Q

Inspired by jonnysun’s “your last 15 minutes before the end of the world”

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Minute fifteen: I breathe. I count down from sixty; give myself precisely one minute to cycle through doubt, denial, realization, panic, then acceptance.

Minute fourteen: I block all incoming calls. I run down my recent chats like a laundry list. I text my dad, my sister, my mom. Kornel. My aunts.

Minute thirteen: I text XT, Becks, Zoea, Xin, KJ, Ness, Nat, Laups, Keng, Debs, Rei, Beni. I wing a prayer to Cel. “I love you, thank you for everything, see you again soon.”

Minute twelve: I call my grandma, and give up at the fifth ring, annoyed that I have wasted half a minute on this. I spend the next half annoyed at myself for being annoyed. Even at the end of the world, family has a way of getting to you.

Minute eleven: The rationalization kicks in. “At least everyone is leaving together. What better way is there to go? There is no one left behind to grieve.”

Minute ten: I scroll mindlessly through the explosion of texts streaming in now, and note how similar it is to every new year’s day since smartphones became the norm.

Minute nine: Search Wikipedia for the timeline of smartphones. Calculate the percentage, out of the entire history of humankind, they were indispensable.

Minute eight: Call grandma again. She will not pick up, as usual. Somewhere deep down, I’m relieved. She would have spend eight minutes asking me to put on warmer clothes and to come home for soup, which would make me cry. I don’t want to cry.

Minute seven: I catch myself breathing and realize I had double the amount of time to live seven minutes ago. Fifteen minutes, now, sounds like a luxury and a lifetime.

Minute six: I call Kornel. We spend the call convincing each other, a priori, that afterlife exists and we will be together again.

Minute five: We are still on the phone.

Minute four: I think about my future that will not exist, and all the things I may have had. Children. Career. Family. A House. I surprise myself to realize it does not bother me. I can’t lose what I don’t have.

Minute three: I think, instead, about the life I do have. A self-composed “life flashing before my eyes.” I lie down to do this. I start with my first memory — on my back, a thin mattress, boredom, clutching a warm milk bottle, the nanny knocking impatiently on its bottom.

Minute two: I’m up to my adolescence now.

Minute one: I’m up to my adulthood now.

Minute zero: It’s been a good life. I think I’m okay with thi-