The End of Time

Submitted into Contest #180 in response to: Write about someone whose luck is running out.... view prompt

32 comments

American Romance Mystery

It wasn't noise that caused his eyelids to flutter.


It couldn't have been because all he could hear was deafening silence.


He wasn’t even sure where he was or why he had been asleep. He only knew that he was now awake. Dazed, he looked around the cabin, struggling to see anything in the darkness.


As his eyes adjusted, he was struck by how nothing and yet everything seemed familiar.


His memory, however, hadn’t failed him completely. He knew his name was James, and he knew the woman to his right was Eileen, his beloved wife. That being true, he had no earthly idea how he ended up strapped to a chair, or why Eileen was strapped to the chair next to him. 


The brain is a complex organ, moving at a rate so fast that it sometimes leaves consciousness behind. Instinctively, James quickly freed himself, feeling a primal urge to get to Eileen. He needed to know she was all right. 


She wasn’t.


As far as James could tell, he was in perfect health. But the love of his life, his precious Eileen, wasn't breathing. Her body appeared cold and stiff.


“Help me!” he called out in a panic, his words forceful and deliberate. “Please—is there anyone there?”  


Nothing


"She's not breathing—she needs help!" The words were heavy and raw, but somehow James knew they were fruitless.


Before, he had lived a charmed life. Some said he was born lucky, but he always replied that luck was the residue of design. One thing was certain now, any luck he might have had was—like his wife—gone. He was alone, stripped of his short term memory and facing his worst nightmare.


It had been only minutes since he had regained consciousness, at least it seemed that way. A few things, however, were abundantly clear. Eileen was dead, the cabin was dark and bitterly cold, and he had lost all track of time.  


James tried to open the cabin door but found it was locked. The back of the cabin, however was completely gone. In its place there was a gaping hole large enough for a truck to drive through.


In the moonlight, James could see old snow crusting around the rough opening as new snow continued to fall. Although grateful for the protection the cabin afforded, it was no match for the bitter cold which began to penetrate his sports coat and slacks.


The adrenaline that had provided his only warmth was starting to wear off. James shivered uncontrollably. He knew he couldn't survive long in subzero conditions. A brief search, aided by the last light of the phone retrieved from his pants pocket, revealed the harsh reality. The cabin offered no relief from the cold. His time was short. The frigid weather required immediate action.


In truth, however, James had no desire to formulate a plan or devise a strategy. What he wanted to do was weep for the loss of his wife. He wanted to tell her one last time how much he loved her. He wanted to give up, but somehow he knew Eileen would have forbidden it.


You can deal with that later, James thought to himself. Right now, survival depends on your ability to focus.


He made his way to the hole in the back of the cabin and trekked out into the woods. The snow, still fresh, made no sound as he walked, but its silence did nothing to hide its destructive chill.


Looking from left to right and only seeing trees, James made his way to the front of the cabin. At a time when he should have been consumed by panic, he was struck by the stark beauty of the serene landscape.


If he and Eileen had come here on one of their many hikes, he might have impetuously decided to build a house in these woods. He had promised his wife a dream home, but there was no escaping the truth that his life, whatever was left of it, would never be the same and would no longer include Eileen. Though the woods held an ethereal beauty, there was no solace to be found—certainly not in a frozen wasteland that was quickly becoming a coffin.


Lost in thought, James pictured Eileen and what might have been. He almost forgot to assess his situation. Almost


Breaking the silence, he could swear he heard his wife's voice. Don't dilly dally, James. There's work to be done. Heeding Eileen's unspoken admonition, James looked for anything that might be of use. 


There was nothing.


He observed the left side of the cabin, the side where the door was located, was under more than a foot of snow. There was no way he could open that door. He became grateful for the damage to the rear of the cabin. It allowed the cold air in, but it also provided an exit. Being outside cured any burgeoning claustrophobia with which he might have been afflicted, but it also brought into clear focus his seemingly unsolvable dilemma. He had to survive until morning. The night was a predator and he—its prey.


The last thing James had seen on his phone before the battery had gone completely dead was the time: 3:00 a.m. It would be at least four hours before sunlight would offer any relief from the frigid night. The cold provided the slap in the face he needed to knock him from his waking slumber. He wasn’t sure how he would survive, but he knew walking around in the snow in sub zero weather—in dress shoes—was not a good start. He headed back inside the cabin. 


Once indoors, James enjoyed the respite from the wind that seemed to have pierced him through. Now in survival mode, with his eyes adjusted to the low light, he retrieved the first aid kit from his initial search. Although seemingly unimportant at the time, he now grabbed it and flipped open the lid. He remembered that many kits contain Mylar blankets, small yet effective in prolonging life in cold weather emergencies. To his great relief, there was just such a blanket in the kit; he quickly wrapped the shiny foil around himself, waiting for its warming properties to take effect.


Four hours is no time at all when one is watching a double feature or playing a game of Monopoly. In fact, James could recall many times at work when he set aside an hour to work on a legal brief. Before he knew it, he was taking a call from Eileen asking why he had missed dinner. Four hours is no time at all unless one is sitting in a freezing cabin in the woods next to a dear wife who you will never see alive again.


Extreme cold can have an odd effect on one's thoughts. Strange ideas started to enter his mind. Eileen had been wearing a sweater and what looked like some very warm woolen socks. He could use both to increase his chances of survival, but then she might get cold. His first impulse—as always—was to care for her. The desire to protect his wife was great, yet so was his desire to live. These few articles of her clothing, small as they were, offered life in the middle of the night, in the middle of winter, in the middle of nowhere.  


“Eileen, do you mind if I borrow your sweater and socks?”


There was comfort in hearing a voice, even his own. Not at all, my dearest James. Eileen would never have said my dearest James, but in the fog of delusion that drove a man to have a conversation with himself, her imagined words seemed perfectly natural.


Undressing someone who is deceased and bound to a chair in a frozen cabin is harder than one might initially think. James’s hands shook, showing the first signs of frostbite. Getting a firm grip on anything had become quite a chore. That and the rigid nature of Eileen’s body seem to make the act of retrieving the warm clothing take hours. Had his phone battery not died, he would have noticed that no more than a few minutes had passed during his struggle to warm himself.


Once he had donned the sweater and socks, he wondered if her articles of clothing actually made his torso or feet measurably warmer. However, he felt closer to Eileen, making up for the difficulty of the task.


As he sat in his chair, wrapped in his blanket, wearing his wife's clothing, the hours turned to minutes. Suddenly, James became painfully aware of the lie recounted by every author of every book he had ever read. Great philosophers and theologians had postulated that as individuals moved closer to death, their entire lives would flash before their eyes. 


This was demonstrably untrue. 


As he felt the encroaching effect of hypothermia—first on his hands and feet, then throughout his body, slowly chilling the vital organs that sustained his life—he didn’t reflect back on the moments passed. He thought long and hard about the moments unrealized. The grandchildren he and Eileen would never hold, the travels they would never make, the forever home they would never build, and the front porch they would never occupy. James didn’t miss the things he had; he missed the things he missed. All he wanted to do was to sit in his rocking chair next to Eileen, holding her hand as the sun set.  


It was then he finally understood what he had to do. Summoning all the strength he had left, he took off the sweater and socks he had borrowed from Eileen and returned them to their rightful owner. He folded up the Mylar blanket that was his only source of heat and placed it carefully back in the first aid kit. He returned to his seat, where he belonged, right next to his wife, and took her hand in his. In that moment all was exactly as it had been when he first opened his eyes. Content with his decision, he looked at his wife, then simply closed his eyes for the last time.


James would never know that less than twenty minutes after he had passed away that rescuers, guided by the signal from the black box in the plane's cabin, would find the star-crossed lovers. 


No one knew exactly why James's plane had crashed. He was, after all, an experienced pilot flying a brand new plane. According to the autopsy, the pair were listed as dying from blunt force trauma and hypothermia. Newspaper articles were written about the tragedy that had befallen the couple, but no one who was there when they were found viewed it as such. The rescuers, instead, told of a love story about two people, encapsulated in the wreckage of an airplane’s cabin, holding hands for eternity.


January 07, 2023 01:38

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32 comments

Rosemary Kash
16:46 Jan 20, 2023

I read this story a couple days ago and I find myself still thinking about it. I am also reading “The Last Cuentista”. There is a married couple, who are a sleep in stasis as they travel across the solar system to a new planet. For reasons, spoilers, the wife is purged—floated out in space— a whole life time before her husband. Both stories make me wistfully sad. There is some relief in my feelings that at least the couple from your story got to go together.

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Thom With An H
17:28 Jan 20, 2023

This was, in so many ways, my hope for what a true love story should be. No matter what your view of eternity is I want to spend mine with the one person I can't live without. As an aside, I wrote a story called One Small Step. It's nothing like this one but you reminded me of it with your reference to The Last Cuentista. It is my one attempt, so far, at science fiction. Give it a read if you have a minute or two. :-)

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Wendy Kaminski
01:42 Jan 20, 2023

As always, your writing leaves me speechless. ("Writeless"?) This is beautiful and surprising like the first snow at a full moon, and every description just... perfect. I am so envious of your gift! I loved it. :)

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Thom With An H
02:09 Jan 20, 2023

Wendy, I don’t know how to adequately thank you for your kindness and encouragement. I think all writers suffer from imposter syndrome so hearing feedback like your makes me want to write more. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

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Saffa Mir
19:25 Jan 18, 2023

Hey , Thom Brodkin , you are such a profound soul. Just started reading your stories and I can totally relate once, one said : A tale from someone's heart must reaches other's heart. Heart to heart and soul to soul connection from you. 🤍

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Thom With An H
20:02 Jan 18, 2023

What a tremendous compliment. There is nothing more important to a writer than to connect with the reader. You have validated me in so many was. Thank you so much!!!

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Saffa Mir
05:43 Jan 19, 2023

🌸🌸

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Michelle Oliver
23:45 Jan 17, 2023

Oh… just oh… I loved the way you showed their love and that line, “She wasn’t”… so stark, no emotion just fact. I felt the shock right then. “The brain is a complex organ, moving at a rate so fast that it sometimes leaves consciousness behind.“ This sentence sums that up for me, the shock and dislocation of thought and emotion. I love the way he gave his wife back her clothing, as if at that point it was important to ensure that she be comfortable, as he made the decision to go with her. So sad. I also like that you hold back on some things...

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Thom With An H
00:38 Jan 18, 2023

Michelle, once again you see things I want people to see but never know if they do. I don’t know if there is a greater gift you can give a writer. Thank you.

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Michelle Oliver
02:43 Jan 18, 2023

You are welcome. Please keep writing these wonderful stories, I really enjoy them

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Hannah K
03:37 Jan 09, 2023

Great story! Reading through this and some of your other stories, I can tell you're great at coming up with intriguing plots. That's a great skill to have as some authors find plotting the most difficult part of writing. You could definitely take this story line, flesh it out and expand it into a novel. I had no idea what was going on until the last couple paragraphs. You just said "cabin," not airplane cabin, so I thought someone had kidnapped the main character and his wife, drugged them and tied them up in a cabin in the woods. I was ...

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Thom With An H
16:08 Jan 09, 2023

I don't know if I am much of a mystery writer but I love a twist at the end. This one was fun to write because I did so thinking about how the reader would react and you showed me I was right on track. Thanks so much, truly.

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Hannah K
17:28 Jan 09, 2023

Yes! I loved the suspense. Great job!

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Lily Finch
23:51 Jan 08, 2023

Thom, my favourite line, "He thought long and hard about the moments unrealized. The grandchildren he and Eileen would never hold, the travels they would never make, the forever home they would never build, and the front porch they would never occupy. James didn’t miss the things he had; he missed the things he missed." I thought that was brilliant writing. The story is a love story for the times. It demonstrates the survival instinct we all have but then the realization sets in that he is going to die so he chooses to die holding his dead w...

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Thom With An H
16:07 Jan 09, 2023

Lily, I'm so glad you enjoyed this story. Love manifests itself in so many different ways. I feel like your feedback validates what I was trying to say. Thanks for taking the time to read but even more so thanks for taking the time to encourage me. You are a true Reedsy friend.

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J.C. Lovero
15:38 Jan 08, 2023

Hi Thom, Such a powerful story about love. I could almost feel Eileen's presence throughout the narrative, even though she never had any actual lines of dialogue. Kudos to you as the storyteller to pull that off. The mystery element kept me reading as well, hoping to piece together what had actually happened. Nice way to build suspense. The ending was bittersweet but made sense and was fitting inside the context of the rest of the story. Well done! Some lines that caught my attention: Though the woods held an ethereal beauty, there was ...

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Thom With An H
16:04 Jan 09, 2023

J.C. you are Reedsy royalty and I feel like I know you from your times guest hosting the read lots/write lots podcast. I say all this to let you know how much your feedback means to me. I have been tweaking this story trying to make it just right and you make me feel as if I'm there. Thanks for your feedback and kindness. It means the world to me.

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Tommy Goround
15:09 Jan 16, 2023

It's probably "just right* now.

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J.C. Lovero
02:03 Jan 10, 2023

Aww shucks, you're making me blush. YOU are royalty, my dear. Keep racking up those wins.

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Mostafa Fayad
00:52 Jan 08, 2023

great writing style, you just grabbed me into the story from the very first word to the last word, this link in the story telling is great. easy, simple, and attractive. keep it up brother by the way this number 17, we are almost there, fellah.

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Thom With An H
16:09 Jan 09, 2023

Mostaf, my friend. I really appreciate your kindness and hard work. I'm sorry we couldn't talk Thursday. Would this Thursday work for you?

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Mostafa Fayad
18:08 Jan 09, 2023

Hello, Thom, my friend i think i will be ok with this, i will confirm the time with you via E-mail tomorrow night

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Mary Lehnert
02:58 Jan 20, 2023

Absolutely lovely. Thomas. Like all great stories I’m transfixed. Thought he might be rescued but the ending is inevitable. Gosh! This is good.

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Wally Schmidt
20:01 Jan 19, 2023

I didn't realize until far into the story that it took place in a plane. I thought the cabin was in the woods and couldn't understand why he didn't think it was odd that they were strapped in their seats. (I envisioned a robbery-gone-wrong situation). Regardless of setting, you have written a beautiful love story. My favorite line was "James didn’t miss the things he had; he missed the things he missed."

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Susan Catucci
17:49 Jan 19, 2023

Oh, stop it, Thom! How can all your stories seem better than the last? Is there a portrait hanging in your attic or something? I hope you leave your brain to science because you have something really special going on in there. I bow to you (and I'm not trying to be overboard - I'm genuinely in awe) :0 Just one of many favorites: "Luck was the residue of design." Love, love it.

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BRUCE MARTIN
01:40 Jan 19, 2023

Hi, Thom, this was an amazing story, and beautifully written. I loved it.

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Ernest Karibo
00:31 Jan 19, 2023

Another mind blowing story 🥹

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Tommy Goround
15:07 Jan 16, 2023

:) What an interesting dilemma. The way the James keeps thinking about his mate. Lovely. Clapping.

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Karen Kinley
23:05 Jan 15, 2023

Wow! You had me enthralled the entire way through. I, too, believed he was in a "cabin" in the woods. Details made no sense until the twist at the end. Such a beautiful love story. I felt ALL of it!

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Helen A Smith
10:02 Jan 15, 2023

Thanks Thom. I got really involved in the story which was full of twists and turns. I particularly enjoyed the twist at the end discovering it was a plane cabin rather than an outside cabin. I imagined the pair had been tied up and left by someone. Also struck by the MC thinking long and hard about unrealised moments so many of them in life. Also, no end of possible conclusions kept me gripped till the end.

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Kelsey H
10:42 Jan 11, 2023

Loved the twist ending on this! With the reference to being strapped I had assumed some kind of kidnapping and that unknown threat combined with the real threat of the cold weather made for a great sense of tension throughout the story, waiting to see where it was all going. His reflections on his life and what he was going to miss out on and then sitting back down beside his wife - I loved the real human emotion of that sequence after the practicality of his fight for survival. Then when you revealed the ending it all made sense, but witho...

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Laurel Hanson
14:53 Jan 10, 2023

This is both gripping to read and beautiful. You have so many lovely, reflective moments. IE: "luck was the residue of design" and "James didn’t miss the things he had; he missed the things he missed." This last captures such a truth as does his decision. Great story. I would argue that four hours playing monopoly, rather than passing in an instant, might be the best example of time itself slowing down, but I am pretty sure that is a subjective observation. :)

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