Twenty Minutes

Twenty minutes. That’s all the time left.


What are you going to do? Let Fate take its course. Fight for with the belief there is no tomorrow.

Learned that a lady went to the hospital. She was in her mid-20s was ill for some time, a week perhaps. She learned that her condition was more serious than she thought. Nurse said it was advanced and inoperable. Days was all she had. Unconscious, slipping in and out of wakefulness, she woke. Learned that she had minutes left. Twenty minutes that is all the time that you have. Mortality is minutes away.

What Are you going to do? An argument ensues, like the ones before. It escalates to from tornado of screaming and shouting. To a quiet silence, than it erupts to a physical exchange.Chairs destroyed. Holes in the wall manifest.  Before too long, one realizes it, the point of no return is behind them. Knives drawn, guns shot. Blood gushes. Body on the floor.

What are you going to do? Global Warming heats up again, iceberg melts, Oil wells dried up. Floods destroy towns. Drinking water is depleted. Food is scarce. Matial Law is enforced. Gangs rule. Darfur,  Doomsday clock ticks and there is no rewind or pause. Critical mass has been reached. Big One is coming. Hurricane Bunch changed course (Sorry Corrina) and you are the mobile home park in its path way. She is ready to lay waste..

What are you going to do? Enough.

If instead of twenty minutes, how about twenty hours? Has perspective change? How about twenty days? One better to get one's effects in order. Twenty years? Feel more relaxed. Time pressure lifted, can breathe a little easier. When at some point does one start taking things more seriously? When are you going to play and be with the ones you love? When are you  going to let go of the past and move on? When does one live life fuller? When does one do the things that one believes they are supposed to do?

Thing is we make mistakes. We change directions. We go a different way. We lose sight of the goals sought and realize the abilities possessed before have waned. We lose that fire that drives. The passion that moved us, gone. We get stuck in Death Denial. A new term from cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker. Movies comes from the Flight From Death: the Quest for Immortality.

Before too long the twenty years, the twenty days, twenty hours, becomes twenty minutes. Trouble is we don’t know when that last twenty has started. Before we know it is twenty seconds.

What do you wish to accomplish? Have you taken steps to reach that goal? What is holding you back? What do you want to take with you? What do you want to let go? Sorry, Times up.

Twenty missed passed.