Before the countdown, you are never fully aware of the countdown to come. We are all aware of the end but none of us know for certain how we feel at the final countdown. But when it begins it is all too present, and you are all too aware. 

Ten 

When the countdown begins, you could feel normal. You could be in the hospital, you could be walking down the street or behind the wheel of a car. Or with others. Maybe someone else's countdown has begun too. You wouldn’t know. 

Maybe you have been expecting this. Hopefully or with despair. Maybe you haven't. It won’t change anything. The countdown has begun

Ready or not, the last moments, the final countdown, the right before will happen. Right now. 

Nine

You start feeling strange. Maybe not in pain, but you can feel that something is coming. And you are unsure if you like this feeling. Maybe you ignore it, maybe you lock your doors, maybe you call your doctor friend, and maybe if you have been expecting your countdown you know what it is immediately. 

‘This feeling could be anything’ you tell yourself. So you go to check that everything is in order. Do the brakes on my car work? Did I close the refrigerator? Did I make dinner? Did I forget to go to the supermarket? Did I make that spreadsheet for work? 

Eight

The moment before, the feeling intensifies. For one millisecond you can feel it in your bones that something that is going to change everything is going to happen. Then there is a deadly calm, a panicked calm. A calm that you know precedes the storm. 

Then it happens. 

Seven 

Disorientation. 

You ask yourself what's happening, and remember ‘Oh that's right, I am going to leave soon.’

Six

Fear or acceptance

Pain or peace

Despair or joy

Panic or calm

Frustration and anger or understanding and kindness

It is your choice how you decide to react. Certain reactions could be easier on those around you than others, but ultimately the choice is yours. 

Five

You think about what the purpose of it all was. Is all the living worth the bad? Worth dying? Worth the pain? Worth the hardship? Why does everyone say that it is worth it? 

You tell yourself that you would have been better off without experiencing life if it meant that you would be freed from this, this awful part of your life that you thought you would be able to leave for later

Four

If you’re lucky you get to talk, if you’re luckier you get to talk to someone you love. 

Here is where you spill all your secrets. Where you apologize and if you’re lucky enough, kiss the one you love for the last time. 

Maybe you’ll impose some last words of wisdom that don’t really make sense. Or give your necklace to your nephew and tell him the story behind each charm. 

If you don’t have anyone you love around then maybe you will ask someone to pass on a message, or you’ll scribble a few words on a piece of paper. 

However you choose to spend your seconds, the people around you will remember it. 

Three 

You don’t get to interact with the world anymore. 

Maybe you can still see. Still feel, smell, taste, and hear. Or maybe those senses left with your 

ability to interact. 

You are forced to retreat into yourself where you will spend the last numbers in your countdown. 

To the people around you, you have already gone.

Maybe you feel panic in this peace. Or peace in the lack of choice. Or maybe you aren’t in your 

body anymore, but you’re seeing the whole thing from a birds-eye view, as though your soul has already left your body.   

And maybe you’ll smile and fly away. Or you’ll begin screaming internally desperate for someone to hear you. 

Two

Your whole life is compressed into one second. 

You see yourself as a child, full of life, resilient, and adaptable. You remember your favorite toy and that game that your siblings used to play with you.

You see yourself as a teenager, young and confused and scared, but hopeful and smart. You remember the first time you saw your best friends in math class on a Tuesday afternoon. And you remember how it felt to think critically for the first time.

You see yourself as a young adult, ready to take on the world. You see yourself get your first real job and get your own place.  

And you see the rest of your life too, you see yourself make mistakes, you watch yourself fall in love, get married, get heartbroken, and fall in love again.

You see yourself fail, and succeed. You see all the times when you fell and got back up. And you see when you gave up, and when you refused to give up. 

And maybe after seeing all that, you decide that it wasn’t worth anything. Because you didn’t get that dream job or find someone to have kids with or make your Mom understand. 

Or, after seeing the lives that you touched, positively and negatively, you will see that if you hadn’t have lived, you wouldn’t have affected so many people.  

One 

Darkness or maybe light? 

Peace or flame? 

A new everlasting night. 

Are we still a person? 

Are you a ‘you’ or an ‘it’? 

Don’t worry, you won't have to ponder these questions. 

Not when the countdown reaches one. 

The people around us cry

They cannot join us, 

So with choked voices and tears in their eyes, 

They try to find a way to say ‘goodbye’. 

How can a simple word be so painful? 

Or so cathartic? 

Same context, different connotation. 

“Life is strange in that way” ~ Your last thought?

From the moment we close our eyes and stop our hearts,

That is the moment that they hurt the most because they cannot follow and we can’t stay,

Because our time is finally up and the next adventure starts,