THE TIME OF THEIR LIFE & DEATH

THE TIME OF THEIR LIFE

and

DEATH

Does fate determine who will live and who will die?

When, Why, or How?

#1

 ______________________________________________

Bob Flicker

6-15

 

 

Death Watch

        

         The young lawyer had no way of knowing that forgetting his watch, he left on his desk, and going back for it would cost him his life. How could  that be?

         The car was waiting in front of his office building just as it always was, whenever he worked late, for his drive home. Before he could reach the car it drove off. Strange. That never happened before. He had no way knowing that the car had overstayed in a restricted parking space and was ordered to move by a police officer. It was circling to return. He had no way of knowing that either.

         The driver of the van was drunk as were his passengers, just having come from a wild office party. It was dark and his headlights were off when he lost control, plowing into the young lawyer standing at the curb killing him instantly.

 

*** 

When Wrong Was Right

 

         Her left, front tire blew out resulting in her having a serious accident that saved her life.

         She meant to replace that worn tire on the left front wheel of her automobile. She remembered in that instant the tire blew out and she found herself skidded into the tree resulting in her sustaining a broken arm and leg.      Forgetting to replace that tire saved her life. Without that accident she would have been in the middle of the Cross River bridge when it collapsed taking 30 cars and trucks with it, killing 52 people. She would have been one of them.

 

 ***

In A Hurry To Die

 

         The old lady couldn’t wait for a green light. She crossed  against the speeding traffic and the traffic light while it was still red, resulting in her almost being hit by a truck and getting killed.

         She managed to get safely across the street (just barely). -- He had just arrived at that very same moment, hammer in hand, babbling and cursing at invisible enemies. The police shot him the moment after he struck the old lady in the head with the hammer, killing her instantly.

 ***

A Path To Die For

 

         It was the only path in the park the young woman had never taken. Too scary she thought. There had been stories of weird people hiding in the bushes. It had all been cleaned up, she was assured. Today she would take the path  for the first time and....die.

         It was the strong wind that did it. The large branch broke from the tree and fell fracturing her skull. She never awakened.


*** 

Dying Is Not Easy

 

         He was finished with life.

        

         Living had been for him that “living hell” he had often heard described and was so familiar with. Nothing...absolutely nothing had ever gone right for him, he had convinced himself. It was time to end it!

         Shooting oneself seemed the best way to die. Just one bullet in the head and it would be all over. Getting the gun was easy. The seller had instructed him in how to use it. This was the moment! Finally, he would be released from the pain of  life. It was a world where everything had gone wrong for him. He was drowning in his own tears. Just one bullet and he would have peace.

         The bullet to the head did not kill him. It left him paralyzed from the neck down, unable to move.

        

         Life was not finished with him.

 

 ***

Air Borne—Air Death .... Nearer My, God, To Thee

 

         The Governor was proud to have his state’s new death penalty law named after him. It was his personal creation that was to be used in carrying out the death penalty and make a profit for the state at the same time. No more messy chemical executions that never worked the way they should. It was death by high altitude execution with the condemned riding a specially designed, reusable, weather balloon to heaven.

 

 

 

         “Nearer, My God, To Thee” would be sung by a church choir as the balloon lifted the condemned up toward a heavenly death. A televised prayer service would be conducted at the launching platform.


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         The death procedure would be profitable to the state by virtue of the fees paid to it for weather information as well as advertising fees and soliciting the TV audience for donations during the prayer service.

         The Governor was also known as Mr. Slippery Slope, having vetoed a bill to grant doctor aided suicide for the terminally ill. Aiding a terminally ill person, in constant pain, wishing to die, to end his or her life of agony was in his opinion opening up a slippery slope. “Life and death,” he said, “should be left in the hands of God.”  Hallelujah!

 

*** 

My Money And Your Life!

 

         This was to be his first holdup. “What an easy way to make money!” he thought.

         His first victim was a man wearing glasses and one of those air-filter masks that some people wear over their noses and mouths on those windy, dust-filled days.

         “What should I say?” thought the first-time holdup man as he approached his victim. “Hands up?” or Stick’em up?” He shook his head. “Too ordinary!” Then, it came to him as he was about to confront his holdup victim. “If you don’t want to die, hand over your money!”

         The masked man removed his mask and calmly coughed up blood in his attacker’s face. “Take my money for all the good it will do you.”

         “500 dollars!” exclaimed the holdup man excitedly, not even bothering to wipe the blood from his face. He turned and ran with plans how he would spend the money racing through his head.

         The holdup victim continued on to the hospital knowing full well that he would not survive the Ebola he had contracted; nor would the holdup man.

 ***

Wait A Second, Please!

 

         She was about to push the door-close button on the elevator when she heard the request before she saw the person making the request. He was in a wheelchair, awkwardly attempting to maneuver himself to the elevator. She held the door open.

         “Close the damn door!” growled a voice from behind her in the elevator. “I haven’t got  all day!”

         “Can’t you wait a second?” He’s almost here.” she replied.

         “Time is money! And I dare say I make a helluva lot more than you do! Close the elevator door!”

         The young man in the wheelchair was having trouble moving forward.

         The girl stepped out of the elevator to help him. As she did so, the Time Is Moneyman behind her pushed the door-close button and the elevator continued its descent, with him alone, down the 42 floors remaining. It reached the 40th floor when the cable snapped. The elevator plunged down the remaining 40 floors and money no longer mattered to the Time Is Moneyman.

 

***

Love You To Death

 

         He was madly in love with her. He knew, deep down, that no man could love a woman as deeply and passionately as he felt for the love of his life. Not seeing her for just one day was agony.

         She would, at times, stare in his direction and his heart would pound within his chest with the excitement he felt. He made plans, so many plans sharing his life with her. Oh joy! Oh unbounded happiness!

         Then, it happened! A man appeared, kissing her and holding her in his arms. He watched them leave together, arm in arm. She was gone! Out of his life!

         How could she do this to him! How? All these days he spent hiding in the bushes, watching her through his binoculars! If only—If only she knew him she would love him instead of that—that person. That unfaithful bitch!

        

 

         If he couldn’t have her no one would!

         The next day he was hiding in the bushes, waiting, with a rifle instead of his binoculars.

 

***

 

Food For Thought, Death And Profit

 

         “It was the canned pigs’ knuckles that killed him.” volunteered the dead man’s widow after she threw his ashes into the wind and mumbled a few words like, “Good riddance.”

 

 

         “Poisoned, was he?” questioned the fat woman tossing her own pot of ashes into the wind.

         “That he was. That your husband’s ashes?” questioned the widow, emptying the last of her husband’s ashes out of her dented soup pot.

         “Wish they were. It’s his pet donkey. Fell into the fire pit and burned to ashes. Noth’n left to eat, more’s the shame.”

         “Just as well.” replied the widow. “Donkey is tough chew’n”

         “You don’t seem all broke up over your husband be’n poisoned to death.”

         “Naw. We ain’t spoke in twenty years. Got a good settlement from the Pigs’ Knuckle Company on account of them pigs’ knuckles be’n poisoned.”

         "Lucky you didn’t eat any of those pigs’ knuckles.” said the fat lady.

         “I ate more’n he did.”

         “How come you didn’t get poisoned?”

         “Who d’ya think poisoned his pigs’ knuckles?

        

***


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 © robert 2014