So This Is the End

by Alexandra Franzen

  I want to stay here but I am so tired. Ten miles beyond tired, fighting for consciousness but losing the battle. My thoughts dissolve into particles of nothingness, and then there are no more words at all. My eyelids are heavy, dropping down, closing like curtains. Falling, closing, and then the world is just a slice of light.

  The last thing I feel is his arm slipping under my neck, cradling my head.

  So this is the end.

  Epilogue

  — Ren —

  I held her and she was there.

  I held her and she wasn’t there.

  I don’t know how else to describe it.

  Nora’s eyes closed slowly, almost in slow motion, like she was drinking in every last sliver of light and savoring each ray. So slowly, narrowing and narrowing, and then … nothing.

  I watched her ribcage rise and fall a few more times, and I whispered my love for her with every inhalation, as if my words could fill her lungs. Then her breathing became so faint that I couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead. And then she was gone. Just like that.

  It was a soft and peaceful exit from this world, as gentle as anyone could wish for. But I didn’t wish for this.

  In books, movies and snatches of conversations, I’ve overheard people say things like, “When such-and-such happened, a part of me died.”

  It’s a flippant turn of phrase. The person speaking usually doesn’t mean it. Not really. It’s just a commonly used exaggeration.

  This is no exaggeration for me.

  Watching her fade away, a part of me died. I mean really died.

  That feeling you get when you’re running too fast down a flight of stairs and you miss a step and begin to fall—that split second of gut-flipping panic and disorientation when you’re hovering in mid-air between two steps with no footing—imagine that sensation crashing through your body, over and over and over, with no reprieve. Hollowness. Anguish. Animalistic terror. Screaming with no sound, like in a terrible dream.

  I wanted to fling myself into whatever tunnel she was walking through.

  I wanted to follow her into the light, into the cosmos, wherever she was going.

  This was my first confrontation with death—with someone I actually care about—and I’ve discovered, to my shame, that I am completely unprepared. Like a child wandering through a carnival that is too loud and too bright, unattended and afraid. Like a wanderer with a broken compass, I am lost. I don’t know what to do with any of this.

  I don’t even know what to do with her body.

  Partly because the sun is growing uncomfortably warm, and partly because I don’t know what else to do next, I fold Nora over my shoulders and carry her from the rooftop back down to my apartment, silently praying that nobody sees us. Because I don’t really know how I’d explain any of this to my neighbors. “It’s cool, guys. It’s not what it looks like.” I can only imagine their horrified, stunned expressions. Followed by an immediate 911 call that would probably end with me in handcuffs.

  Back in the apartment, I arrange her on my bed. My heart is pounding with exertion—carrying a woman down multiple flights of stairs is no easy task, regardless of how fit you are—and I pace back and forth across my bedroom, catching my breath and running through my options.

  Am I supposed to call the hospital? Call the morgue? She gave me a handful of letters.

  Am I supposed to read them? Did she leave instructions inside?

  I reach into my pocket and withdraw one, two, three folded pieces of paper. One for her mother. One for that woman she told me about, Tasha. One for me.

  For me.

  I didn’t realize she wrote a letter for me.

  I tear it open hungrily, willing myself to read it slowly, to draw it out, and make it last. But of course I don’t have that kind of self-control, not right now, and I devour it greedily.

  Ren,

  Call Abbott Central Hospital. Give them your address. They’ll come to collect me.

  Please donate everything in my apartment to charity. Or Craigslist or whatever. Or keep some stuff if you want. There’s really not much in there. (I wrote my address on the back of this letter, FYI.)

  I don’t have that much money in my bank account, but whatever’s in there, it should go to my mom for her nursing care. I already filled out the form at my bank—a couple years ago—to make her my “payable-on-death” beneficiary, so there shouldn’t be any trouble with the transfer. But maybe call the nursing home, and let them know what’s up. Thanks. Also, please tell my mom that I love her.

  OK. That’s all the logistical stuff, I think. Obviously I should have written an official last will and testament—notarized and everything—but it’s one of those things that I always postponed until “someday later,” like most people do. So, I’m sorry to burden you with all those errands. I hope it’s not too much to deal with.

  The real point of this letter is to tell you that I have fallen in love with you. You own my heart. I know I already told you, but now you have physical proof, ink and paper:

  I love you.

  Thank for you reminding me—showing me—what it feels like to be alive.

  A part of me hopes you will remember the time that we shared forever, that you’ll fondly remember me on your deathbed many, many years from now. That you’ll never get over me. Not ever.

  But another part of me (the less selfish part) hopes that you’ll move on with your life very quickly—meet a beautiful woman, maybe at Voltage Coffee, or maybe she’ll wander into the dojo one afternoon and sign up for a beginner level Aikido class. You’ll feel that incredible spark. You’ll ask her out on a date. You’ll kiss her. She’ll kiss you back. You’ll take a sunset stroll, arm in arm, looping around Lake Calhoun, and everything will feel so simple and true. You’ll get married and have a zillion babies (or not, if you don’t want to) and live the fullest, richest life imaginable. That’s what I really hope for you. Because that’s the life you deserve.

  I love you, Ren.

  I love you, but I’m not saying goodbye.

  You told me that you believe in reincarnation—some variety of it, anyway—so wherever I am going, I will meet you there.

  Nora

  I read it over and over and over and over and over and then … one more time.

  I know it’s wrong. It’s seriously creepy, actually. But I’m so in love with this woman that I need to feel her lips on mine. Just one more time.

  My nose grazes her cheek, my lips claim her mouth, because even now, even like this, she’s still mine.

  Please don’t judge me for this, for what I’m about to say next. Unless you’ve lost someone you love, then you don’t understand the illogical, hysterical grief that overtakes you. The senseless behavior that follows. Because next, what I do is … I talk to her. All day long. I talk to her, and I stroke her hair, and I refill my glass of water, and I encircle us with blankets, like we’re savoring a lazy weekend together and everything is perfectly normal.

  I talk to her and I imagine her reactions, even though she’s motionless and cold. Even though I know she can’t hear me. Even though I know she’s gone.

  I tell her about my dreams for the dojo, how I’d love to expand the business, what I envision myself doing in five or ten years. I tell her about my dream of becoming a father, and how finally I’m at a point in my life where that feels like a responsible, viable possibility. I tell her about my favorite action movies, and my most secret of all secret guilty pleasures, which is that I really love watching home renovation TV shows where they take a fixer-upper and turn it into something absolutely stunning. Sometimes I’ll watch three or four episodes in a row, fantasizing about my future home . . .

  I talk and I talk. My stomach rumbles but I don’t eat. The sky outside darkens but I don’t care. I talk and I cry and I talk more, filling hours with my stories and recollections.

/>   I’m just not ready to say goodbye. Not ready to watch strangers carry her out of my home, out of my sight, never to return. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for that, and I want to postpone the agony of that moment until … well, basically until forever.

  I curl up close to her body, facing her with our knees touching. Then I shift up just a few inches so that her cheek rests on my chest. Something leaves my body, something silent and convulsive, halfway between a sob and a sigh. Eventually I’ll call the hospital.

  Eventually. But not yet. Hollow and stricken, I close my eyes.

  There’s a flutter.

  So faint, I almost miss it.

  Eyelashes on my collarbone.

  My eyes snap open in shock. For a moment, I’m convinced I’m hallucinating.

  “Am I still here?” Nora asks hoarsely. Her eyes flicker open, puzzled and searching. “Is this … how long … I don’t . . .”

  Before I can say anything, I need to kiss her again. I need to. I can’t not. Her legs clasp behind me and she wriggles into me, feeling warm, humanly warm, soft and yielding.

  “Ren, what happened? How long was I … ?” she asks softly, drifting into bewildered silence.

  “Nora, it’s been nine hours. Nine hours, Nora. Nine. Nine. Nine.” I am repeating myself, fully aware that I sound psychotic. But I can’t suppress my shock and elation.

  Nine hours have passed since the twenty-four-hour mark when she was supposed to die, permanently. And yet somehow she’s here. She’s back. She was cold. Now she’s warm. She was gone. Now there’s hope. Like the comatose man who regained the ability to speak after twenty years of complete paralysis. Like the boy submerged in freezing water for forty-three minutes who didn’t die. Like the magician who buried himself alive and escaped. Like the creation of the universe. Like Lazarus rising from the grave. Like every miracle, like every great mystery, there is no way of knowing exactly, “How?” There is no neat and tidy explanation. Only wonder. And gratitude. Unending gratitude.

  Everything seems impossible until it happens for the first time.

  Twenty-four plus nine equals thirty-three hours in total. That’s more, way more, than any TCR has ever lasted before. I’m pretty certain that’s a world record.

  “Am I the lucky freak mouse?” she asks me, so softly and roughly, barely more than a whisper.

  “I think, possibly, you might be. How do you feel?”

  I help her into a sitting position. She stares outward, facing my bedroom window, considering the darkening late afternoon sky with curiosity, as if she’s not quite convinced that any of this is real.

  Gently brushing my hands aside, she lifts herself onto her feet. She walks towards the edge of the rooftop. She looks up. She seems to be staring into nothing and into everything. I look up, too, taking in the outline of a faint, marbled moon. The spaces in between the branches of the trees where the light peeks through. The rippling of the breeze, that silky motion of leaves shifting left, shifting right.

  I want to explode with questions. But I say nothing, letting this moment be quiet and still.

  She takes a few steps to the right. I spring immediately to her side, arms outstretched protectively, just in case she falters or wobbles.

  She doesn’t.

  “Ren … it’s OK. I feel fine. Like, completely fine. Really thirsty, but otherwise, fine.”

  She turns to face me, her eyes wide and wondering, pupils dilated, two inky gemstones. I can read the unspoken questions in every curve and line of her face.

  How did this happen? What does this mean?

  And then, there’s that other unspoken question—the one that has haunted us practically since the moment we met.

  And how much time is left?

  I don’t know. She doesn’t know. Dr. Livingston at the Cambridge Medical Research Facility in England doesn’t know. Nobody knows. Human beings, with our procedures, tabulations, predictions, and our wild, egotistical assurance. We always think we know. And sometimes we do. But then sometimes we don’t.

  I move to her side, burying my face in her dark, silky hair. It smells like blueberries and waterfalls and coffee and the pillows on my bed. Like the city suspended around us.

  And like home.

  “Now what?” I ask, because I genuinely don’t know. “What do we do now?”

  She takes my hand in hers. She’s already moving down the ladder, down into my building, down towards the hallway that leads out into the rest of the world. She laces her fingers with mine and she tells me:

  “We go live.”

  A Note from the Author

  I have a friend who remembers all of her dreams. She wakes up at four or five in the morning, most days, and she records her dreams in a journal. She has collected over 80,000 words so far. Some people have that ability, you know? The ability to bolt awake in bed and remember everything that just happened.

  I am not one of those people.

  I almost never remember my dreams, and when I do, it’s usually an unbelievably boring situation. Like, a dream where I’m reviewing an Excel spreadsheet, or a dream where I’m answering an email and then (gasp, oh the horror!) I notice a typo. That sort of thing.

  But one night, something happened that I’d never experienced before.

  I woke up in the middle of the night, abruptly, like I’d been ripped into consciousness. I felt feverish and disoriented. My heart was pounding as if I’d been sprinting uphill and I was crying, but I didn’t know why.

  I felt Brandon’s presence behind me, warm and solid, and that comforted me. My heart rate began to slow down. I exhaled. And then, suddenly, I remembered everything.

  I remembered the entire dream I’d just had while I was sleeping. I could see every single detail, like it was a movie replaying in my head.

  In the dream, I had died. And somehow, doctors brought me back to life. A second chance. But they warned me, “This will only last for one day. Twenty-four hours.”

  Throughout the dream, I navigated my final day. I remember feeling a powerful, almost unbearable sense of urgency. It was like a pressure on my chest, a feeling of anxiety coupled with a desire to make every moment count. Time was passing too quickly. Everything was sharp, intense, and bittersweet. I hugged my parents and didn’t want to let go. I laid down on the grass with Brandon, pressed my skin close to his, and desperately wished we could have just a little bit longer, just a few more moments.

  Inside the dream, I remember feeling so grateful for this second chance. Grateful, but, at the same time, frightened and heartbroken. Because I knew, “This is the end.” There was nothing I could do to hold back time, to stop the inevitable ending from coming. And I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

  I still cry when I think about that dream. I cry every time. I wish I were a more talented writer so that I could convey, fully, how much it impacted me.

  For me, this dream was a wake-up call. It felt like God, Spirit, the Universe, whatever term you prefer, was shaking me awake and saying:

  “This is your one and only life. This is it. And I hate to break it to you, but this ride could end at any moment. So, go live. Really live. Appreciate each day. Savor every moment. Don’t waste time. Don’t sleepwalk, text, email, and tweet your way through your life. Don’t just stare at a digital screen for twelve hours a day. Don’t just exist. Be alive.”

  That dream was the inspiration behind the book. I hope you enjoyed Nora and Ren’s love story. I hope it inspires you to make a special meal for your sweetheart tonight, and say “I love you” and really mean it, and hold your kids close, and take a spontaneous trip with a friend instead of postponing it until next year, and turn off your phone and look up into the night sky, and really feel your life.

  If you had exactly twenty-four hours remaining in the story of your life, what would you do?

  What would matter? What wouldn’t mat
ter at all? What would you miss the most about this world? Would it be the smell of pancakes on Sunday morning? The feeling of freshly laundered sheets on your bed? The quiet satisfaction that comes from finishing a tough, sweaty workout? Beach days, camping trips, friends and cold beers around the fire pit, or the pulse of your favorite music? Curling your fingers through your partner’s hand as you meander through the aisles of the grocery store? What are the moments you love most?

  Let’s try, as best we can, to fill our lives with those kinds of moments and appreciate them fully. Today is here. Tomorrow is never guaranteed. The end is always coming. There’s no time to waste.

  Book Club Discussion Questions

  1.At the beginning of the story, Nora wakes up in a hospital bed. She has received Temporary Cellular Resuscitation (TCR), which has temporarily revived her body, giving her an extra twenty-four hours of life—like re-charging a battery.

  If a procedure like TCR existed in real life, would you want to do it? Why or why not?

  2.If you were creating a list called “Things to Do During My Final Twenty-Four Hours of Life,” what would be on that list? What would definitely not be on that list?

  3.After waking up in the hospital, Nora reaches for her phone to announce her death on Facebook. If you were in her position, would you do the same thing? Why or why not? What’s your feeling on social media? Do you think it plays too big of a role in our lives?

  4.Nora’s story takes an exciting turn after she meets Tasha, the woman who pushes her to create an online dating profile and go on a first date. Do you have a “Tasha” in your own life—someone who pushes you out of your comfort zone, who nudges you to take risks that you wouldn’t normally take? Who is that person for you?

  5.Nora and Ren both feel an immediate connection and fall in love very quickly. Do you think it’s possible to really be “in love” with someone after just a few hours? Have you ever experienced that? Or do you think it’s unrealistic?