The Last Day

By

Mark Dunphy

October 21^st 2002. That was the day when my life would end. I would be twenty two years old.

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.

'Sure thing Ma,' I replied, 'who's it from?'

'I don't know but it looks official.'

Aside from bills, bullshit flyers and the occasional letter from Uncle Dave in Australia, the household didn't really receive much mail. I went to the board and found it pinned amongst the clutter. I carefully prised it from the cork. 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, folded so that the writing was not visible. I opened it up and read.

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 21^st of this year. We are expecting you on this date. Please make all the necessary arrangements, financial or otherwise, you wish before you die. Do these things not to serve yourself for your fate has already been decided but to help those you leave behind. I will stress again that this letter is not a hoax, IT IS THE TRUTH, and you will be extremely foolish to ignore the claims made by it.

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. By literally stating events that will happen in the future, I hope that you will believe the message of this letter. 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 21^st September). They are as follows:

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 26^th 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. What will be, will be.

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 yet my own arguments fell upon deaf ears. I wanted more than anything to reject the claims that lay before me, but I could not do so. There was no signature, no address, no signs of any sort that could be used to possibly trace the origin of it.

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

I awoke at seven and had showered, shaved and had breakfast before anybody else in the house even stirred. My brother Josh was next to rise from the feathers and I made him breakfast before walking with him to the soccer pitches at the school grounds. Ordinarily I didn't go to watch Josh 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 really disbelieve it either. As the match wore on and the score remained 0-0 my stomach began to tense up. A gnawing sensation in my abdominals was getting more and more intense as the minutes ticked by and the match remained scoreless. I constantly looked at the stopwatch, willing one team or other to score before the 26^th 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 from his centre-back position to take up an attacking presence inside 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. It was a good job that the railing in front of me was there, otherwise I would surely have collapsed. 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 with a grin as big as the Cheshire Cat himself, I spun rather sharply and bumped into somebody causing them to fall 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 sodden 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 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 - right down to the minute of Josh's goal. 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 21^st 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 21^st 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 neither. 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. I was no different from an AIDS or terminal cancer patient, as I knew I was going to die soon. And 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. They were distracted only by mundane activities like school, soccer, Sherie's ballet lessons and more lately her distinct interest in boys. 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 Mam and Dad, 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, a tear rolling down my cheek crashing on Josh' pillow. 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 managed to read some of the text of the story 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 in down to shock. After all, it was my last day and I had just avoided a definite killer accident. Waiting to die 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 on the highway? 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.