This sort of thing happens a lot to a person who always waits just a little too long to decide, and life just passes him by. I am that person, and a moment or two of uncertainty set the pattern for my future and preemptively nailed my chance of living into the cold dead wood of the proverbial coffin.
To be fair, I suppose I am not truly dead, at least not clinically. For a human, I still have a pulse; my veins dilate and contract with teeming biology; I can even move about with the muscles attached to my skeletal frame. That said, I have long since stopped living, and am simply an observer of life as experienced by others. Sometimes, in that eternity between two ticks of a watch, one can forfeit everything and become something...else. This is my story.

It all seems to have started when I was about fourteen. Everything about my life was unspectacular and singularly lacking interest. I was constantly sailing under the radar of anything that might be trying to measure or test me. Friends I had, none close, but all of like minded normality. Fast forward a bit through this drab description to a day that reeked of mediocrity from the lackluster bump of dawn.

The day was slightly overcast, but not overly dreary. We sat there at the tracks, putting pennies on the rails for the train to flatten into mementos of teenage ennui. We heard the horn of the train a few miles away and that’s when the tingling started.

Boom.

I heard what sounded like distant thunder. Paying no attention, I waited with anticipation for the great metal beast to come.

Boom.

I wasn’t looking at my friends, but I knew they were there, in the same way you sense a television is on and you can’t see or hear it. The pennies danced a slow rhythm on the tracks.

Boom.

Somewhat in a daze, I can’t place the oddness of the coins on the rails. I feel the shift in the air from the mass the train was pushing.

Boom.

When it was upon me, I knew it was going fast. They all go by fast. None ever stop here anymore. But that wasn’t it.

Boom.

Its shiny bulk seemed to float slowly by. That’s when I saw it. Him. Her maybe. It was hanging on the smooth side of the train like some sticky toed frog on a vine. The eyes locked with mine.

Boom.

It extended an arm, and on the end of the arm was a hand, beckoning, inviting. This was something different, and its name was Chance, or Opportunity. Had it knocked, I would know which.

Boom.

My dreams and hopes and desires for adventure hammered my brain, demanding I reach out and take the hand. Doubt grabbed hold of my Dreams and held their arms while Fear and Practicality took turns beating them down. I hesitated.

Boom.

Imperceptibly, the eyes narrowed, then fell in a subtle disappointment. It and the train floated past unchecked.

Boom.

The air settling in the wake of the train, I wonder at the noise.

Boom.

I look down, perhaps expecting the stones between the ties to be shaking from some sort of earthquake.

Boom.

Have you ever looked at your watch for no apparent reason? You don’t look at the time, you just glance as if to assure yourself that your control of time is still mounted solidly to your wrist. That is what I did.

Boom.

With the greater noise of the train gone I heard the gears in the watch ratcheting as the second hand seemed to drag itself between the markings on the face. As it finally slipped into place on the next second, I heard…

Boom.
Boom.
Boom.

Each time it was the sound of the hand coming to a stop with what seemed great drama and finality. Yet, each time, it dragged itself on. Like any practical human, I reached up to tap the glass face, as traditional a watch test and repair technique as they come. Immediately time skewed back, the weight of the air seemed to lighten, and I jerked physically at the abruptness of my reality.

My friends and I looked at our trophies, Lincoln’s face twisted on the fragments of wrenched copper. None of us really noticed that my life was over already. My consciousness tied to it, my body went home that night and slept its first night of death.

And that was where it began.

TO BE CONTINUED...