I laid there, alone, on that hospital bed, my only companion was the soft rhythmic beating of my own heart monitor. My life was soon coming to an end. I could tell. It was the one thing that no one prepared me for when I was younger. How, when the end of days creeps near, I could feel myself, when my life was coming to a close. I had lived a full life, albeit a mundane one. Worked for 50 years as an accountant for a small business firm, got married, had kids, lived long enough to see my grandkids… It may not have been special or anything but it was my life. Regular as it was.
My only regret now, in my final few moments, was that I would be passing away into the night quietly, not surrounded by those I loved, neigh, not with a single person at my side at all. My wife had passed before me, my friends passed shortly after her, my kids, now all grown up and with children of their own, all too busy to visit an old man like me all the time. They did visit, it was kind of them, but they had no way of knowing that I was now drawing my last breaths. And how isolated it made me feel. How terrified I was.
Then it appeared. A man… or rather… a thing masquerading as a man. It was wearing a black three piece suit tailor fitted to him, but it was not human. To start with it had 4 arms, neigh, 4 massive finger-like appendages coming out of each arm hole on his suit, I could see a number of joints where the finger bones would bend and they moved like a prehensile tail. But that was not the most inhuman thing about it, of course, it was, naturally, inhuman, but it was his face that stood out the most. A stark white flat surface with only the bump where a forehead should be but with no orifices. No mouth, no nose, no ears, no hair, just a sheer white wall of a face that gave no expression other than two bright yellow eyes that stared at me like I was some piece of meat. However other than its face and arms it otherwise looked human, mostly from the waist down. Perhaps there were other inhuman aspects of it hidden underneath its well tailored suit but I could only speculate.
What was this thing? A monster? An angel? The grim Reaper? I nary had the strength to ask, let alone sit up to get a better look. But its presence was… unsettling, uncanny, like it was something that I couldn't comprehend. Like this thing I see before me was but a shadow of what it truly was. This thought alone was enough to concern me.
“Alan Moore.” It spoke. Neigh, it uttered. It didn't have a mouth to speak with but somehow it simply made the words appear in the room, not even in a manner comprehensible to me. It did not come with a volume like someone speaking from where he was standing. Nor was it like telepathy, inside my head. It was as if the words were suddenly everywhere in the room all at once. It wasn't unpleasant but it was unnerving.
“I have waited patiently for this day.” The thing spoke again as it pulled one of the chairs from the corner and took a seat, folding one of its otherwise human looking legs over the other and then folded its four fingers atop one another. The tone he used was of a casual indifference. As if he were speaking in a meeting he didn’t want to attend, as if it were beneath him. But through that there was a hint of malice and enjoyment that couldn't be placed.
“Wh-who are you…” I managed to eek out as I forced myself to barely sit up in my hospital bed a bit. I was scared, and that came through in my voice. I never felt so weak and vulnerable in my entire life. Dying as I was. And then, now, of all times, this thing appeared before me, I would be a fool to say I was not scared.
“That is of no consequence.” It uttered back, unmoved from its position, other than one of its long finger appendages reaching over to one of the long counter tables and gently sweeping it across it. “I have come to enlighten you on this day of days of what I have done.” It spoke, still, a casual indifference about it.
“What do you-” I began before I shut up as the entire hospital room changed around me, becoming a street I recognized well. It was from when I was growing up. The city near my hometown.
“Do you recognize this?” It asks in a tone that made it clear it could tell I did, as if it could hear my thoughts. “This is the city where you went to college, specifically March 3rd 1966.” it says matter-of-factly as a large oil truck passes right behind him. It was only now I was aware we were in this scene, this memory. I was still in my hospital bed, on the sidewalk and it was still in the chair, right off the edge of the sidewalk in a parking space. But the people around us didn't seem to notice us, they simply walked around us as if we were nothing more than a tree on the sidewalk. No matter how much of it my whole bed actually took up.
“Of course you don’t.” It says, now, with authority. “This is the day that, to you, nothing happened.” It says with a strong presence of joyful malice. “And it is that way because of me.”
Then I see myself, younger, not much past 20, standing on the corner of the street waiting for the bus to come pick me up, a perfectly average event for back then. In the distance I could see the bus I used to take, 109, waiting behind some cars in traffic.
“It was on this day you were supposed to change your life.” It says again with a certain malice.
It was then that I could hear from the otherside of the street a group of people standing in front of a small table handing out fliers. Political volunteers. They came through crystal clear even through the noise of the nearby cars and pedestrians.
“Looking for any and all volunteers! No experience required! Help your local branch of the Democratic Party! We need any and all people interested in making a change in their community!” The man handing out the fliers yells into the crowded streets.
“Yes. This was supposed to be an important day for you.” It uttered again. I turned to myself, standing on the corner of the street, my gaze generally looking off into the distance idly as I began to take notice of the man handing out fliers. There seemed to be a look of passing interest on my face as I seemed to be contemplating if I wanted to go over before there was a car crash behind me, one car rear-ended the other. The sound was loud which made my younger self jump a bit and turn around and watch the scene that unfolded.
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The person in the front car got out holding a tire iron and started berating and threatening the person in the back car, meanwhile the person in the back car was yelling back, but within the safety of his car.
This scene played out for a few minutes, both me and my younger self watching it unfold until the bus finally arrived at the bus stop. My younger self then got on the bus, paid the driver, and then I watched as it drove away.
“I don't… understand…” I said meekly as this whole scene played out before me. I had no idea what was going on, or why this was happening.
It sighs before waving one of its long fingers. “On this day you were supposed to join your little political movement, getting into it as a volunteer.” It spoke as the scene shifted to one where my younger self accepted the flier. Then, before I could say anything, the scene shifted again to a completely different one, this time we were in front of the state capital building protesting the passing of a law that, even now, I disagreed with. But unlike me, my younger self was quite involved in these protests.
“Slowly, you became more and more involved in the growing political movement.” It says as the scene shifts to showing my younger self now being the one to hand out fliers. “And more involved.” It says as the scene shows me in front of a podium in a small room giving a speech. “And more.” Now it shows me, slightly older but still young, accepting a grant for something I didn't recognize as I stood in a suit shaking the hands of the old city mayor. “And more.” Now it showed me standing on that same podium as I seemed to be running for the mayor in a heated debate with an opponent. “And more.” It says as the scenes begin to show more and more. A whole life seems to pass before my eyes, as a whole political career I didn’t embark on flies past me culminating in me becoming President of the United States.
The creature seems to stop the scene on the victory speech I gave when I became president in this vision he was showing me. “But you didn't stop there. You were to go on and push past reforms that would send your country ahead hundreds of years” The scenes changed again as I saw me shaking hands with scientists, geologists, astronauts, social workers, and other country leaders. “And finally, you were to unite the world more formally into one larger government under the formal control of the UN. Under your leadership wars would be a dream of the past. Hunger would have been mostly eliminated. Homelessness would have dropped to one tenth of what it is now, and the humans would begin to explore the stars, looking for new lands to call home.” It explains, each piece of imagery it planted in my head was accompanied with a corresponding scene.
“And in the end you were to have died, a celebrated, and vaunted leader of humanity, your name forever blazed in your people’s history as one of the greats.” It finishes as we finally return to my hospital room as if nothing had happened at all.
‘And yet, I changed that.” It spoke, coldly, like it was looking at a mere bug that had insulted it. “All I had to do was change one tiny thing in your timeline, one simple moment so you would miss your opportunity and your whole life fell apart.”
“I-I-I don’t understand… why? Why did you do this?” I ask, my voice shaky as I was near in tears, This was all too much. My whole life was… a mistake? I didn’t even have time to wrap my head around it.
“Yes.” It spoke. If it could smile its grin would be as wide as it could go. That was the impression I got from its tone. But it was one born out of an enjoyment of my suffering. I understood that now. “You asked why?” It said as it stood up, folding its fingers behind its back. “Because I wanted to.” It said coldly after a moment to let the room breathe. “I wanted to see the expression you would make when you learn about what you should have been, could have been, how much your life was supposed to mean before I came along and snatched it away.” It crept closer, every word a step closer to my bedside as it loomed over me like a monster ready to eat a meal.
“I came to hear your screams.” It said with unending joy.
My head was spinning, my life was in question, I was on the verge of a panic attack, it was hard to keep focus, I was unsure what to do or think. But as I gripped my chest my breathing became ragged as I could feel my life slowly becoming thinner by the second I gazed into its expressionless face. Its eyes glaring back into mine with joy. And then the uncertainty fell.
I slowly began to smirk as I looked back at him. A cocky and defiant smile breaking out on my face. “I don't know… how this other me would have defined success…” I say, through heavy breathing that was making it quite a chore to speak. “But even if i'm not some great hero, even if i'm not a man who united the world, even if i'm not some famous man. I still lived.” I say in spite of the creature before me, trying to break my spirit.
“I don't need accolades, or fancy awards to say I was successful.” I said as I slowly brought up my right arm, with some effort. “I lived my life the way I wanted to.” My breathing was getting very labored now, it was getting harder and harder to take each breath, my arm I was raising felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.
“And no amount of meddling from you can make me regret the path I chose in life.” I said, my eyes blazing with a fierce determination not to bow down in the face of this existential crisis. And with my arm raised I flipped him the bird. This almighty creature. This thing from out of space time as I understood it. I flipped it off with every fiber of my being.
From its eyes alone I could tell it was shocked, neigh, incensed at my response. Based on what it said earlier it probably expected me to break down crying or something, and, arriving at my deathbed, it probably hoped my last memory would be of the life I didn’t lead, but I wasn't going to give it that satisfaction. I was going to go out on my own terms.
“Humans make our own destinies. Bitch.” I said with a smug and defiant tone before I could feel my strength leave me. I could hear the sound of my heart rate monitor flatline as my arm loses all the strength it has left and it collapses at my side.
I could vaguely hear the sounds of nurses and doctors beginning to file into the room, even as my vision and hearing were starting to go, I could still see the creature standing over my bedside. Its bright yellow eyes staring at me in shock, disbelief, and most importantly, anger. That's it, in my final moments, even if I couldn't change anything about what that creature did, I had won. I left without giving it an ounce of satisfaction.
And so finally, with my struggle over, I slowly close my eyes, and let myself rest.