Here Today Gone Tomorrow

Joseph's life ended abruptly. It was an unremarkable event, a coronary. When the moment came, he barely stirred. His wife slept peacefully next to him, unaware and oblivious to Joseph's terrified pleas as he watched the last twinkle of light he'd ever see recede into an expanding void until it disappeared from view. 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 it only happened to other people. His instinct was to try and claw out of the darkness, but he felt no hands. He dissolved into the spaceless nowhere. There was nothing but his fading 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 a vanquished existence.

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