Three Days

The news told me that I had three days left to live. The anchor was unnervingly calm as she went over the details; how the Hong Kong hospital had fallen prey to a break-in, how the lab was wrecked, and how the spores were leaked into the air. She calmly told me that the spores were highly contagious, lingered in the air for years like nuclear radiation, and killed you in three days. It began to build colonies in your stomach, and then it got into your blood and started forcing it to clot in the arteries, and arteries often burst within the body after the colonies grew too large, and of course there was the fact that the bacteria literally began eating you, feeding on you from the inside out and turning your intestines into more bacteria. If you were lucky, they grew in your throat and suffocated you. It was much less painful.

She told me that the president was in a fall-out shelter. Thank God he was safe.

But I would be dead in three days.

The newscast ended. And then it started again. One continuous loop of death, 24/3.

A long time ago, my friend turned to me slowly and asked, "What would you do if you had 24 hours to live?" I'd said I didn't know. At least now I had 48 hours to make up my mind.

I changed the channel, and all I got was static. Another channel was nothing but static. Then, static. Every once in a while the static would be interrupted by a channel replaying their own broadcast of the exact events, and then the static would retake the throne. I turned off the television, deciding that wasn't how I wanted to spend my last days anyway, and decided I needed to make some calls. Assuming all lines weren't busy.

After three tries, I got through. "Hey, Andrew?"

"Yeah?"

"You know I'm signed up for tomorrow's evening shift, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I don't think I'm going to be showing up."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, Andrew. You seen the news?"

"Yeah."

"Go home."

"Yeah."

And then he hung up.

I wondered who else I should call, and then I had it. Of course, my girlfriend! I could go out, spend some time with her, times with her were always great, and maybe we could even have sex. There were lots of things I'd never gotten to try that I wanted to, and sex was definitely one of them. Actually, that whole general category would keep me occupied for well over 72 hours.

I'd memorized Hillary's phone number, and so I tried to call her. When the boards finally patched me through, it was busy. I set down the phone and tried again five minutes later. She picked up. "Hey, gorgeous."

"Michael?"

"Who else?"

"What are you calling about?"

"Have you seen the news?"

"Of course I've seen the news."

"Alright. Well, we've got 72 hours to live, and I was just thinking, want to go do something?"

"Like what?"

"I don't think it really matters. But I want to see you."

"Alright." She was silent a moment. "Hey, Michael, I got a question. You've got 72 hours to live, and you want to make it the best 72 hours of your life, right? So would you do anything you didn't want to do if you had the choice?"

"Hell no."

"Should I?"

"Of course not."

"Then I don't think I'm going to see you."

Wait.

What?

"Sorry, Michael. Loved you."

And then she hung up on me.

I tried to call Hillary back, but it was busy. I couldn't believe it. I had three days left to live, maybe less if I'd caught the thing prematurely, and my girlfriend refused to see me. Hell, she'd hardly talk to me.

Rather than react, I decided to call Raymond. Ray was my best friend. He'd spend the days with me. He picked up the phone, and it sounded as if he'd been crying. "Ray? You okay?"

"Michael! What's up?"

"You okay?"

"Yeah, sure, why wouldn't I be?"

"Because you have 72 hours to live, maybe?" I decided then that it was a bad idea to say that.

"I'm fine."

"Good. I was wondering, want to go do something?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know. We'll make it up as we go along."

"Man, I don't know. There's only three more days left, and I was kinda hoping I could spend them with Becka."

"With Becka?"

"Yeah. You know. Hey, you should call Hillary. I'm sure she'd love to do something."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea."

"I know! That's why I'm going out with Becka."

"When?"

"A few minutes from now."

"Alright. I'll let you go, then. Have fun, Ray."

"You too. It's been nice knowing you."

"Same here."

"Now go call Hillary."

"Right. Adios, man."

He hung up.

So now the big question was: Who did I know that did not have a girlfriend? I took the phone, paced around the room, and realized I might as well just go hang out with my parents for a few hours. I had nothing better to do. But on the steps I heard their tears, and decided that might not be a good idea. I went back to my room, sat on the bed, and looked at the phone as if it would tell me who to call.

In a way, it did. Only they called me.

The phone rang and was to my ear almost instantly. "Hey, Michael here."

"Hi." The voice on the other end was female, but not Hillary's. I tried to place it, but I couldn't. There was no need. She gave me her name almost instantly. "It's Jamie. From work."

My God. Jamie. She'd always been the girl I'd admired from a distance. I'd never had a shift with her, and so I'd never really gotten to know her, but I'd always hoped for one. She was sort of a tomboy, but an incredibly attractive one all the same. Beauty queens never did much for me. And now, Jamie was calling me.

"Jamie! What's up?"

"You've seen the news, right?"

"Yeah. More than once."

"Thank God. I'd hate to have to explain that to someone." We both laughed, but it was a very nervous laugh. "On that cheerful note," she said, "do you want to go do something?"

"With you?"

She seemed thrown off. "Well, yeah."

I smiled. "That would make my day."

"I plan to make all three of them." Woah. "Oh!" I heard her clap her hand over her mouth and imagined her blushing. Or maybe she'd planned it. Either way, I wasn't complaining.

"Meet you at eight?"

"Six."

"Deal."