And so it was that I lived, but that first day, I died a thousand times.

An Extinction-level Event

The first day had started with a laugh. I had actually laughed out loud at first, but a glance of concern mixed with the cold voice from the Colonel suggested that only a fool would laugh about such an extinction-level event as the one that he was describing, especially if that event was due in only four days time.

I could still smell his cigar after he left, and for a second I tried to laugh again that first day, as I remembered that the ashtray in the Colonel’s army jeep had a wide notch in it-- factory designed specifically for cigars-- as if the Colonel’s old stogie was but another tool of war, professionally clenched in the mighty teeth of heroes.

Cigar-friendly jeeps had nothing to do with planet-killing asteroids, and I knew it. I was desperately trying not to think about the Colonel’s message, trying not to believe it for even a second, but the Colonel was well-connected, and the expression on his face was one I’d never seen him wear. The old war-man was authentically spooked, officially chilled.

I spent the remainder of that first day dying in various ways.

First I died with a crowd of innocent people, just like that, we were gone.

Then I died alone.

First the sky boiled over us, then there was a flash, and then... too horrible to imagine. Instant death, no time to think. Is that what it would be like?

Imagination running wildly, a wave of hope then came over me; what if the flaming asteroid missed me? It could hit in some remote part of the world, far from here, and then the end would last longer, as it would only be tidal waves, earthquakes and burnt toads falling from the sky, or perhaps just hours and days of blackness and airlessness, a lingering horror not seen on television, a grim scene too dark even for Hollywood’s taste. Then, ‘the end.’

The Second Day

Busy dying again and again, I was finally exhausted the following morning, and once again the clock and calendar appeared in my vision-- only three more days. Alas-- if only it could be measured in days! These were minutes, slices of time that were then scalpel-ed into seconds of precious time, moments filled with a complete and gripping despair.

Another whole day was inconceivable when suddenly a single hour meant dreading the next, and now every minute was acutely filled with seconds of time, who could think three whole days away, and in this case, who would want to?

Had I not already spent one of my last days dying in my imagination, and yet now I live?

It really had come down to seconds on that second day, and as the sun rose faithfully into the morning air, I decided to stop dying, at least for now.

If, in three days, the planet is forced to shake me off, then that one certain death should be plenty of deaths for me this lifetime.

The seconds, there were a lot of them, and that abundance gave me comfort I suppose, but to be sure that I could make the best use of my time, I wrote the following verses, as a way to remind myself to take each second as another chance to live instead of a chance to die:

Oh it’s true we seldom see the planet’s hurt themselves this way,
but hold on to that precious feeling, the Earth will heal itself-- you’ll see.

I don’t want catastrophe to contaminate my thoughts today, so smile with me, smile with me!

Now, don’t wait for the longer shadows, dance the blue earth’s morning play
In geographic heavy traffic, hold on to that center lane

Practice with your mighty swords, I might even try to understand, but
right now? Not right now-- not right now!

With my supply of seconds running lower by the minute, there was no choice but to choose to find the joy within each of those seconds, instead of imagining my doom from now on.

With such a limited supply, I refused to let my few remaining minutes be spent churning over life regrets, or dreaming up the horrors of the future, entertaining the eventual death of a planet.

This is how I should have been living all along! But again, there was no time for regrets, and the joy that I had glimpsed in one of those moments became a tranquility that I had not known for many years-- perhaps even lifetimes.

I had made an important discovery, and while I had heard of ‘living in the moment’ before, I had never really had time to look into the concept. It had sounded like a rather boring hobby, and it was hard to imagine getting anything done by just ‘being’ all of the time.

I suddenly felt like weeping, and without stopping to think it through, I laughed at myself as I wept, as a lifetime of unspent tears saw the breach in my guard, pouring easily into a world that moments before had been parched with despair.

So, that’s what tears are for! I should have been using them all along, but then again, there was no time now for lamentations. I now knew that I had one single task in this world, and while I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell them, I knew I had to tell everyone-- my friends, my family-- everyone.

I had to tell them, that ’This’ is it.

I was aglow. That’s what they said, that I was “aglow” as I tried to explain to my friends what I had stumbled onto. Strangers in the grocery store smiled politely as I explained the importance of the razor-thin moment of reality between the clock’s sleight of hand, and how that reality is our divine birthright to own.

In the park, a lady nodded curiously as I noted that the tiny bird flitting along the willow’s branches nearby was a ruby-crowned kinglet, and that ‘we are all such kinglets, except that instead of boldly flashing our crowns, we have forgotten our inheritance as masters of time and space, forgetting to observe the actual physical world and the riches that it offers right now as we exist for this very bit of the awareness of this, our simple act of being.’

Day 5

To be honest, I got so excited about my epiphany that I had forgotten all about the killer meteorite. So joyous was my message that the scent of war-cigars never wafted into my valley of kinglets, the tiny crowned creators of all that is real, every second.

Never mind the watch, look at the calendar! Impossible. The Colonel had been wrong.

Yesterday was the big day, and no doom had come. Instead of widespread death, I had been rather spreading life in the last days, and when every second counted, I had managed to not only survive, but I had lived, more in the last five days, than I had lived in a long time.

Just so you know, the Colonel came back. I heard the roar of the jeep, I smelled the cigar, and there he was. He said that they had miscalculated, and that the asteroid would certainly kill us all four days from now. You know what to do!

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the above story is my entry into @dreemit's writing challenge. To enter, see the other details here: https://steemit.com/steemit/@dreemit/what-would-you-do-a-writing-challenge-for-steem-and-sbd-s and there are prizes to be won. Have fun!

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