Chapter 3: Awakening

It was a warm summer day. Exceedingly warm in fact. July had been brutal this year. It was unusual for the weather to ever exceed a temperature above even 30 degrees C in Sweden. Today it was 37 C.

A lot of people wouldn't know this, but, the human body handles external temperatures surprisingly well. It doesn’t really matter if its five degrees or forty-five degrees. The human body just kind of make due with what it got. Except for when the external temperature matches the internal one.  That magical number of 37.3 C. 

This is more or less when your brain gets fried and goes haywire. There’s not really any better explanation for it than that. Rational thought just abruptly changes its name to “Joe Smith”, packs its bags, and gets on the first plane to New Zealand, Australia or any other commonwealth country.

This leaves you with a body controlled mainly by distorted feelings and animal instinct. Without the rational side keeping those two in check this combination can lead to some quite interesting if not extremely volatile situations.

“It’s hot” John said. He was lying uncomfortably in the grass behind one of the many benches in this suburban area. He was way too out of it to care about some minor discomfort thought. Besides, the built up humidity in the grass felt good against his back.

“Have you ever thought about life, John?” Chris asked him while sitting on the aforementioned bench. The question itself addressed John but the tone made it sound like he was rather addressing a room full of people. Or no one in particular. John couldn’t decide.

“It’s way too hot” he replied without even considering the details in Chris’s question. His warm brain felt like it was melting and thus he was in no mood to entertain another one of Chris’ crazy ideas. God know he have had a few during the years.

Chris continued anyway. “We are born right? And then we die. And a lot of stuff happens in between right? But none of it really matters since it’s all erased at the end right? Like a faulty hard drive all data is lost and forever gone. The only reason we exist to begin with is because of how it’s programmed into our genes. We’re literally programmed to stay alive and reproduce. Otherwise there just wouldn’t be any life because it’d all be dead, you know? ”

John turned his head over to look at Chris since he had noticed not only the tonal change in his voice but also how his gestures grew wilder as the monolog went on. Chris had turned his body around on the bench and was now looking directly at John as he was speaking.

“But you know John. There's one thing that has fascinated me. For these past few weeks in fact. We all know our birth day right? We celebrate it every year. But at the same time we pass our death date every year. Not even knowing it's there, you know? Just skulking away in the shadows waiting for the year that is THE YEAR you know?”

Chris had ended his sentence with a question but it was very clear that he wasn't really looking for an answer as he now held a .356 Magnum pointed towards John. John was close enough to see that it looked fully loaded. That is, the second before Chris actually fired at John, puncturing his lung.

While trying to gasp for air John could hear Chris continue his monolog: “You now know your death day John. And so do I to be honest.” Johns lungs was now starting to fill up with an unhealthy amount of blood which was in turn pushing out all the valuable air from where it should be. Not only that but John’s vision was starting to get blurry as well.

“Is this how I'm going to fucking die? In a grass field looking at a psycho on a bench?” was one of the last things going through John’s head as he watched Chris put a bullet through his.

They both knew their death date.