside Anna. With a deep breath he pushed the little button on the side for the light. The time read 11:49pm and 47 seconds. Just under three minutes to live.
Tears welled in his eyes and he drew Anna up against him gently so her head was now resting on his chest. As the seconds ticked ceaselessly, irretrievably onwards he kissed her gently on the forehead. At least he would be able to die in her arms.
Sam shut his eyes tightly as 11:51 pm turned into 11:52pm. His whole body tensed in anticipation. Of what he did not know, he only hoped it would not be too painful or prolonged. Then as quickly as it had come 11:52 went and 11:53 began. Sam couldn’t believe it. Deathday notices were only wrong 0.2% of the time and he was one of them!
Anna woke to incomprehensible shouting and a shower of kisses. It took her a few moments to realise what was going on, but when she did she joined in.
“I’m alive, I’m still alive! I’m a 0.2% error, I’m still alive!”
Sam leapt from the bed and ran into the lounge room dancing and yelling almost hysterically.
11:54 pm and 51 seconds it happened.
Things seemed to move in slow motion as Anna watched Sam trip while he danced around to her lounge room. He fell backward, the back of his skull coming down hard on the corner of her wooden coffee table. He never moved again. As Anna knelt down crying beside him she felt something break under her knee. It was his watch.
Deathday notices were wrong 0.2% of the time, but never by much.
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