Mother barks the command as she stokes the cooking fire, then places the blackened kettle over it once more. I force a swallow against my shaking nerves. If I stick to my planned detour, I’ll be late for Assessment. Once I’ve transformed my coffee into a liquid dessert, I spoon oatmeal into a dish and calculate my schedule: Five minutes to eat, five minutes to change, ten minutes to walk there. My morning pick-me-up splashes over the rim. She slides a wooden mug filled with coffee across the table with one hand, and reaches for the creamer with the other. You’ve wasted seventeen years, let’s not spoil your last one. She blows a stray hair away from her face. The rough kitchen table crowds most of the walking space unless all four chairs are pushed in tight. Cold morning light reflects off the soapsuds. A metal wash tin and a red water pump sit to my left, beneath our only glass window. The rectangular kitchen glows under the heat of the cooking fire on the opposite wall. "It’s my time I waste sleeping, not yours." Pity her morning greeting isn’t as warm as the breakfast she slams on the table. She sweeps past bearing a mixing bowl of steaming cinnamon oatmeal.
I push through the bedroom door into the kitchen and just miss a collision with my mother. It’s the same face every morning: tangled hair, bleary chocolate eyes, and a waspish glare that doesn’t leave until after coffee. I pull on a pair of wool socks-a frequent Christmas gift of which I never grow weary-and ignore the mirror. I creep to the open window, flick a shivering spider off the sill into the October breeze, and close the shutters. My toes curl like pill bugs when they touch the cold wood floor. I’ve always thought it cruel they include the seconds. Three hundred sixty-four days, seven hours, five minutes, and sixteen-no, fifteen-seconds to live. Today marks the first day of my last year alive. My thin rectangular Clock sits on the carved shelf across the room, clicking its red digital numbers-red like blood. Personally, I think He just gave the world what it thought it wanted: control. I guess God decided to share the coveted knowledge. I wasn’t alive then-back when life bore adventure and death held surprise. There was once a time when only God knew the day you’d die.Īt least that’s what they tell me.
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