The Counting-Downers

by A. J. Compton

  The Counting-Downers

  Copyright © 2015 A.J. Compton www.ajcompton.com

  Cover Design by Clarise Tan at CT Cover Creations Editing by Peggy Frese at Hot Tree Editing Formatting by JT Formatting

  ISBN: 978-0-9933309-1-9

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part One

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Part Two

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  IN 11 DAYS, 4 hours, 23 minutes, and 17 seconds, my father, the most important man in my life, is going to die.

  He doesn’t know how much time he has left.

  But I do.

  My mother, his childhood sweetheart, who still has 36 years, 8 months, 12 days, 16 hours, 19 minutes, and 4 seconds left on earth, knows it, too.

  And so will my four-year-old brother, Oscar, who’ll be alive for the next 69 years, 5 months, 41 days, 22 hours, 8 minutes, and 12 seconds.

  Though he’s too young to understand the cursed gift of the knowledge he will one day possess.

  For him, numbers are not yet associated with feelings. His blissful ignorance protects him from grasping what he’s about to lose.

  I am not so lucky. Or maybe I am.

  For in just under a fortnight, I am all too aware that we will lose the foundation of our family.

  The glue will evaporate, the strength will crumble, the backbone will snap, and the heartbeat will fall silent.

  We live in a beautiful house, in a beautiful corner of the world. But it is not our home.

  Our home is my father, and I don’t know what we will do, or who we will be, without him.

  We don’t know how he will go. Fate is not that cruelly kind to us.

  We only know when. That is all we’re ever told.

  When.

  Not how.

  Not where.

  Not why.

  Never why.

  11 days, 4 hours, 22 minutes, and 58 seconds until my world falls apart and Fate whispers, “Now.”

  Of course, I might go before him.

  I don’t know. And I never will.

  But they do.

  Everyone I encounter can see the digital clock above my head, counting down to my timed, untimely demise.

  Family, friends, strangers, lovers, enemies, even you.

  Everyone except me.

  No one is allowed to tell me how many more times my heart will beat. Or how many more breaths I will take.

  It could be ten thousand or ten million.

  That’s just the way it goes.

  We didn’t write the rules of life, but we have to live by them.

  Grains of sand at the mercy of the fickle dancing wind.

  My father may have 11 days, 4 hours, 20 minutes, and 43 seconds left in this lifetime, but the true timeless truth remains: Time is running out for all of us.

  Ready or not.

  Our days are numbered.

  FEAR. CHOKING, TERRIFYING, clawing, suffocating, desperate, nauseating, all-consuming fear.

  How do you say goodbye to someone you can’t imagine living without? How do you hug them knowing it will be for the final time? What are the last words you say to them, knowing they have to count, that they will be the most important words you will ever say? How can you capture the image of their face with your eyes and make sure it never fades? How can you record their voice, their laugh, their advice, so that you can replay it in times of soulless silence?

  And when you finally break apart from that final embrace, how can you possibly let them go, knowing you will never see them again? What do you do when goodbye is not see you later? How is there any good in goodbye?

  Despite having known my father will die on March 14, 2016 for as long as I can remember, I’m still not prepared to look into his eyes and be in his arms for the final time.

  If you’re wondering how I know the precise date of my father’s demise, I should probably explain. We’re all born dying. That’s a fact as old and as true as time itself.

  From the first gasp of air into our lungs, the very second we take our first breath and wonder what is going on, and who brought us out of darkness into the light, our days are numbered.

  Each of us has a number. Me. Them. You.

  Except, unlike you, we can all see our numbers. Well, not our own, but the numbers of those around us. When I look at my mother, my father, my brother, or a stranger on the street, I can see a floating digital clock just above their heads, counting down to the time when they take their final breath.

  The countdown clocks are head-width, with the time formatted in years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. The bold text of the countdown adjusts to light settings so that it is black in the daytime and white at night or in the dark. This makes it impossible to escape or ignore. Still, we try.

  Just as I can see everyone’s countdown, they can also see mine. But when I look in a mirror, I can’t see anything but my long blonde hair, mousy features, and emerald eyes staring back at me. No one is allowed to tell me my number, and I’m not allowed to tell them theirs.

  That’s the deal; or as I like to think of it, the rules of the twisted game called Life. We didn’t just wake up one day with these clocks above our heads. This is just the way it’s always been since the beginning of civilization. Whether we evolved to have this unwanted knowledge, or someone created it for us, I don’t know.

  I’m not sure if I believe in God, especially not at the moment. How can I when He, or She, threatens to take the center of our world away from my family? When He, She,
It, takes away large groups of people in famine and floods, and curses them with souls full of heartbreak, pain, and suffering?

  I digress. The point is, if you tell someone their ‘number’ or how long they have left, you both immediately fall into a never-ending slumber. ‘Lover’s Suicide’ is what it’s called for the desperate who tell each other on purpose. To avoid innocent children making a tragic mistake, or angry teenagers dropping the truth into a hormonally-charged argument, the ‘gift’ of seeing the countdown clocks arrives only when you turn eighteen.

  If you don’t want to take the suicidal option, it means that even your goodbyes have to be carefully worded. Although it’s pretty obvious to the person in question when people start giving them living eulogies, longing looks, lengthy embraces, and tearful confessions. When all of a sudden, everyone you know wants to tell you what they think of you and how much you mean to them, how can you fail to see the proverbial writing on the wall? The one that says ‘TICK TOCK’ in large blinking neon letters?

  Such is the case with my perceptive father. He’s spent the past week with me and my brother, Oscar. He gave me advice about men and marriage; digging out photo albums and taking trips down memory lane, making us laugh and creating new memories. He told me how proud he is of me and how he’ll always be there for me, whether in person or in spirit. But what he hasn’t done, is questioned my tears or tight embraces; he’s only promised me that everything will be okay in the end.

  We all have to talk around it, speak in hypotheticals and synonyms. I’m running out of breath and ways to say ‘I love you.’ It should be a part of every other sentence that leaves my mouth, interspersed with expressions of gratitude, truth, and praise.

  I’m struggling to think of everything I may want to ask or know about him, everything I may want his advice on in the future.

  Over the past year, I’ve used up the memory on my phone and cameras taking pictures of the two of us together, and of us as a family. I’ve interviewed him about his life, keeping notes on everything from his favorite color, book, and song, to his first kiss, and blood type. I’ve recorded secret videos of him playing with my brother, or spending quality time with my mom, dancing in each other’s arms and whispering silent promises to be together for an eternity of lifetimes.

  And it still doesn’t seem enough. We always want what we don’t have, and I just want more time. If only I could trade it. Five minutes off my life for five minutes more with him.

  Time. That’s what it always comes down and back to. One word with four letters shouldn’t hold so much power. But I guess you could say the same about…

  Love. Hate. Fate. Free. Evil. Life.

  Four letters can change, create, shape, or end a life.

  There will never be enough time to say goodbye, and even if there were, I still wouldn’t know how to.

  I don’t know what life has in store for me or when my time will be up. There may be someone out there ‘destined’ for me. But although he may not be the only love of my life, my father will always be the first.

  How do you prepare for the end of first love? I’m on an express train speeding toward the last stop on the line and I’m not ready to get off.

  I’m sick of people pretending time is so benevolent. Time may heal, but it doesn’t explain its decisions or apologize for its scarcity. Time waits for no man, and answers to no one. Time is kind of an asshole.

  And while it’s busy being one, darkness is closing in. As my family’s doomsday approaches, my chest is compressed by the encroaching weight of grief. The letters of my least favorite four-letter word, time, have wrapped themselves around my throat and are threatening to suffocate me.

  At this rate, I may die before my father. I cannot only see the clock ticking down above his head, but I swear I can hear it with every foreboding beat of my heart. The reminder that I’m still alive is also a reminder that soon he won’t be. The person who helped give me life, who contributed to a heart that began beating nineteen years ago, is now being sentenced to death by the very thing he created.

  My constant worry is that I’ve forgotten something, something I haven’t asked him, or said, or done, that I may regret long after he is gone. All I can do is make sure he knows how much he is loved, treasured, adored…and will be missed.

  IT’S BEEN A week since my father passed away from a heart attack. Since he walked out the door to go to work at his office in central San Diego with an hour left above his head, kissed us goodbye, and never came back.

  I didn’t go out that day and my mother took the day off work. It was probably for the best.

  She said she didn’t want to receive or have to make that phone call. You know the one. Shrill rings, which interrupt the silence with tones of doom, and the threatening promise to change your life. The type of phone call that makes you wish you’d never answered. That somehow, if you had just not picked up the phone, there would be nothing for the person on the other end to say and you could continue living on in blissfully ignorant denial.

  If a tree falls in the woods and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound? If someone dies and no one is there to pick up the phone and shoot the messenger, are they still alive?

  My mother may not have been able to spare me the death of my father, but at least she prevented the living nightmare of being out somewhere in public when I was told my world had ended.

  At least she spared herself the utter humiliation of being told the devastating news in the most hushed of tones by someone who couldn’t even make eye contact and wished they were anywhere else. If my mom hates one thing, it’s a scene, so it makes sense she would try to avoid an emotional breakdown in front of her colleagues. Supposed friends who would have stood around like schadenfreudic spectators, showcasing the worst of human nature by gawking in silence at someone else’s suffering.

  At least we were able to cling to each other on either side of a lake of tears. We were conjoined twins from the time the door clicked shut after my father for the final time, to the moment his devastated boss rang with that phone call.

  At least he wasn’t alone.

  At least we were able to say goodbye.

  At least we had him for a while.

  At least.

  As if.

  As if even the darkest clouds are lined with silver.

  As if we’ll ever be the same as a family.

  As if I’ll ever be the same as a person.

  I mean, we all knew it was coming. How anxious must his co-workers have been to see him arrive smiling that morning with thirty minutes left to live, knowing his earthly departure would happen right before their eyes and they could do nothing? How must they have felt to be aware their morning greetings of hello would in minutes become goodbye? How they must have wished he had listened to my mom’s subtle hints and pleas for him to take a fateful and final sick day.

  My father knew everything about all things. Though I’d long since passed the age where children believe their parents to be omniscient, I knew he knew and he knew I knew. Nevertheless, although my stubborn dad was aware he was walking out the door to his demise, he refused to stay at home for his final hours, even hypothetically.

  “Business as usual,” he’d said. “Life goes on, the show goes on, and business must always go on as usual.”

  His mantra was that every day could be the best, the worst, or the last day of your life. You never knew which, so it was your job to wake up in the morning and hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. The world would keep spinning and time would move on without you so you may as well go with the flow.

  As I smooth down my black dress and put the last flower in my hair, I smile small.

  “Go with the flowwwwww, Tilly dude,” he said, mimicking a surfer as he made me giggle with the wave motions of his hands. I tried to copy, causing him to smile. Suddenly sobering, he looked out at the ocean before turning back to look into my eyes, saying, “Always remember to move with the tide instead of fighting against it,
okay? That gets you nowhere. Relax and let it take you on a journey to the inevitable.” Though I was only eight, he was my everything. Alpha and Omega, Poseidon and Aeolus. His word was, and would always be, Gospel. “Okay, Daddy dude, go with the flow and move with the tide.” I beamed up at him, eager to show I was listening to his teachings, even if I didn’t understand all of them. He leaned across and picked up a stray seaside daisy, which had somehow landed on the sand where we were sitting side by side, hand in hand. Planting it into my beach-weathered braid, he smoothed his hands over the top of my head before kissing it in reward for my diligence. “That’s right, Angel, and don’t you ever forget it.”

  But I was worried I would forget.

  The time would come when I could only remember the blurry outline of his face and form, like imagining a character in a book, with vagueness, no details.

  The time would come when I would forget the sound of his laugh, or the perfect balance of salt water and sandalwood that made up his scent.

  The time would come when I’d forget the words he’d said, the moments we’d shared, the laughs we’d had, the memories we’d made, and the life we’d lived together as a family.

  The time would come. It always did.

  For me and for you. For laughter and tears. For melancholy and joy.

  Time comes and goes as it pleases and yet with perfect rhythm. Like the moving of the tide or the rising and setting of the sun.

  Now the time has come to say goodbye.

  Lacing up my black Doc Martens, I take a deep breath and whisper, “I miss you, Daddy,” to the loud and somber silence. Taking reluctant steps downstairs, I join my mother, Genevieve, in the living room, where she is trying to wrestle my baby brother into a black bow tie.

  The heavy thud of my boots must have alerted her to my presence. She hasn’t turned around, and remains frown-faced in concentration, but her shoulders slump with relief. “Oh, Matilda, thank goodness you’re here. Maybe you’ll have better luck putting Oscar into his bow tie than I’m having.”

  She’s been doing that a lot recently. Using our full names, as if the formality is a lifeline in her world of disarray. Or perhaps, she can’t bear to have any reminders of him and the way we all used to be. Carefree, happy, relaxed, together.