Drops That Show My Life Is Running Out

At the beginning of the end, I opened my eyes and saw snow falling over me. I felt so cold.

The flakes fell so thickly that I could barely keep my eyes open. I lay on my back upon a carpet of snow. Around me, the white forest resembled an endless display of hundreds upon hundreds of Christmas trees.

Yet nothing resembling Santa Claus could be found in this place. A broken, strange and distant voice seemed to drift upon the wind, shaping sounds into words I could not understand. When I listened more closely, I realized those words were calling my name.

The freezing wind carried the sound away from me again and again. It came and went. I would hear it once, twice, three times or more before it vanished completely, leaving only the rumble of distant echoes rebounding among the pines until they returned to me.

A cabin stood in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountain brush only a few yards from where I lay, isolated more than ten miles from any human being who might help me. I realized I was utterly lost and alone.

I turned my face to the right, shaking frost from my eyebrows, eyelashes, thick beard and mustache. There was a small empty syringe in the snow. A purple streak stained the white ground between the syringe and my right arm.

I could not help wondering what the hell was happening, but I had no answer and understood nothing. Just when I had nearly forgotten it, the voice returned, clearer than before. It called my name in an unmistakable lament, a long and mournful cry, ominous as torture.

Hearing it more clearly now, I recognized the anguished voice of a woman. I asked aloud:

“Who is this woman? Who?” I made my first attempt to sit up and failed. “What the hell happened to me?”

Despite the pain and the difficulty of moving, I managed to lift myself from the pale ground. I needed to know who this woman calling my name was. I needed answers. Through the countless flakes still falling around me, my blurred vision found a nest.

There it was: a home for birds, a perfect winter refuge built among the branches of a pine some six feet above my head. I could even see several hungry chicks, and I immediately understood their need.

The chicks and I shared more than hunger. We trembled alike beneath the cruel cold that froze us to the bone. Fighting it became my first priority, for the clothes I wore could not hold back the icy wind.

I had only a thin flannel shirt, jeans soaked with moisture and old loafers with worn soles. The skin of my hands had turned a shade between blue and violet. I quickly concluded that my face must look the same. Then I asked myself:

“How long had I been lying in the snow? How long had I been asleep—or perhaps… unconscious?” There was no way to know. I could remember nothing. Not yet.

The snow crunched beneath my feet as I struggled forward until I stood before the cabin. I stumbled toward it, hugging myself against the cold. Then I quickened my steps, driving my worn loafers into the snow until I finally reached the door.

“Could this be my home?” I wondered in confusion. I decided that it must be.

The woman called again. Her voice felt closer now, and I sensed that it was not entirely unknown to me. Something disturbingly familiar lived within it. Still, I asked myself:

“Who is this mysterious woman?”

I could not remember. Damn my memory—or whatever had stolen it from me.

I entered the cabin. The wooden door stood ajar, though I still had to force it open. Relief washed over me when the current of air no longer struck my body; at last I was sheltered from the glacial wind outside. I rubbed my arms vigorously, trying to summon some warmth. I shook from head to toe. The cold was so intense that it hurt.

I recognized nothing inside the cabin's single room. I searched the place, every corner of it, but nothing I saw felt familiar.

I remembered the purple streak staining the snow. Examining the inside of my right arm, I found many red punctures along the skin. I needed to discover what was happening and regain control. Then the woman called again, offering me no pause, no peace.

Her voice came from the other side of the cabin, so I crossed the room and stepped through the back door. I spared one last thought for the hungry chicks in their nest as they waited for their mother to return with food against the bitter cold.

When the strange woman called more clearly than ever, I stepped outside behind the cabin and sank my loafers into the cold snow once more. The relief was over. Before me lay the worst sight imaginable.

A small pond stood about twenty paces beyond the back door, surrounded by ground completely buried beneath snow. Its water was flooded with thick, vivid blood. The contrast was violent. I swallowed and approached slowly. The closer I came, the louder the woman's cries became.

At the same time, I began to see a body floating facedown in that purple pond. It was the body of a black-haired woman, lifeless amid the concentrated blood.

Driven by instinct, I plunged into the pond until that arterial substance reached my waist. Tears ran down my cheeks as I lifted my beloved, my lover, into my arms. I still could not remember everything, but certain memories were beginning to emerge from the shadows.

It was clear that she had chosen to control her destiny, to intervene in the inevitable passage beyond this world, where an implacable hunger would soon have dragged her anyway. I wept as never before, holding her in the pond with my face pressed against her abdomen.

My tears mingled with her blood. At last I left the pond carrying her in my arms. Beside the cabin, I dug a grave with my bare hands, forcing my fingers through deep snow and frozen earth. None of it stopped me.

Once the makeshift grave was deep enough, I laid her body at the bottom. Then I returned to the cabin to write these lines that you—whoever you may be—are reading now. I wrote without knowing why anyone might care to read them, but the time has come to put down this worn pencil.

Now I will pull free the shard of glass buried halfway into the inside of my beloved's left wrist. I will sit at the edge of the grave I dug for her, beside the place where she lies, and cut open each of my veins.

I will surrender to the pain and desperate anguish of leaving this world, something that will surely be intense and torturous. I trust the frigid air will soften the impact. My blood will fall upon her. I will grow more tired by the moment, and then I will look once more toward the chicks in their nest.

I will be glad that they can survive this apocalypse while we, supposedly more intelligent and evolved, perish like flies—as we deserve. My final thoughts will belong to her as I remember, clearly now, the beautiful moments we shared.

I will let relentless death carry me away—the death we can never deceive, forever watchful over every one of us. I will gaze upon my wounds with resignation as they release surging purple drops that show my life is running out.

THE END