Subconscious Fate

“The unconscious mind works in ways mankind could not even begin to understand." Harry declares confidently, securing wires to my head in four strategic points. The cold steel contrasts sharply in the warmth of the bar. 

 "Maybe it’s best we don’t." I say as he clips a watch on my wrist. I want to tear it off. Like some child who just got fastened in a roller coaster seat and realizes pretending to be brave to impress their friends was no longer the most important thing in the world. 

  Leah laughs from the seat across from me, looking as ridiculous as I am, wires already entwined her hair. "No backing out now Ivan. We already agreed that we will all press the button at the same time."

  She is right. On some random January 20 like today you wouldn’t normally find me here. You’d find the four of us on the other side of the glass, walking around the Bryant Park after studying at the Schwarzman, pretending to be better than the people at these bars because we talked of art and philosophies and the meaning of life. Then Harry’s uncle went ahead and died and he wasn’t sure he knew it at all. Forty-five was young and Harry’s never lost a close family member before. He started mentioning that thing we knew but never talked about: the people at the bars were probably happier than us. 

  So here we are, behind the glass. Because as that really old saying goes - you never know what moment could be your last. If Harry’s uncle knew, he would have went somewhere or done something and maybe complained a little less. 

 Though, It was no longer a saying in year 2035. It was a dangerous thought that will put you in a bar with wires spilling out of your head - staring at a button on your wrist watch and hoping you don’t push it. 

 Harry checks the glowing manual, then inspects each of our heads. He hopes that the device will help him make the decision of whether he should go back to medical school or stay here in NYC for his acting. “My father found out that I’d rather be broke and play dress up than be rich and save lives so he talked some sense into me," He said, of course, this was before his uncle died. "I’m going back to school. And then maybe in twenty years, when I rest my head on a pillow and think of anything other than what I owe my landlord, I’ll attend auditions again." When we sighed, he defended himself by listing famous actors who made it in their fifties. 

  The device became his hope, his obsession to find meaning. 

We catch the attention of a couple passerby’s. They ask if these watches and wires were that thing they saw on the news and then they asked how we knew it really would work. Harry proudly told them that our unconscious knows more than our consciousness, that it controls our heart beat and our digestive system and studies are only beginning to understand what else it is aware of. He told them that it is a storehouse of our true fate, thus why it influences our actions through dreams and desires. 

  "These wires were developed to scan it," Harry says, "to tell us sooner than later where we are headed." 

  They chuckle and tell us we are brave and that drinks are on them. Only really, I am not doing this because I am brave. It’s the opposite, really. See, the thing is, I’ve always been afraid of death. 

I am passionate about history and want to visit rome, though, I never left the country because I wont fly in an airplane. I am passionate about swimming and little Ivan had coral reef bedsheets, you figure the ocean would be a dream vacation for me, right? Not a chance. Too many sharks. You may think that if I am so afraid of death I should be the last person to press this button, to have The Timespan reminding me of it every time I look down. But it wasn’t really death I was afraid of, it was the unpredictably of it. My stupid logic: once I press this button, my fear will vanish. 

If I die on Thursday, I’ll go to Rome on Tuesday, then to swim in the ocean on Wednesday. 

  "All it is," Leah took a breath and looked to her watch, "that one life changing Pinterest quote you swore you’d remember then forgot… all it is." 

 Devon rose his finger above his, ready to press the button. "Bet Harry’s uncle would have loved to have known when he was going to go, yeah?" 

  "Yeah," I answer. My heart skips a beat. This was really happening. On the count of three, I jam my thumb into the button. My chin jolts up. It feels like a brain freeze, only with hot instead of cold. It lasts only a second. I pull the wires off of my skin and look at what remaining numbers life has given me. 

  54 years, 3 months, 24 days, 6 hours, 3 minutes, 10 seconds, 

9 seconds,

8 seconds, 

7 seconds, 

 At first glance I thought that was no time at all, then I added up my age. 24 + 54 = 78. I’ll die at 78. I let out a breath. My grandmother lived to 76 and she was old as grave. This wasn’t bad at all. 

3 seconds, 

2 seconds,

 My breath shakes, I turn my focus to the others. The blue hologram’s lit their calculating eyes. Leah grins, "I’ll die an old woman!" She has a 49 years glowing proudly. Devon asks for a drink - 23 years, his says. I tell him that this device is new and who’s to say it even works. Though, I’m not surprised. Both his parents died very young and he walked the tightrope of life without a safety net. A sudden hush falls over the group. As if time itself slowed down, the atmosphere in the bar becomes tense. Everyone stared at Harry’s numbers, acknowledging the weight with every ticking second. 

  0 years, 0 months, 10 days, 2 hours, 10 minutes, 5 seconds, 

4 seconds, 

3 seconds, 

2 seconds.

 Harry’s gaze stays fixed on the rapidly decreasing seconds. Leah breaks the silence, "Harry, it’s just a device. It can’t predict anything.”

 Devon chimes in, "yeah, man. Maybe it’s malfunctioning or something."

 Harry doesn’t respond, his eyes locked on the holographic countdown as It fell to nine minuets, the seconds began to count down from 59. 

 Ten days, I say to myself. Could January 30 be the end of Harry Edwards? I place a comforting hand on his shoulder and tell him if it is true, it will be the best 10 days anyone’s ever lived. He says nothing but nods a little. We forget the drinks, bring him to his apartment, and tell him to get some rest. He still says nothing. I tell Devon and Leah that the device cannot be telling the truth because Harry is young and cautious, but, even if it is, we certainly cannot wait around and find out. 

  So we go to Rome. I’m glad I did and am sorry I ever didn’t. Peering through the airplane window is like gauzing into a parallel universe. The tapestry of the world unfolds before my eyes. The entire ocean is below my feet and I see the slight curvature of the earth - the world we live on really is round, I don’t know why I never truly thought of it before. Before we land, everyone puts their phones and cameras in my backpack and vows not to touch them. Harry says he didn’t even bring his and that he was ready to live and soak up everything life has to offer. Like anyone who goes to Rome we first visit the colosseum, then the Pantheon, then we walk until our legs burn and our throats hurt from gasping and laughing. We talk about how history breaths through every stone, how we felt the dialogue of the past in every step. Then we eat, check into our hotel, and go to the club. Harry sways off cooly and says he’s gonna to approach one of the pretty girls we spotted at the counter, Leah gives me a proud look - our plan for him to have fun during his last days is seemingly working - I raise my drink in return. 

 Though, when I go to the bathroom, I find Harry. His shoulder collapsing into the wall, he talks into his phone frantically, watching the counter on his wrist. "Nine days," he breathed, "they say I have nine days, doc. Eight…almost eight now. Could you please look again?" He doesn’t see me. "Re-run the blood tests or… there is something wrong with me, there has to be," his voice trailed off. He saw me now. When I go back to the others, I don’t tell them about Harry. I only say we should leave Rome tomorrow to change the scenery, so we do. We jump on the first plane to Cuba. 

 Harry falls asleep in his seat - a whole thirteen hours. I’d worry he was wasting time but he didn’t get any rest at the hotel last night. I woke to a little line of light under the bathroom door, his voice muttering over and over again. He just needs some exercise, I think, he will be alright when we go swim in the ocean.

 "I’m going to donate my organs," was the first thing he says when the plane landed. "That’s a good thing to do, yeah?" 

 Devon looks at Leah, I look outside. 

Harry check his watch - 8 days. 

 We go to the water and the instructors strap us in our gear. When we go underwater, I am in awe of the sight. I never comprehended that all these vibrant colours of reefs exist all together outside of the paintings, but here they are - like a child’s play dough creation scattered ten feet below the surface.

 Afterwards, we sit under a large umbrella and watch the teal ocean cook in the sunset. There is a theatre on the resort. I was thinking maybe we could go and secure Harry a role, that it would be something he would want to spend his last days doing, but he says he doesn’t want to think about acting right now. So Instead Devon gets us to laugh about all of our most embarrassing moments. Harry catches on eventually, laughing along, he begins to cough. He checks his hand for blood. There is nothing. He gets up and phones the doctor anyway - leaving the three of us watching the sunset alone. I wish he could have seen it, It is the most beautiful one I ever saw. 

  When everything goes dark, I press the button on my wrist and watch as the hologram floats above it - 54 years, the seconds tick. 

 One thing about Harry is that he was always torn. Torn between becoming a doctor or an actor, torn between calling his brother and making amends or ignoring him forever, and even now, nearing his death, he could not enjoy the amusements we planned for him. He was too torn between finding comfort in pretending he wasn’t dying or finding comfort in talking about the afterlife. 

 He has three days left when we go back to New York. He writes his will. He donates his organs. He says his heartfelt goodbyes to his family. He cooks a meal for his mother. He tells his father he’s sorry because he would have chosen to be an actor - a good one. Better than anyone he’s ever seen. He hugs his brother. He phones Jan, a girl from high school, and confesses that he once swore on marrying her. "Good news!" He tells us, "she wants to meet for a coffee next week." He laughs, though, I hear the anxiety in his voice, he speaks so fast that he has to repeat himself twice.

  On January 29, he bursts into the emergency room with dark circles hanging under his eyes. He begs the doctors to take him in. They deny him, he shows them his watch - 23 hours remain, the seconds continue to tick. They tell him that they’ve already done all tests they’ve come back clear, that he should go home to his loved ones instead. 

  "I was thinking maybe,” I phone Leah, "we could raid every corner store on the block and go to his apartment tonight. Pull out four mattresses and put them in front of the TV, tell stories or watch old comedies… until… you know."

 So Leah tells Devon. We spend hundreds on drinks and chips and every barely edible borderline poisonous corner store food you can think of. When we go to his apartment, he doesn’t answer. His neighbour says that she saw Harry today. He told her to knock twice on the wall if a sketchy looking gentlemen or the landlord shows up, that they will probably have a gun. She also saw him shuffling wood and nails into his room and heard the sound of construction. We try to break through the door but cannot. We shout for him. We call his cell. He does not open the door nor answer the phone. 

 So we go to Devon’s, he turns on the news. Around now, the last couple minutes on Harry’s watch would be running out, I try to phone him, but he still doesn’t answer. Leah dumps a bag of food on the table and stress-eats, rambling about how we should call the police. Just as I began dialing 911, I hear Devon’s laughter from the TV lit living room. It sounds like something between a wheeze and a shout. Leah rushes and goes to slap him for his incompetence, but she sees the news broadcaster and her hand freezes. I slowly drop my phone and enter the doorway. Devon wheezes into the remote as he struggles to rewind it for me. The news reporter says that a Scientist called Davy H. Laurier is facing backlash for recalling the Timespan Watch. It was proven to be a fraud and customers who outlived it are threatening to sue. We rewind it again and again and again and again. 

 I picture Harry’s hologram ticking to the very last second. 

 0 years, 0 months, 0 days, 0 minuets, 0 seconds. 

 I couldn’t even laugh. I only imagine what Harry’s reaction will be when he hears of this, his relief. How he will go on to have that coffee with Jan next week. His brother will cheer him on as he becomes the best actor his father has ever seen. Now I laugh, I cannot wait to tell him all of this, atlas he understood the meaning of life! I arrive to rub it in his face and tell him to save his cheers for the next time we hop on a plane and go to Cuba, but his neighbour tells me she called the ambulance and they took him to the hospital. I walk to the hospital, snickering as I recall his big mystical voice warning me about the unconscious mind and those big secrets of which mankind will never know. Though, when I arrive and the doctor tells me that Harry Edward’s has died from a heart attack, I think I begin to understand.