So This Is the End

by Alexandra Franzen

  So This

  Is the End

  This book is dedicated to Brandon.

  I’m grateful for every day, hour, and minute with you.

  So This

  Is the End

  — A Love Story —

  Alexandra Franzen

  Copyright © 2018 Alexandra Franzen

  Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.

  Cover Design: Joanna Price - joannapricedesign.com

  Layout & Design: Roberto Nunez

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  So This Is the End: A Love Story

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2018940706.

  ISBN: (paperback) 978-1-63353-788-0, (ebook) 978-1-63353-789-7

  BISAC category code FIC044000 — FICTION / Women

  Printed in the United States of America

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events or actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Hour One

  Hour Two

  Hour Three

  Hour Four

  Hour Five

  Hour Six

  Hour Seven

  Hour Eight

  Hour Nine

  Hour Ten

  Hour Eleven

  Hour Twelve

  Hour Thirteen

  Hour Fourteen

  Hour Fifteen

  Hour Sixteen

  Hour Seventeen

  Hour Eighteen

  Hour Nineteen

  Hour Twenty

  Hour Twenty-One

  Hour Twenty-Two

  Hour Twenty-Three

  Hour Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  Book Club Discussion Questions

  Thank You

  Alexandra Franzen

  Hour One

  For the first twenty minutes or so, most people feel dizzy, parched, and disoriented. Others experience a flushed, frenzied feeling—like a feverish euphoria. But it’s different for everyone. A small percentage of patients experience what doctors euphemistically describe as “a period of brief discomfort.” Understatement of the century? Uh, yeah.

  Currently, my “period of brief discomfort” includes jolts of searing pain in completely random places. My left ankle. The center of my forearms. The rims of my eyes. The fleshy connective tissue holding my hipbones in place. The soft underside of each fingernail.

  The pain is so unbelievably intense, it’s almost indescribable. The worst part is that I can’t ask for help. I want to speak, but my throat feels paralyzed—like when you’re dreaming and you’re falling hopelessly off the edge of a skyscraper, or running to escape a pack of rabid wolves, and you try to scream but nothing comes out of your mouth. Not even the smallest sound. But I know I’m not dreaming. I know what this is.

  A nurse wearing powder-pink scrubs pats my hand and encourages me to take a few deep breaths. Her voice is soft, her tone unconcerned. She’s seen this scenario a hundred times before.

  She coos, “Just a few more minutes. I know, I know, it’s no fun, but you’re doing great. This is totally normal. I know, I know . . .” and keeps patting my hand. Pat, pat, pat.

  I focus my eyes on the clock mounted onto the hospital wall and I will myself to breathe. One small sip of air every few seconds. Tick, tock, tick. The second hand moves hypnotically inside its glass cage, one notch at a time. Black hand. White clock. Beige wall. Speckled tiles. I wonder how long I’ve been conscious. There are no windows. I wonder if it’s morning or night.

  Warmth spreads across my body, and I feel something shift inside of me. Muscles loosen. Neural pathways reignite. The nurse checks the dilation of my eyes.

  “Do you think you can sit upright? How about a few sips of juice?” she asks.

  I nod. She offers me a small plastic cup of orange juice, and it tastes like seaweed, egg yolks, and black licorice. It’s all wrong. I wince and try to spit it out, but my face doesn’t cooperate and now it’s dribbling down my chin. Humiliating. She smiles kindly.

  “Taste is one of the last senses to return,” she explains. “But don’t worry, all of your vitals look perfect. Just give it a little more time. You’re almost there. Try to stay relaxed, and don’t move your left arm, OK?”

  She gestures towards my arm, which is hooked up to a massive electrolyte drip. “The doctor will stop by shortly for your exit examination.”

  She pads out of the room in her spotless white sneakers. There’s a metal tray to my right, and I set down my glass of undrinkable juice, switching to water instead. It tastes like water is supposed to, which is a considerable relief. I gulp as quickly as I can, letting it lubricate my raw, cottony, aggravated throat. Happily, my facial muscles cooperate a bit better this time. No dribbling. I down the entire glass. I feel like I could drink forever.

  There’s the most god-awful taste in my mouth, and it’s not from the juice. It’s my own breath. It’s a horrible stench. Rotten. Deathly. Like I just smoked a moldy cigarette and washed it down with a can of oily sardines and stale corn chips. The water helps a little. Not enough. Note to self: find a toothbrush as soon as humanly possible.

  I gaze at the wall-mounted clock once again, finding it oddly soothing. The second hand moves rhythmically—pulsing forward, unendingly, like the ocean lapping the shore.

  There’s a reason for all of this.

  A reason why I feel like human garbage. A reason why there’s an IV needle piercing my left arm. Why I’m waiting to be examined by a doctor in a room I’ve never seen before. Why I’m lying here, semi-paralyzed, gradually regaining control over my body.

  I chose this.

  This is my “bonus round.”

  An extra twenty-four hours of life, even though I’ve already died. “Temporary Cellular Resuscitation” is the official medical terminology. TCR for short.

  I’ve been resuscitated—successfully, it appears—and now I have approximately twenty-four hours to do whatever I want. Call my mom. Say goodbye to friends. Make amends. Watch the sunset one last time. You know, wrap things up with a nice, tidy bow before my body wilts and I die again a second time—permanently. Because that’s how it works. After you die a second time, that’s it. It’s fully and completely over. You don’t come back. There is no third chance. Hence the word: “Temporary.”

  TCR is pretty expensive. Health insurance doesn’t cover it because it’s considered an elective procedure. A luxury—like laser hair removal or teeth whitening—not a necessity.
Some people think it’s frivolous. Conservative religious types think it’s tampering with God’s plan. Most people think it’s an unnecessary expense or simply can’t afford it. Some, I suspect, could afford it but choose not to invest because they don’t want to think about dying—let alone dying twice. Bottom line: most people don’t purchase TCR.

  Apparently, I’m not most people.

  As soon as TCR was approved by the FDA, I leapt at the chance to purchase it. I honestly can’t explain why it appealed to me so much. Curiosity, maybe. Fear. Both. I don’t know. Who knows why anybody wants anything they want? I just knew that I wanted—needed—this procedure. A chance to rebound from death back to life? Sign me up. I couldn’t really afford it, but I impulsively made the purchase anyway.

  I called the TCR agency located closest to my home—I searched on Yelp first, of course, and it got terrific reviews, almost entirely five stars—and I spoke to a cheery, somewhat robotic customer service rep.

  She asked for my birth date, home address, social security number to automatically notify the IRS in the event of my death (“One less loose end for your loved ones to tie up!” she explained enthusiastically), the name of my primary care physician, family health history, and all the other pieces of administrative minutiae that you would expect.

  “Would you like to make a series of three payments, or shall we take care of your entire payment today?” she asked me in a thoroughly rehearsed fashion.

  All of it, I confirmed. I paid the $9,999 fee with my American Express Gold Rewards card, maxing out my limit. The sales rep explained that I’d receive an email confirmation note within minutes, and that I’d be entered into a nationwide database so I could receive the TCR procedure at any hospital, anywhere in the United States.

  “Except Hawaii and Alaska,” she added. “Though we are working diligently on expanding our coverage base.”

  Awesome. I can die almost anywhere I want, I remember thinking morbidly. Such a convenience.

  “Thank you for your purchase today. On behalf of everyone here at the Timeless Moments TCR Clinic of Minneapolis, I’m wishing you good health, and I hope you won’t need the service you’ve purchased for a very long time.”

  “Me too,” I replied. That was the end of our conversation.

  I died at my local hospital less than three years after that phone call. I was thirty-two years old. Or should I say, I am thirty-two years old? I guess today, the answer is: both.

  I know it sounds so cliché, but it hasn’t really settled in that I’m dead. It doesn’t feel real yet. I thought I’d have more time. A lot more time. I guess almost everyone thinks that.

  I’m feeling lightheaded, and I wonder if that’s another TCR side effect. Seems pretty likely.

  TCR is a pretty crazy procedure—like something out of a sci-fi movie. Every cell in my body has been artificially revived with an intense electric shock, plus an influx of fresh plasma and electrolytes, plus an intrathecal injection. So, imagine a giant needle filled with epinephrine—pure adrenaline, basically—pumping directly into your spinal column. A flood of synthetic, lab-generated hormones flooding your body combined with that lightning snap of electricity and Zow! You’re temporarily back in action. Like Frankenstein’s monster, but without the green skin and those weird plugs on either side of your neck.

  And here I am.

  This is Hour One. The very first hour of my twenty-four-hour bonus round. I paid for it—now it’s my time to use however I want.

  Obviously, I want to make the most of this extra time. I want to maximize every minute.

  Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that I’ll get exactly twenty-four hours—that’s more of an average guideline. Around hour twenty-three, most people start to fade. Fainting. Wobbling. Progressive organ shut down. It could happen sooner. Or you might be one of the lucky ones and get past the twenty-four-hour mark. They say this one guy in Croatia made it to twenty-nine hours and fourteen minutes. That’s the record.

  Some experts claim that stress-relief techniques—like meditation, or even a glass of red wine—can help to extend the TCR timeframe and help you eke out a couple of extra minutes, maybe even an extra hour, but who knows? New studies are being done all the time and the findings never seem consistent. The only thing that’s certain is that TCR provides a second chance at life, but pretty quickly, the ride is over. There’s a big, fat period at the end of the sentence, not an ellipsis.

  I glance at the clock. Is it my imagination, or is the second hand moving at double-speed? I feel flushed with urgency, itching to get out of this bed. Where is that damn doctor?

  I am thirty minutes into my bonus round, and I’ve done basically nothing except feel uncomfortable, pathetically choke down some water, and stare at the clock on the wall. Jesus. Not exactly a rip-roaring start to my last day on earth.

  My phone is resting on the tray next to my half-finished juice. I should call my mom. Except I have no idea what to say.

  “Hi, mom, I’m dead … but I’m sorta-fake-alive for about a day, so I figured I’d call … uh, how’s the retirement center? Are they serving Jell-O tonight?”

  Yeah, no. I’m not emotionally ready for that phone call just yet. Maybe in a few hours.

  I flip through my phone to the Memo section where I jot down notes and reminders. I know I’ve got a list in there called “bonus round,” filled with all the things I told myself I would definitely do on this very special day.

  “Eat a cheeseburger.” “Pet a puppy.” “Dance like nobody’s watching.”

  It’s a long list filled with all kinds of obvious stuff like that. Dance like nobody’s watching? Seriously? That’s the best I could come up with? None of it feels important anymore—and time is running out.

  What is taking the doctor so long?

  Exasperated, I down the rest of my juice. It tastes like oranges should. So that’s good.

  Maybe I should check Facebook.

  Hour Two

  The first thing I do is change my Facebook status to “Remembering.”

  That’s Facebook’s polite way of indicating, “This person is dead—let’s remember them fondly, shall we?”

  I prop myself up and angle my phone from above so I can take a hospital bed selfie. As usual, it takes about fifteen tries before I get a decent looking photo. I tweak the color saturation and add a filter to make myself look a little more vibrant, a little less gross. Then I post the photo along with an update:

  So … I died.

  I pause, weighing my words carefully. What are you supposed to say in this type of situation? How do you announce your own death to hundreds of semi-friends?

  Remember that weird thing that was going on with my heart, guys? The crazy-fast beating and fluttering feeling?

  Well, as some of you already know, I was diagnosed with genetic arrhythmia, and I went into surgery for a catheter ablation. (That’s a fancy term for: doctors using lasers to cauterize the rogue cell that was causing my heart to beat irregularly.)

  Ablations are typically a really safe procedure. Super high success rate. 99.4% of patients get through it with no problem. .6% don’t make it. I was one of the .6%.

  Turns out, I died due to a complication with the anesthesia. Some type of freak allergic reaction to the drugs or something. They didn’t even have a chance to begin the surgery. I died before they even cut me open.

  I pause again, wondering how I know all of these specific details about my death.

  Was I briefed by my surgeon at some point? I don’t remember that conversation. Yet the information is flowing out of my fingertips, and I know each word is one hundred percent accurate, but how could I know all of this? I was unconscious throughout all of it. At least, I think I was. Or maybe some part of me was conscious the whole time, watching from inside, or from outside my body? Watching from above?

  It’s too weird to proces
s the implications of what that could mean, so I focus my attention back onto Facebook. I keep typing.

  So that’s how I died. I guess I should feel shocked, or upset, but it hasn’t fully hit me yet …

  Maybe I’m “oversharing.” Is Facebook the right place for this type of announcement? Do my online friends and acquaintances really want to hear all of this? I’m aware that it’s kind of a bummer. Also, how do I finish up this post? Maybe something like:

  This is your sorta-dead friend, over and out, you may now return to your baby photos, engagement rings, and cat memes?

  Uh, no.

  I drum my fingers for a few moments, trying to think of some type of witty closing statement. You know. Probably the final words I’ll ever write. No pressure or anything.

  I settle on this:

  I’m doing my “bonus round” right now. Struggling to think of things to do with my time. I’ve got about twenty-four hours before … you know. Any ideas?

  I post the update and lean back in my hospital bed. I refresh the screen.

  Jesus Christ. So many comments. Such a big reaction, more than anything I’ve ever posted before. Everyone has an opinion on what I ought to do with my bonus round. Well, I did ask.

  Watch the sunset …

  Go bungee jumping …

  Eat a TON of chocolate …

  Dance like nobody’s watching …

  The list goes on and on. Dozens of well-intentioned suggestions. Maybe even hundreds. But for some reason, all of the encouraging words just make me even more frustrated and depressed. Also: why is everyone obsessed with dancing like nobody’s watching? Who decided that’s the “thing” to do to before your time on earth is up? Oprah? Deepak Chopra? The cast of Dancing with the Stars?

  I know my friends are just trying to help—but it’s not helping. They don’t get it. Nobody gets it. Not a single one of my friends can understand what this feels like—this feeling of absolute finality. Knowing that time is, quite literally, running out.