Death, or the Tragic Life of a Scarecrow

I wonder how many other guys have lost their minds in a coffee shop.  Actually, I’ve seen it happen briefly, from time to time.  Whenever Trish walks in with her little skirt and her slender legs, gliding through the door and behind the counter like some beautiful wraith to clock in for her shift, guys tend to lose control of their motor functions.  I’ve seen tongues fall out of mouths, coffee mugs slip out of loose, sweaty fingers, and – just this morning – an electrocution as a man plugged a fork into the power outlet instead of his laptop cable. 

But my insanity didn’t come from Trish, nor did it cause me to behave like a bumbling four-year-old.  It manifested itself in another way.  I felt fine, actually.  My mind was clear and I had gone on a jog earlier, before the sun was even up.  Aside from the glowing red numbers floating above everyone’s heads, it would’ve been a completely normal morning.

At first I thought it was some practical joke.  I never understood that phrase practical joke.  There was nothing practical about practical jokes, and this is exactly what I thought when I saw the first person with a number over their head walk through the coffee shop door.  After a group of them had formed a line in front of the counter, as if everything was normal and they were all waiting to order, I took notice that no one in the “audience” was laughing.  I didn’t get it, but then again, I thought, I never really get practical jokes.  I didn’t find flash mobs or that sort of thing funny either, which this had potential to be.  But surely someone would have at least chuckled by now.  No one except me even seemed to be paying any attention.

I remember looking away for a moment – a moment – and seeing several more of the numbered people sitting in booths around the shop.  “That’s why they weren’t laughing”, I thought at first. “They are part of it, too.”  Surely it was a flash mob of some kind.  I was going to be on some improv group’s Youtube channel.  If they were looking for a humorous reaction to their little gag, I wasn’t going to give it to them.  I didn’t even know how to react.  Why is wearing a number above your head funny?  I’ve been told I am lacking a funny bone, however, so I can’t really judge.

But then I really started to look at the numbers.  The people weren’t wearing hats.  They certainly weren’t holding the numbers above their heads. 

Have you ever seen one of those shows they do at Disneyland?  Where a movie or something is projected onto a screen of fog?  That’s what these numbers looked like, except without the fog.  They were just floating; inexplicably floating right there – now above every single person’s head in the coffee shop, including Trish’s.  Was she in on it, too?

I turned around in my booth. “Hey,” I said to the man behind me.  Of course, he had a number, too – big and red and ethereal.   He folded his newspaper and set it on the table, turned around and looked me in the eye.

“Yes?” he said, as if he had no idea what I was about to ask. 

“What’s, uh, going on here?” I articulated.

He looked at me, supposedly puzzled.  Then he looked about the room briefly, as if scanning for some anomaly.

“What do you mean?” he asked.  He was good.

I looked up at the number above his head with a very apparent raising of my eyebrows, and then back down to him, keeping my eyebrows up inquisitively, just to make the question clearer.

He frowned and turned around to look at the ceiling behind him, and then the wall.  After his inspection he faced me once more.  Looking me in the face he raised his eyebrows, and then lowered them.  Mimicry is my least favorite form of comedy.

“The numbers,” I said, unable to be subtle any longer. “What’s the joke?  I don’t get it.”

“Numbers?” the man said.  “What numbers?”

I made a broad gesture with my arm, incorporating the rest of the coffee house. “Those numbers!” I said, a little too loud, admittedly.  I was getting frustrated. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“I….Just….Look at them!” I said. “You have one, too!  What are they?  Come on, I just want to know what you guys are getting at.”

“Listen, pal,” I hate ‘pal’. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.  I have to be going anyway, sorry.” And with that he got up, crumpled his newspaper, threw it hastily in the trash, and walked out the door, taking his number with him.      

I stoically sat in my booth for a few moments longer, thinking harder than I preferred to think this early in the morning.

Unable to come to any conclusion, and – quite honestly – more than a little perturbed at the steady flow of hovering crimson digits that came and went with their owners, I got up and left.

I really shouldn’t have been surprised.  Where did I think all those entering the coffee shop had been coming from?  But, for some reason, I was shocked to see the streets filled with the same pranksters, random numbers hovering above them, tagging along like strange little pets.

Maybe something else was going.  Maybe they weren’t playing a joke.

Maybe they didn’t even know.

I started down the block, not really headed anywhere specific, watching the numbers floating by.  27.  81.  14.  53.  12.

I couldn’t figure it out.  I tried to add some of them together.  Maybe that group of teenage girls would add up to something meaningful…183.  Nope.  Maybe if I just watched one for a while, something would happen.

I sat down on a bench outside a bakery.  I must’ve seen a hundred numbers go by in a matter of minutes, none having any correlation with the others.

I watched a man from the bakery – who I knew to be the owner – come outside to serve a young couple their cinnamon rolls and coffee, the numbers of all three of them intermingling as the server bent down to set the plates on the table.  The owner returned inside with his 8 and the couple’s jubilant conversation was presided over only by the glowing 52 and 17 watching them closely from above. 

The sidewalks were so full that if I squinted and blurred my vision I could see a continuous stream of red paralleling the street on either side.  For a moment I thought it could be a dream, but then decided against that theory; it wasn’t weird enough to be a dream.  Everything was normal except for the numbers, and my dreams tend to be unnaturally strange.

The server came out once more a couple minutes later to check on 52 and 17.

He came and went so fast, I almost didn’t notice it.

He was now a 5.  He was an 8 before, I was sure of it. 

I got up and went into the bakery.

“How ya doing today, my man?” 5 said.

“Just fine, thanks,” I lied. “And yourself?”

“Wonderful!  What can I get for ya?”

I wanted to talk to him, but I didn’t want to seem awkward or suspicious, so I ordered a scone.

“You got anythin fun goin on tonight, my man?” he asked me.  Still a 5.

“Uh, not really,” I answered, barely paying attention, keeping my eyes on his number as he bagged my pastry. “Just catching up on some work.  You?”

“’Course!  No one in New York ever asks a question like that ‘less they have somethin goin’ on themselves, ya know?”

I chuckled half-heartedly.

“My daughter’s in a play tonight,” I handed him a couple bucks and told him to keep the change.  He nodded his thanks. “The Wizard of Oz,” he continued, after passing me my bag. “She’s the one that needs a brain.  It’ll be her first time on stage.  I’m kinda tellin’ every one ‘bout it.”

There.  4.  Right before my eyes.

“Cute,” And then realizing that could be taken as something pretty rude, I said, “I wish her the best of luck in finding that brain.”  It had changed.  I saw it.  The number was dropping.  No one else’s was, though.  Why was he different?

“Thank you very much, my man.  I’ll be seein’ you.”

I had a hard time pulling myself away from him; what would happen when it hit zero?  Outside the shop I wrestled with the idea of telling him about his decreasing number, but decided against it pretty quickly.  That would not be an easy conversation.  Plus, by the time I got him to understand me he would probably have already hit zero.

I decided to just wait it out, outside on the bench.  Every minute or so I would peak in to check on him.  Soon enough Mr. 4 was now Mr. 1.

My hands started to sweat, although I didn’t understand why.  I felt like a bomb was about to go off inside the bakery.  The knowledge that I was moments away from having my question answered was somehow a frightening thing.

52 and 17 got up to leave at last.  As they walked away, Mr. 1 came outside to get their dishes and trash.  His back was turned to me so I couldn’t see what he was doing, but he seemed to pause for a moment.  Then he ran across the street after the couple, waving something in his hand.

“Hey!  Hey!” he yelled “You forgot your sunglasses!  Hey!” 

And that’s when I knew the number was a timer that counted down until the moment you would die.  This became startlingly clear as Mr. Zero cracked the windshield of a taxi, rolled off the roof, and landed in the street behind it, unmoving, his body twisted into a grotesquely unnatural position.

Several witnesses, including 52 and 17, rushed over to him.  Some people screamed.  I saw a woman on the other side of the street vomit.

But I simply sat there, at my bench.  I sat at that little bench outside the owner-less bakery and tried to force my mind to resuscitate itself.  I watched as little floating, red numbers bobbed and spun in the street with their respective civilians, frantically fumbling with their phones and covering their mouths in disbelief.

Years, I thought.  They are years. 

The shock of realizing that I knew when every single person was going to die was somehow more powerful that the shock of actually witnessing one of those deaths.  Mr. Zero’s had been in minutes.

I stood up suddenly.  I don’t know why.  I started to walk, jaw clenched, hands in pockets, head down, away from the accident.

I could almost feel the sickening heat radiating from the numbers as I walked by them; a thing neither tangible nor supernatural.  The crack of the windshield replayed each time my foot touched the concrete, the screams of the witnesses not far behind – terrible, aching stabs inside my head.

I saw my feet reflected in a clothing store window.  I stopped.  Slowly I allowed my vision to drift upwards, until the scarlet fringe was visible just above my head.

But no.

I couldn’t.

I kept walking, head down, and now angled towards the street.

And then I was four blocks away from the accident.  No one here was aware anything had happened.  I blurred my vision so that the numbers became fiery smudges, and walked into a bank.

It wasn’t even my bank, I don’t think.  I couldn’t remember.  I stood in line for a while.  I studied the pattern of the tiles on the floor.  Blue and green diamonds overlapped in parallel lines within the confines of each slick, shining square.  Sir  A pattern that could seemingly continue forever was suddenly reduced to a finite image as the borders blocked its progression, cutting it off so a new diamond could begin.  Sir  From above, the temporary, unalterable condition of these patterns was so obvious.

“Sir!  Excuse me, sir!” My hanging head snapped up and I locked eyes with a teller beckoning me forward.  41. “I can help you now, sir.”

For a moment I wasn’t sure where I was.  I looked down the line of employees protected behind glass, each helping a customer.  41.  22.  14.  32.  53.  51.

“Are you alright?” A voice from behind me said.  I turned around.  A mother stood with her child, holding him by the hand.  He had to stretch above his head to reach his mother’s slender fingers, allowing them to interlock with his own.  It looked like he was holding on tightly.

And then, before I could answer, I felt as if I might be abruptly and violently sick.  I felt my insides convulse.  My face began to burn, whether from a startling anger at the world and its relentless gauntlet of terrible truths, or from the imminent retching feeling bubbling in my throat, I could not tell.

The little boy had two years to live.  At least, I hoped they were years.

I don’t remember leaving the bank, and the only sign that I had was the change in the patterns of the tiles under my feet.  They were now an abstract blend of tan and peach swatches, lit by the sun.  I was in an outdoor shopping mall.  I didn’t remember how I got there.

Slowly and painfully I forced myself to look up.

All around me were reminders of the unavoidably linear path of each and every person’s mortality.  Was this Fate at her most corporeal moment?  Why would she reveal herself only to me?

I was lost in a crimson sea of fatalistic digits.  They swirled about me as I felt my own ever-present specter spitting its sobering, haunting heat upon my shoulders; something I probably only imagined to exist.  And then, whether by mistake or my own subconscious design, I caught a glimpse of myself in the window of a frozen yogurt shop.

57.

…57.

That…wasn’t bad.

At all.  That wasn’t bad at all.

I would live to be 91.  That’s…good.

That’s… a long ways away.

I was suddenly inspired by this notion.  Maybe it was the realization that I had a full life ahead of me, the rush of relieving truth – the illumination of my many days to come.  Maybe it was that I now knew my termination point, and was filled with a powerful desire to make something of the time in between now and then.

Maybe it was the fear of knowing that, on my 91^st birthday, I would live each and every day with a dreadful anticipation, and the anxious notion that that time was so far away, yet still crawling towards me with every new angle of the sun.  

As I thought about the moment of my death, I felt more alive than I ever had before.

I looked back at the yogurt shop window.

54.