Deadline

When I wake up I always feel cheated, and when I oversleep I have the added displeasure of feeling as though I've cheated myself. By the time my head has cast off the fog I'm either bitter or frantic. When I have the luxury of bitterness I always curse the clockmakers. It's not right to lose so many hours to sleep.

Most of my mornings are frantic these days. It isn't difficult for me to remember how it felt to check the time without looking at the clock. Memories, however, are about as useful as dreams. Both are too costly in which to indulge.

It was 8:22 on Thursday morning. 00:367:42:15 was on my clock display. I only had a little over two weeks left. I'd been at two weeks for the last month. It seemed like I was never going to be able to sit still. I could always feel those minutes crawling out of me.

I rushed to get to work. The factory is only a ten-minute walk from my apartment if I don't stop for coffee. I was still hanging on to that frenzy from oversleeping. I didn't need caffiene, but I snagged an orange from a sidewalk vendor. At a price of three minutes apiece they weren't exactly a bargain, but they were large and fragrant and there was no line ahead of me so it only took a few seconds to swipe my palm over the DNA scanner, plug in and "O.K." the time transfer to the vendor. 00:367:17:52

I pressed on, peeling the orange as I moved. The first bite penetrated my sense of urgency and my pace slowed a little. I looked up from the pavement and noticed a wealthy man.

The difference between someone of wealth and someone like myself is not in their style of dress or jewelry or speech. It's all in the walk. A leisurely walk is the first hint of wealth, but a laggardly pace could also just be an indication of someone young, someone in their first year of Lifeclock. There's a way that someone who's truly wealthy, someone with more than twenty years, carries himself. There's a relaxed expression in the eyes, the shoulders hang back instead of being held in tight, the stride swings instead of steps, and they're often caught being distracted by the sky.

I've never walked like that. Even in my first year of Lifeclock, after I said goodbye to my parents and got my implants and my five-year allotment I never walked wealthy, but that's common for first-years. First-years are eighteen and too busy with freedom to look at anything but themselves, to ride in cabs and buy video units, to gamble and go to clubs and spend two or three years in the space of six months. I envy them, but not the way I envy the wealthy. I've stolen looks at the sky but I just don't see it the same way.

Mr. Peerson, my supervisor, had allowed me to hold on to the same workstation for three weeks straight so my piece-rate speed would improve and I'd bring in more minutes per shift. During the last two days I'd been able to make an extra four hours. I'd hoped for more of this luck, but when I walked onto the assembly line Peerson moved me to a new station. Now I'd be soldering instead of assembling, and I would have to do delicate detail work. I'd be lucky to break even on minutes.

Ten hours later I walked out with forty-five minutes more than when I walked in. 00:367:53:24. Not as bad as I'd envisioned, but not good, either.

On the walk home I stopped at the market and splurged on a bottle of wine. I cringed at my clock when I clicked "O.K." on the scanner amount, but I was tired. I wouldn't die tomorrow. I had two weeks left.

I was a block from my apartment when from behind me came the sound of squealing brakes, crunching metal and splintering glass. I spun around, too late to see the actual impact of the pavement on the young man. I only got to see the result. His neck was bent back in an impossible way, his body twisted, his face smashed flat but his eyes opened wide, opened dead.

I approached and knelt beside him. His clock was still attached to the implant on his forearm. As I picked it up, trying to avoid touching the splatters of blood, I heard others coming, some muttering indistinctly, some silent and wishing they were me. His clock display, in capital block lettering, read "READY FOR TERMI-TRANSFER."

My eyes didn't wander from his clock. One hand rushed to my own forearm and pulled my transfer plug free. There were no mixed feelings as I clicked "O.K."

A moment later I rose and found a gathering of solemn, envious faces. Bitter, hypocritical whispers of "vulture" followed me as I quickly walked through them. I didn't dare check my clock yet, not here. I walked as fast as the poorest of men.

Once back in the privacy of my apartment, I looked at my readout:

02:7531:57:37

I was hardly wealthy, but I spent that evening out on my fire escape, drinking that wine right from the bottle and staring up at the stars.

Strangely enough, they released me. Their Chief jabbed me with the butt of a rifle so that I fell to my knees on the muddy jungle floor. “Mierde, gringo,” he said. Which, for some reason, they all found very funny.

I was puzzled when I realized I’d been left alone. They knew I was from Covert Ops. The Colombian rebel chief, despite his army fatigues, was a Harvard-educated South American. Nor was their HQ some ratty jungle enclave. Before I was captured, I had a glimpse of an air-conditioned, hi-tech facility with banks of equipment that outdid anything at MIT – including a particle accelerator. Jeez! What cocaine money can buy.

I had failed to find out what they were up to. But now I had to get back alive. The only obstacle in my way was three hundred miles of uncharted jungle.
My jungle survival skills clicked into operation as a conditioned reflex – conditioned, because that was standard Ops training. Thus I emerged at a small town on the river five weeks later unscathed, merely leaner and meaner. I located a ham radio, the only one in town, and MTC’d. That is, I Made The Call.

When the chopper came to pick me up, no one said much, mainly because they were all in Contam-Suits. When we reached HQ - a heavily camouflaged bunker in the middle of Jungle Nowhere - there was another surprise. HQ had something like 2,000 staff working on a 24-hour roster, and yet the place was deserted.

I was dumped on a mechanized trolley and sent through a series of decontamination scans. These did everything except make me feel clean. When the tech geeks were sure I wasn’t carrying some lethal bio-hazard, a stony-faced Med appeared on the overhead video and said, “Proceed to cubicle 8 on foot. There you will find clean clothes, shaving gear and food. Be ready in fifteen minutes...on the dot.”

Something was up, but my apprehension was overshadowed as always, by simple physical mundanities. Namely, the desire to shave, change, eat and, above all, take a dump in a flush toilet. My guts had started to hurt; roots and berries wreak havoc with regularity, no matter what they say in the fiber ads.

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I lay naked, a score of gadgets attached to my body. Thick plate glass separated me from the Med Team. The top Med, Neil, keyed the talkback and said, “Jack, you’re carrying something.”
I got the same cold feeling I’d had all the way through my jungle trek, that the rebels had done something to me. Bright lights, operating tables, sedation, drugs, the scene played back before my eyes.
Neil delivered the bad news with clipped precision: the Colombians were manufacturing tactical nuclear devices as small as a child’s marble. What’s more, I had one buried in my head.

My senses reeled as Neil said, “The timer is a weak isotope with a rapid decay. It will detonate at noon tomorrow.”
“Is there nothing you can do?” My own voice sounded distant, my ears were roaring.
“The area has been evacuated,” replied Neil, “but that was just in case we made a mistake.We need our staff back now, so we'll have to get you out.”
“To where?” I said numbly.
“Somewhere we can watch you safely until the deadline has passed.”

Deadline. Right, DEADline. Neil was really saying that I was the only one going to be dead.
“Jack, we’ve run out of options. Trying to take it out will also detonate it.”
I’d always been aware that someday I might be called on to lay down my life for the cause, but knowing the precise moment was different. Neil realized that, too. His face softened and he whispered, “Sorry, Jack.”

Which is why I found myself sitting on a hill five miles away from HQ, shackled to a steel post. They were taking no chances; I might go crazy and do something irrational.
I was left with food, drink, and enough recreational drugs to turn on half of San Francisco, in case I wanted to cloud-nine out. My comrades were strangely taut. No one wanted to break down. We were soldiers.
But when they all turned to face me and saluted, with the Stars and Stripes playing on a small CD unit, my lips started to tremble. I lowered my head so they could not see me crying. When I raised it, I was alone and, I really cried.

I had taken the watch proffered me, but I refused radio contact. There was nothing to talk about. What do you say to a dead man?

Folk lore says your life flashes before your eyes, but after three bourbons and three tokes of the best Colombian marijuana, I almost dozed off. I jerked awake and my eyes shot to the watch: 12.40!
I lay for some minutes, trembling, then I stood up, hope welling in my chest. Suddenly I was blinded by a gigantic flash, and slammed to the ground.
I came to, stupified, and gazed across the jungle at a gigantic crater where HQ had once been. Then I realized I had not been the bomb, but the trigger, and 2000 people were dead.

But how?
Then it came to me. I had left something behind. Something that had been attached to my gut. I recalled the pains. The implant in my head must have been triggered by the scans to detach the bomb and initiate peristalsis. It had ended up in the septic tanks.
Mierde, gringo. Right.

A noise behind me made me turn. It was Neil with two medics. I glanced back at the crater, shocked.
Neil shook his head, smiling. "We did evacuate after all - just in case. But how about you? How are you feeling?"
"Like sh-"
I stopped myself.
I don't think I'll ever use that word again.

I had just restarted FreeCell game number 3112 for the fifth time. I was thinking that this might be the one to keep me from my goal of winning all 32,000 before I retired. I had vowed to accomplish that, no matter how much of the Air Force’s time it took.

On-duty time in a Launch Control Center is not the most exciting six hours you can spend. It’s one of those “hours of boredom, minutes of terror” jobs. I guess there’s probably something more productive I could be doing, but I haven’t found it yet. I’ve never been much for reading, except the sports page.

When I accepted this position a year ago, I figured a Missile Alert Facility would be a good place to coast into retirement. I’m 48 years old, my oak leaves aren’t likely to be turning silver any time soon, and in ten months I’ll be able to go out with full pension. An easy stint in the silos to finish out my career sounded like a grand plan.

So, I was deep into trying to figure out how to get to the ace of hearts when the alarm klaxon sounded. I figured it was another drill. Lieutenant Jenkins never thinks they’re drills. He spends his time inspecting the birds, inventorying fuel, and checking calibration dates. Jenkins came running into the control room and was at the printer before I even levered myself out of my chair.

“Priority One message from National Command Authority. SAC-NORAD orders launch of all flights: 740th and 741st Squadrons, 91st Strategic Missile Wing. Hostile incoming requires launch before 0240 hours. Sir, we have ten minutes to launch our birds.”

“I can tell time, Jenkins. Calm down, I’m sure it’s just another test. Go get the confirmation code.” They run these tests a few times a year, just to keep us on our toes. I nearly wet myself the first time I went through one. They typically call it off within a minute, but sometimes they wait until the keys are confirmed.

Jenkins arrived with the code as I was getting the verification card out of the safe. I snapped the case open and gave him the card as he handed me the printout. Reading through all 15 digits, pronouncing every November, Romeo, and Niner in clipped precision, and watching Jenkins nod at each, I waited for the phone to ring with the all-clear. It didn’t. The code was confirmed, as it always is, and Jenkins and I pulled out our keys in unison.

I sat down in front of my console and with a trembling hand, I inserted my key into its lock. I heard Jenkins’ key hit home at the same time. When I turned towards him, he was already looking my way. For the first time in our eight months together, I saw a hint of fear in his eyes. It was quickly replaced by fierce determination, and he turned from me to look at the clock. My eyes followed his: 0234. We still had six minutes.

By now, the boys at SAC should have registered our key insertions, so I couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t called yet to stop the test. With a sudden inspiration, or maybe desperation, I picked up the phone. “I’m calling over to 741.” The look of disappointment in his eyes stopped the next sentence in my throat. As the senior officer on this shift, I couldn’t very well call a Captain for direction. I put the phone back down and said, “Oh, let him call me if he needs advice.” Jenkins grinned like a boy reading the last page of his favorite comic book.

My thoughts were too jumbled to think straight. I had orders to launch ten nuclear missiles. The orders were confirmed, and SAC would have no further indication of our action until launch. My mind came to the slow, sure, terrifying realization that this was not a test. We were expected to turn our keys. The clock blared out the time: 0237.

There were three minutes left in which to unleash the man-made hell of nuclear fusion weapons. Jenkins’ shaky voice came from beyond the veil of my self-absorption. “Sir, we have to launch now. Give the order.” I finally realized that the deadline we were up against was our own imminent death. Even a hardened bunker fourteen feet underground can’t stand up to a direct strike from a twenty-megaton weapon. We had to launch before we died and were no longer capable.

I looked at my terminal again. All five flights stood ready, but only ours was keyed. I had the ability and the responsibility to launch not only my own ten missiles, but the other forty as well. Eight other officers had failed forcing me to take full responsibility. How could eight, highly trained officers, each with the perfect psych profile, fail to turn their key? It wasn’t possible. With Jenkins screaming for me to give the order, I removed my hand from my key and watched the clock turn to 0240.

I realize that my actions that night equate to treason. I understand that I failed to obey both direct and indirect orders. I am willing to accept whatever punishment this court deems fit. But, should it not count for something that I was right?

It's been six days of agonizing waiting, but Jackson's finally found someone he thinks might have the information we need. Since we don't know precisely what deadline we're working with, I'm just praying this guy talks to us in time. Jackson says I'm too personally involved to meet this informant myself, so I get to wait in the car while he and Cooper are inside.

Minutes, hours, days go by before they come back out. Jackson gets behind the wheel and looks back at me:

"He's at Fifth and Baker, we should be able to get there in twenty minutes. Stewart and Morris will be there in about ten. They'll take care of things so we can get in through the roof."

It's late afternoon. The last of the sunlight is painting the city red, and the downtown rush hour traffic is just beginning to start.

"Step on it," I tell Jackson, but he's already driving too fast and I can see flashing lights ahead. A road block is just what we need right now - they do it just to rub in our faces what a free society we live in.

The cops are brusque but we're not carrying weapons yet and the car's clean, so we're not detained. Rush hour is now in full swing, it's dark, and we're going to be lucky if we get there in an hour, let alone twenty minutes. Jackson's a good driver though, and he pulls up behind a dumpster on Baker thirty three minutes after the road block.

Baker is a street in the Old Town and its former tenants have followed the money to the newer development in the suburbs. It's a natural spot for the cops to set up an unofficial detention center. We get out and Cooper goes dumpster diving to retrieve the cache that Stewart and Morris have left for us. He gives me and Jackson a gun and a couple of extra clips each, and we go up the fire escape to the roof. Stewart is waiting for us, and there's blood on his shirt.

"Hurry it up, gents, sentries don't stay missing for very long."

He ushers us across a makeshift bridge to the next building and stands aside to cover us as we open the service door and quietly step inside.

It's dark in here. A fresh bloodstain on the wall near the doorway tells me that Morris is already in here somewhere, cleaning house, watching our backs. This level seems to be mostly storage- all locked doors and open janitor closets. The building is silent and my heart beat is marking time. I'm up against a harsh deadline, and every thud in my ears tells me that time is running short.

Jackson has the door open at the end of the corridor, and Cooper and I make it through to the stairwell without incident. Morris shows up behind us with a lot of blood on his shirt and the four of us go down to the next floor. Morris hasn't cleared this level yet, and my heart beat steps up the pace in anticipation. We're all holding our guns a little tighter as Jackson opens the door.

I'm looking down a corridor that's the same as the floor above, but the lights are on this time. Morris takes the lead, and we follow him into each empty office along the hallway. We're in the third room and the unmistakable sound of two gunshots echoes up the stairwell from the floor below.

All is silent, and the knot in my stomach and the tears in my eyes tell me that we just missed the deadline. We're still trying to be stealthy, but it's damned hard to be quiet when you're fighting a sudden wave of despair. Cooper is first down the stairs and we follow him onto the third floor. The lights are on here, too, but there's no sign of any life. A door halfway down the corridor is open and I watch Cooper's shoulders slump as he looks inside. He turns around and tries to wave me back, but I push past him and the knot in my gut explodes into acid when I see what's left of my brother lying slumped on a cheap office chair.

I'm sorry Garry. I missed your deadline, and you had to pay.

My head is spinning and I don't know where the other guys have gone, but I'm still standing there with Garry and I hear boots coming up the stairwell. They're matching time with my heart beat, pounding down the seconds to my deadline.

I take up a position behind a desk next to the door and raise my gun.

He was late. He didn’t need to waste his time glancing at the letter to know that it read 12:05 for his appointment. He didn’t even need to take a second look at his watch to know that he was eight minutes late, assuming he hadn’t wasted another whole minute sitting in his rank old two-door. If only he hadn’t waited so long to start, if only he hadn’t spent so much time basking in his exhilaration. But who could blame him? It’s the one thing that kept him focused, that gave him hope. The only thing that gave anyone hope. Finally, at 24, a ripe age for leaving, he had received his death notice. Finally, at 24, he was going to leave this sinister, bland earth and he could finally meet The Creator.

But not anymore. Not now that it was 12:13, or probably even a quarter after by now. The Creator gets to choose anything he wants, and if he chooses 12:05, then 12:13 just won’t work. He had been a fool. Sitting in the car with his teary eyes, gingerly kissing the crisp pitch-black envelope. Even his prayer to The Creator, necessary as it was, probably cost him quite a bit of time. Why did he have to be so foolish? He should have taken off at once. But instead he just sat there, watching the sun glow orange through his windshield, as he sat and thought of nothing except what he could possibly expect from The Dreamland. The Creator had chosen him for a reason, and in this Earth of disgust and melancholy, a card as simple as this gave him the utmost elation. And at 12:05 too, a perfect time for leaving. No doubt he would be in The Dreamland no later than quarter past, which obviously wasn’t going to happen now seeing as the minutes kept rotting away as he sat there outside the offices. His high of euphoria had extinguished and what was left was opposite. A profound despondency that drowned out even the brightest midday sun.

He had ruined it all. Even if he was to go in now and they were to accept him, which they would most certainly not, he wouldn’t be in The Dreamland by 12:25. The time of the worship. The bell would ring and most likely, he would still be in his car pondering how he managed to screw things up. The bell would ring and everyone would take three minutes out of their otherwise meaningless day to give praise to the new dead, who were now meeting The Creator. And if only he hadn’t been his fashionably late self he wouldn’t have too, because he wouldn’t have still been on this dreary Earth. Just in time for the bell.

He glanced at his watch. 12:19. He was still sitting outside the offices, as he hoped in futility that maybe they would come out and ask for him anyway. They wouldn’t. And the chances he would receive another notice in the next 24 years of his life were slim as well. Being late for The Creator was an insult. And The Creator didn’t like insults.

He had wasted enough time today, more than enough. With a turn of the steering wheel the car crawled into motion and he was on his way home. The battered, insignificant home that he thought he would never see again. Pulling into the driveway and getting out of the car never felt so wretched. His emotion switched from a general sadness to an overwhelming anger. Since when was punctuality an essential part of life. Is that all The Creator looks for, how good your damn watch works? It’s stressed again and again that life is just a test, just a passage to The Dreamland. One day The Creator will realize that you are complete and you can meet him. The famous “death notices.”

Life. How pitiful. How pathetic. How stupid. What a ridiculous waste of time. Each day you wake up to more aches and pains and put more work into something that doesn’t matter anyway. For the first time in his life, he honestly, didn’t see the point. Why not end it now? Is suicide all that bad. It’s an easy way to end life and you won’t even know your dead. But, on the other hand you will never see The Creator, never set foot in The Dreamland. According to the rules, killing yourself is almost as bad as not dying at all.

It didn’t matter. He had already made up his mind. Since he walked in he had been waltzing on autopilot to that one certain drawer. He was certain that it hadn’t been touched it since it was first opened. He stopped in front of the kitchen window, that provided a glimpse of the neighboring houses, just as battered and insignificant as his. Without looking his hand slid open the drawer and grasped the single object resting inside it. Needless to say it was dusty, but it still felt so good to feel the cold steel instead of the blistering sun.

He glanced at his watch one more time. 12:25. The silencer was just a murmur of a gunshot, but it did its job. In his last dying breath the bell echoed across his street and inside he snickered.

Right on time.

At first, Matthew had laughed at the soldier who paraded around him in a slow circle scraping a chunk of white clay across the rocky earth.
“What, you think you can hold me here, fatty?” he sneered at the soldier, a fat boy with blushing, raw cheeks and an attempt at a mustache smeared across his toady mouth. The boy had to be fourteen years old, and already his gut bulged dangerously against the creaking leather straps that held his armor in place. Matthew growled internally; he had always hated the Ircanian people, plastering their fat bodies over armchairs and ordering others to die for their own gain.
Had King Rhonas listened to Matthew, the Ircanian people wouldn’t have invaded in the first place, but Rhonas was a man under the constant impression that ill-trained, portly soldiers were no threat to the kingdom. Ten thousand unchallenged Ircanians had swarmed down the mountains and had laid the kingdom to ruin. Only one city remained, Carthas, and at that moment its stout towers gleamed against an flawless sky with a hint of smoke rising from the wall-tops. The battle for Carthas had begun.
The fat boy flushed scarlet and fumbled with the chalk. It was a strain for him to bend over his voluminous stomach.
“Shut it, yew,” He muttered in his disgusting accent, “Yews en’t goin’ anywheres, naow. Yews stay in dis ring. Douch a doe o’er dat line, an’ sev’n men’ll kill ye.”
“Oh, yes?” said Matthew, rising to his full, impressive height. At thirty-seven and heavy as ten sacks of grain, Matthew cut quite a gallant figure in the shimmering heat. The boy, whose name was Rewes, shuddered backwards out the range of Matthew’s sinuous arms – if Matthew stayed in the circle anyway.
“Yis, ‘tis.”
Matthew charged the line but, up on the hill, he caught the motion of seven bows drawing in unison. Ircanians were slothful cowards, but their archers could pick a butterfly’s wing off on the opposite side of a riverbank.
Growling below his breath, Matt settled back down into a spot where he’d sit, stand, urinate, and sleep for the next two days.
Now, the setting sun burned holes through Matthew’s eyelids and scorched Matthew’s swollen tongue which hung limply from his mouth. Water! The sound of the word filled him with a desperate fury. What right had these soldiers to hold him there? He had to be in Carthas, fighting along with his comrades. Over the top of the hill, he could see the towers. At night, they blazed in fire and in the day they were veiled in smoke, but the bright red banner of Carthas still few – and that meant that Marlene was safe.
“Marlene,” Matthew muttered, hugging his dirty knees to his wide chest. Rewes, who was torturing a horse by planting his fat hind-end in the saddle.
“Whot’s dat?” he asked, eying Matthew warily. Matthew’s eyes rose again to the seven soldiers on the hill, now enjoying a skin of wine and singing some nonsense song. Matthew ignored Rewes and turned back to his left. In the distance, a glittering stream gushed along filled with loving, beautiful water and as Matthew looked at it, its crystalline surface melded with the face of his daughter.
Marlene the beautiful, Marlene the Wise – Marlene was the reason that Matthew had set out to destroy the Ircanians in the first place. He had locked her in the highest tower, like the legendary princesses of the old tales, except she was no princess and Matthew was no evil man. The evil man was Rewes and his piggy, watery eyes scorning Matthew’s every move. Rewes had entertained himself over the past few days by prancing his horse around the circle, just out of Matthew’s reach.
“Matty’ssss gunna die!” he warbled, his armor gleaming - armor bought with the money stolen from the pockets of dying children. “Wawtch as he sits, burnin’ and dyin’, grabbin’ his skull as eet be fryin’, woohoo!”
Matthew told himself to dismiss it, to throw it off, but he wasn’t the type of man to take insult. Ever since Emily died, Matthew had vowed to never let anyone take advantage of his daughter, and keeping him away from Marlene was a thousand times as damaging as Rewes’s foul words.
He had to get out of here, he had to get to the walls and fight, but then again had an army had triumphed yet? Matthew turned away from the cool stream and to the firey sky to squint at the smoky towers. A jolt ran through Matt and his breath caught in his chest. Something was different. Someone was ripping the banner down. A moment later, a spade-shaped banner rose in its place. Rewes noticed Matthew’s distress and it brought him a cruel bout of laughter.
“Awwy, ‘slooks leeke de ceety be gone. Deed, gone.”
Deed. Gone. Dead. Gone.
The red-armored forces of Irca busted through the tower gate and began to stream up the stairs. Towards Marlene. Towards the last island of sanity in the universe.
“Marlene…” said Matthew.
“Hey, down’t be goin’ nowheres,” Rewes uttered, surprised as Matthew rose to his feet.
“Marlene.”
“Stop eet, stop!”
“Marlene.”
“Gards! Garrrrds!”
“Marlene.”
One by one, the archers on the hill lifted their bows as Matthew stepped across the deadline.
“For Marlene,” he whispered, and brought eight men to their doom.

I sat there, my head buried in my hands, weeping quite openly and quite loudly. My golden curls hung over my pudgy candy stained hands, as tear after tear rolled its way down my cheeks. Some kind passerby decided to walk across this small portion of graveyard and see if he could help.

“I am sorry young miss, I know it’s hard to lose someone you love, but I promise time will heal all hurts.” said a kindly voice from a kindly old man.

I looked up, my big blue eyes still sparkling from my recent tears. I looked into that kindly old face and said, “Fark off Jack, otherwise I’m gonna pull your spleen outta your nose and stuff it back down your throat. And why by the way, are you talking to a little girl alone in a cemetery, you perv.?”

Here I started yelling for the police, not very loudly mind you, just enough to set his spindly old legs to pumping, with a look of utter horror plastered onto his face. I chuckled to myself, OK, I felt a little better, but not much that’s for sure.

Now about this time some of you astute readers, might be saying, “Geeze, that sure doesn’t sound like the way a little girl would talk, no by golly it doesn’t.”

Let me tell you something I learned about people that read too much. They think that they know everything. They think, that everything under the Sun, has been written about and since they’ve read most of it, they therefore know most everything. Well you don’t. There are things out there that you can’t even imagine, things that don’t fit into a nice neat little world of i before e, except after c.

Now, if you will suspend your disbelief long enough, you may learn something about how this all got started and how I, assassin extraordinaire, missed the most important deadline of my life.

It all started three years ago, when I got word from a friend down in Louisiana. His letter mentioned two things. First, there was a local tough guy that was putting the squeeze on one of the richer land owners that wanted to build some kind of mini-mall on his land. Second, the land owner was willing to pay huge amounts of money to have this guy removed.

At that time, I was still in the prime of my life. Six foot six, a punch that felt like a mule’s kick, and a mouth that would make a sailor blush. Needless to say, I was a bit c[/b]ocky. So when I got down to Louisiana, all I heard while my friend was talking was; money, old guy and dead. What I should have heard was; weird, voodoo and be careful. Alas, I wasn’t in the mood to listen, after all I was me, and I had faced a dozen jobs and come out unscathed. I had brought my name to the top of the list, for those who keep track of that sort of thing. What was one old man going to do to me?

I found his house easy enough, no security and the door was unlocked. I silently crept inside and found him sitting there, at his faded yellow kitchen table as if he were expecting me.

I looked at him with cold blue eyes and asked, “You know why I am here?”

The withered old man looked at me and chuckled, “Yes I do, and if you leave now I will forget that you came at all.”

“Look old man, you are as helpless as a little girl, I am afraid you are in no position to laugh.” I pointed out.

“Aren’t I?” He asked.

A few things happened at once then; I raised my gun to finish the job, the old man stood up, mumbled something and quick as a snake, threw a powder at me. The gun fired, the world went dark and the next thing I knew I was staring up at the old man.

Crap, he went and made himself a giant. He towered over me, but I did notice he clutched his side where a quick flow of crimson blood had stained his dirty white shirt. He looked down at me and chuckled that same death dry chuckle.

“Now who is helpless?” He asked me, as he mumbled some more and simply vanished.

On my way out I passed a mirror in his house and stopped. What the fark? I was maybe, three foot ten, had a mop of golden curls, a pudgy face that belonged on a cherub and a pug nose. I looked like a ten year old girl! No, oh what ever Saint watched over fools, no!

I spent the last three years tracking this guy down. Trying to make him reverse the spell, and return me to my previous self. I found him today, or at least his gravesite. It seemed I was a week too late. I had missed my most important deadline and now I was stuck this way forever. I put my head back in my hands and started to cry again. Who wants to hire an assassin that farking looks like Shirley Temple? The end of my deadline had turned into the beginning of the rest of my life. Fark it all!

This is a short story of recent deaths in my life...

"My name is Dr. Slayton," he said. He was a tall man in his seventies, wore big glasses and spoke with a strong American accent. He sat down in front of us and explained why he was to teach us instead of Mr. Mark Brady. He told us about his collapse in early October and about the months he had spent in hospital. He told us about his return to the University and how Mr. Kolar, the head of the department, didn't want to let him go on teaching. He asked each of us what our names were, what exactly we studied and why and which town/ village we were from. Then he said he wanted each of us to write a topic on a small piece of paper before each class, and then we would pick one and just talk. When we got out of the classroom forty minutes later, we smiled: "Looks like a nice guy."
He died two days later.

We saw pictures of Terri Shiavo every evening, even though the States are quite a distant country. It was on the day she died that we eventually saw pictures of what she'd been like before the accident - and it was these pictures that caused me grief.
("From fairest creatures we desire increase"* – and they lie dead before the spring is gone...)

I am not a religious person, nevertheless I doubt whether the term atheist is my case. But I had to cry yesterday (4th April) while seeing the reaction of the Christian folk throughout the world to the Pope's death. It was the principle, I guess, the genuine love these people felt for the Holy Father, that moved me to tears. And – after all – he had always been there, ever since I was born, I somehow took him for granted... And suddenly this man was nothing more than a pale cold body in a magnificent robe – and the whole world is broken.

Just when I thought it couldn't possibly be worse, I found a fresh article on one of our newspaper's website saying that Helena Zmatlikova had died that morning. This lady had dedicated her 81-year-long life to illustrating books for children. Every child in the Czech lands knows her beautiful pictures. There were some of them hung on the corridor walls of my old school and I often studied them when I was passing by.
Luckily, there is no chance that this great artist will ever be forgotten...

On 5th April 2000 my grandfather woke up, smiled at my grandmother and said: "Good morning, darling."
The day before his health had been so poor that he didn't even recognise her.
Grandma was so happy that everything was all right again that she rushed off to the kitchen to make her beloved husband proper breakfast.
However, it was not long before she heard strange sounds from the adjacent room. She ran there – and found my grandpa in blood, coughing it out together with bits of his lungs. She never had the time to call for help. He died in her arms, exactly five years ago, at the age of seventy-four.

Today, my "collective mind" lies shattered in the dust, frightened by life whose rules are unknown and its end unexpected...

* "From fairest creatures we desire increase..." William Shakespeare, Sonnet 1

Sam woke up in excruciating pain. His head throbbed from the previous night's festivities. Looking around at the unfamiliar terrain, he racked his brain trying to figure out what happened. He vaguely remembered a few details from last night. He remembered his friends taking him out to celebrate his last night as a bachelor. He remembered being introduced to a guy with the last name of Cuervo. Most importantly, he remembered that he had a wedding to get to. What he did not know was how he ended up in a Mexican prison or how he would get out in time.

He stirred from the bunk where he lay and noticed the cell door was open, as were the doors in the corridor leading to the prison exercise yard. He thought it was odd for the doors to be open, but then again, nothing else seemed to make sense at the moment. He slowly made his way down the corridor toward the sound of men lifting weights and playing basketball. Coming out of the corridor into the bright noon sun was hard on his eyes, but he welcomed the fresh air. He needed it to clear his head so he could figure out what to do.

As he paused to think about his predicament a guard came out of the corridor and stood right next to him. Sam cleared his throat in order to use his most macho voice. "I need to use the phone. I want to call my lawyer," Sam said as forcefully as he could. The guard looked down, mumbled something in Spanish, then lit a cigarette and walked across the yard to report to his post. Fear began to sink in as Sam thought about his options for getting out of this mess. "It's no use. I don't speak Spanish, and even if I did they would not listen to me," he thought to himself.

Looking around for something or someone to help get him out of this jam, and yet finding none, Sam began to get desperate. With a wedding in just a short time it quickly became evident that his choices were limited. He decided he had to make a run for it.

The size of the prison yard did not frighten him as much as the guard with the automatic weapon whose eyes were fixed on a wide yellow line near the end. Sam noticed something written on the line. He strained to see that it had only two words on it, "ALTO! PELIGRO!" It didn't take being bi-lingual to figure out that whatever it said, it was a warning not to cross the line.

Sam didn't care. He was running out of ideas and running out of time. He only had two choices. He could risk losing his life at the hands of the prison guards or risk losing a lifetime with his beautiful bride. The line was no deterrent. The choice was clear and time was short.

As inconspicuously as he could, Sam tried to stretch and loosen up for the sprint of his life. Not only did he need to make it across the line and past the fence, but he also had to get back to his bride. He had little time to spare. Stretching one last time he took a deep breath and convinced himself he was not crazy for trying. Moving faster and faster he made his way across the prison yard, first jogging then running. Sam cheered himself on, "You can do it. Mind over matter. It's not that far."

His life flashed before his eyes. He recalled how he met his bride. He remembered how they fell in love. He suddenly remembered how he ended up in this prison, but he still had unanswered questions. Was he responsible? Was it his fault the guard slipped and fell or was it too much beer? Did they really have to pick him up and leave him in the cold dark cell?

Neither the line, the fence, nor the wedding seemed very far away. But all of a sudden everything started to happen in slow motion. Time began to stand still.

Sam didn't make it to the wedding.

The tiny snail just couldn't run fast enough. He didn't have any legs. Now he knew that it was the end of things. He also knew why his mother always told him, "Don't do the slime if you can't do the time."

*I thought it would be fun to work with both definitions of a deadline.

"Do you really have to work so much?"

Janne lifted his head. The words he just heard were soft, but worried. His wife stood in the doorway, already prepared for bed.

"You know this has to be done by the end of March..."

"Why?"

Janne stared at her. She had never asked this before and he had always been sure she understood why he did what he did. But now... he started questioning himself.

"Your fans would wait, Janne, I'm sure of it. They would be much sadder if you ruined your health than they would be if you didn't give them the album on time."

"You never knew the hunger, Aynon. I cannot disappoint them," he replied.

"No, I guess you can't," she said quietly and went upstairs.

Janne didn't sleep that night. He stopped working at five in the morning, had a quick breakfast and then rushed to the studio where he had an appointment with Ralph, the frontman of the second band Janne was a member of.

"How's life?"

"Well, quite fine, thanks."

"Doesn't sound like it. Any problem?"

Aynon hated Ralph: she thought he was a total idiot, but in fact he was able to trace a problem.

"Aynon thinks I shouldn't be doing all this."

"Ideological struggle?"

"No, she's just worried about my health."

"Did you sleep?"

"No."

"Well, she's got a point, then, hasn't she?"

Janne smiled.

"OK, let's just record the vocals and then you can have a rest."

"Fine. But the tour..."

"Come on, tour's not a problem, is it?"

"No, it's not."

It took them three hours to record the vocals Ralph needed and then Janne went to Kieran's (his first band's) studio, where he was to record much more.

"Hi there," he greeted his fellows.

"Hi. Good news, Marin called and said the deadline is extended. We have time till you're back from the tour," Tristan told him.

"That is of course excellent, but I suspect it won't be much of a help," Janne sighed. "We've still got so much work..."

"What work have you got?" Janne's brother Bart joined the conversation. "You've recorded all your parts, haven't you?"

"I have," Janne nodded.

"So..."

"But I still have to be here!"

"Watchdog."

"Goodness, I wrote the thing!" Janne cried out. "How can you expect me not to control what is done to it? I'd much rather go home now, but I can't. And don't try to upset me even more – I have worked day and night on this album and for this band as such, my wife hates me, I didn't get any sleep for two days and I'm just fed up with it! But I can't stop until everything's done, because it's what I believe in!"

"Look, Janne, nobody's trying to upset you, just relax, will you? It's not so bad. We've done our part, too, and we can finish in time," Tristan tried to calm him down. He was probably the only one in the band that was capable of it, anyway.

"All right, let's see what we've got," Janne agreed with no anger in his voice whatsoever.

Janne was an excellent and ingenious composer who could write a whole album during an afternoon, but it took a lot of work to record the music in a way that was acceptable to his ambitions. Therefore, deadlines were his greatest enemy, although he did his best to meet them (and he always did).

Aynon knew this and she also understood that this was Janne's way to change the world, but she had certain doubts about whether she was the right one for him to marry, in that case, because he appeared to love music much more than her.

"It's time I set a 'deadline'," she thought. "He can't go on ignoring me forever. Everyone's got to sacrifice something for their marriage's sake. But it seems that with this marriage, I'm the only one to have done so... Besides, he wouldn't even notice if I disappeared one day... would he?"

Watching her husband for the next few weeks, she became convinced that her suspicion was true, Janne didn't really notice her too much. She was glad when she saw him at meal times, though they scarcely talked to each other. Janne because his mind was occupied by composing and a feeling of guilt, Aynon because she was afraid she could provoke an argument. This was also the reason she never mentioned her hatred for Ralph or her disagreement with Janne's joining his band before her husband.

And then Janne left for the tour with Ralph's band and Aynon was alone. But this alone was almost the same, except that she didn't have to wait for him to come from the studio late at night, therefore a kind of relief. Her idea of her personal deadline looked more and more just...

When Janne arrived home three weeks later, there was no trace of his wife there.