In his mind, Larry could be anything he wanted. Instead of lying there, a twisted body on the hood of a navy blue Ford Escort, his final struggling breaths wheezing in and out of his tortured frame. He could imagine a million better fates.

He could be on the beach in Hawaii, with a hula girl and a bucket of fried chicken. A breast in one hand, a thigh in the other. Heh heh.

Larry's laugh caught in his throat. When he forced it out, it was weak and accompanied by a thick strand of black blood.

He could be at home, doing his laundry, drunk and listening to David Bowie. Larry remembered, doing his laundry one day, he discovered an unmatched black sock. He kept the unpaired sock, and in an act of stupid faith, continued to rewash it with the rest, thinking that somehow it might reunite with its mate.

He could be driving to Mexico, for Spring Break, with Charlie. That was a great trip.

But he wasn't. He lay, dying, on the hood of a navy blue Ford Escort.


'Having sex with a Japanese woman must be like having sex with an alien,'� Brian remarked, fifteen minutes earlier.
Larry ignored this.

'I don't mean alien as in foreigner. I mean alien as in creature from outer space,'� Brian clarified, as if this would make the preceding statement any less ludicrous. He was as incapable of thinking beyond the superficial as a bankrupt prostitute in front of a corner bar.

'I'm serious. They speak a different language, all these clicks and strange sounds. They look so much different, with their slanted eyes and yellow skin. It would be just like fucking an alien. Beautiful aliens, though.'�
Larry glared at Brian. Fourteen minutes to live.


'You want a beer, James?'� Brian raised his half empty Coors pounder.

'No, thanks,'� James replied, holding up a 'Haagen-Daas'� bar. 'I've got my ice cream.'�

Some men are Jim; other men are James. This guy was definitely a James. In junior high school, some students had attempted to resuscitate his image by nicknaming him Jim. He revolted against the suggestion, insisting that his proper name was James, refusing to be addressed by any other moniker. He was the type of guy who brushes his teeth before he phones his mother.

'How about you, Larry?'� Brian asked.

'You know I can't.'� Larry patted his chest.

Brian closed his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

'You drink more than anyone I know,'� James said, evaluating Brian with a sidelong glance. 'Your liver's gotta be begging for some time off.'�

'We're doing just fine, thanks very much.'� Brian patted his stomach. 'It's just one beer to relax on the bus ride home.'�

'And then one more to relax while you're watching the game, one more to get to sleep, one more to wake you up in the morning...'�

'Whatever, dude.'�

Thirteen minutes to live.


A funeral pall hung over the conversation while the bus bumped and squealed its way to their homes. Each man retreated from the conversation, seeking comfort in sunnier creations.

Larry, with only twelve minutes to go, looked through the large picture window on the bus's opposite side. An army of cold rain hurtled from the heavens, launched by a puffy gray commanding officer, slamming into the glass and rolling down the window. A small, metallic plink accompanied the action, in itself not at all loud, but, in uncountable multitudes, beating a soothing rhythm to the bus's journey.


A sudden throb in Larry's chest reminded him why he didn't drink. He reached for the bottle of ibuprofen in his sport coat's inside pocket, opened the child proof bottle, and popped two little white pills.

'See ya tomorrow,'� he said, as the bus slowed to a halt on the corner diagonal from the all girl's prep school.
'Have a good one,'� James offered. Brian nodded at him.
Eleven minutes.


The mechanized door unfolded with a screech, letting in the chill October evening air. He blanched at the cold, then mustered his courage and ventured off the bus.
At five thirty, school had long been let out for the day, but the rugby team was finishing up its daily practice. A collection of young girls with mud-streaked faces milled about the field, their crimson uniforms darkened with mud, laughing as they partook in the cool down. Attractive girls with their whole lives ahead of them took no notice of the thirty five year old single man walking on the opposite side of the street.

Larry thought ahead to his Thursday night: a big bowl of homemade spaghetti, two glasses of red wine, and unwinding in front of the television.

He began crossing the street at the traffic light, eyes still gazing at the fenced in rugby practice field. Ten minutes from death, Larry regretted not bringing his umbrella that day, as cold rain matted his curly, strawberry blonde locks to his forehead and chilled his body.


The coupe slammed into Larry.
Nine minutes.


A wise man said, 'Don't let your feet and your mind wander at the same time.'� Good advice.

The driver hadn't seen Larry, wearing his black suit against the purple dusk, and Larry hadn't noticed that the traffic light had changed colors; his eyes and his mind were distracted by the girls and his evening plans, so he hadn't seen the speeding Escort that eventually crashed into him, impacting his one hundred seventy pound form, crumpling his body and rolling it onto the car's hood, causing the driver to brake much too late, stopping him in the middle of the intersection with a twisted new hood ornament adorning his car.

A woman screamed.

8 minutes.


'Christ!'� the driver exclaimed.

He looked at Larry through the windshield, a transparent doorway into a world of pain. Transfixed, the driver was unable to remove his eyes from the scene, praying that it was only some violent hallucination. A peculiar logic inspired by adolescence dictated that, if he didn't acknowledge the problem, it might go away.

A current of pain coursed through Larry's body, sending it into spasms. A fish out of water jumped and writhed in agony on the car's hood. A growing crowd looked on.
Immense pain ripped through Larry's mid-section. Larry guessed the two thousand pound steel monstrosity had broken several ribs and bruised his internal organs. His line of sight was a tunnel, small and intensely focused with a shaft of light at the end, alternately dimming and brightening, the walls creeping in, smothering Larry. A constriction in his chest threatened his breathing, and reminded Larry of his heart medication.

The coupe, positioned sideways in the street, blocked both lanes of traffic. Some people assert that human beings are primitive, savage creatures; this argument would hold a strong case, on this day, as several lanes of traffic abruptly stopped, drivers of all different ages, cultures, and backgrounds fixated on the bloodshed. The unfortunate drivers with nose-bleed seats several cars back couldn't understand the wait, and began to beep their horns.
In several minutes, the car owners would drive their vehicles away from the wreck, backing away from the wreckage as if it were a bad dream, and go to work or the car wash or the grocery store.

But now, they only beeped in frustration, inconvenienced by a dying man.

Seven.


The tunnel closed in once more, threatening to overpower Larry's consciousness with blackness. His range of thinking paralleled the tunnel's constriction, diminishing until he could think of nothing but the pain.

pain

red and angry.

Six.


The tunnel expanded, and Larry could think of anything.
Mexico City. It must've been ten...no, twelve...years ago. In college. Sitting with Charlie in their two bedroom apartment, drinking away the lazy days of Spring Break, regretting their procrastination in planning a trip. Charlie gazed at his Corona bottle, entranced by it, then launched into a speech that culminated in the two young men renting a Blazer and driving to Mexico City.
The girls in Mexico were amazing.

Five.


'why me.'� he whispered. look: the tunnel, almost closed.

black, like the sock.

four.


remember. two pills. two little white pills. 'only once a day'� someone said

three


the girls were amazing

two

breathe... an instruction maybe a wish...

darkness.

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