Here Today Gone Tomorrow

Joseph Tano’s life ended abruptly just past the fourth hour of his 17,204th day. It was unremarkable enough an event, a coronary. When the moment came, he barely stirred. His wife slept peacefully next to him unaware and unable to hear Joseph’s terrified pleading as he watched the last twinkle of light he’d ever see recede into an expanding void until the darkness snuffed it out altogether. Death was wholly unexpected. There’d been no indications, no physiological omens that made him suspect his final moments had come. The rational part of him understood sudden death was a possibility but he always convinced himself that only happened to other people. His first instinct was to try and claw out of the encroaching darkness, but he felt no hands.  He dissolved into the spaceless nowhere. There was nothing but his blinking thoughts.
“Nobody told me how lonely this would be”
The final pulsing of the neuron clusters that formed this thought was the last and faintest flash of is vanquished existence.

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