Chapter Text
I’ve always done my best to be a good person. I ride my bike instead of using a car, I don’t judge people, I donate money to charities. I haven’t done anything wrong–Hell, I give my girlfriend cards and flowers every month. But, for some reason, that didn’t matter. Not to the universe anyways.
It started on July 15th. I’d woken up late that day, as my alarm hadn’t gone off. For some reason. Either way, it seemed the rest of my morning was going shitty as well because I had also just ran out of literally any convenient breakfast food. No bread, no cereal, no eggs. I took the milk out of the fridge, only to discover that it’d gone bad a week ago.
I guess fate decided I just wasn’t worth giving good luck that day.
I got in the shower after that, ice cold as always. I’d heard something about that helping with the environment, and I figured it was an easy and small thing to do. Even if it froze my bones every morning. At the time I’d just stood there, washing my hair, oblivious.
I hadn’t thought about how nice it was to actually live. To be able to have an apartment in this economy. To have a job even. It’s like how when you’re not sick, you take for granted how nice it is not to have your nose stuffed up all the time.
Once I got out of the shower, I leaned on the sink, brushing my teeth. The toothpaste tasted like shit, but I tried my best to use eco-friendly stuff. Y’know. For the environment. Speaking of that, one of my lightbulbs over the mirror went out when I spit into the sink, flickering before eventually just dying. I stared up at it, huffing a sigh before just deciding to deal with it when I got home that day. I bought power-efficient light bulbs as a way to save on money, but they had a habit of breaking often.
Walking out of the bathroom, I pulled out my phone to text my girlfriend good morning. Her name was Charlie, and we’d met at a coffee shop two years ago. She was the sweetest girl I’d ever met, and I worked hard to make her happy. She’d been in the process of moving in at the time, and there were already a few boxes of her things in my hallway.
I grabbed my uniform from my closet, tugging on the black pants and red collared shirt. I tied my server apron around my waist, then clipped on the name tag.
Stuffing the phone back into my pocket and grabbing my bag, I left my home for what would be the last time.
The scenery was the same as always. Same stores, same streets, same trees. People walked along the pavement, looking into the stores. It was boring, and I honestly wished I could go somewhere new, but I hadn’t been able to afford a vacation (even out of state) for a very long time.
As I walked down the stairs, I slid my hands into my pockets. I still had a few quarters from my last shift, tips that were far too little for me to care about them.
Once I reached the parking lot of the apartment complex, I navigated towards where my bike was locked up. It was around the side of the building, where all of the dumpsters were. When I rounded the corner, I noticed a homeless man sitting there. I locked eyes with him, suddenly frozen.
He reached his hand up. “Do you have any spare change? Or food..? I’ll take anything, I’m just hungry and I need food.”
I blinked at him once, then twice. “...Sorry, I don’t have anything.”
Without another word, I unlocked my bike, walking it back to the main parking lot as quickly as I could.
I was biking to my job at Viva Italia, the local Italian restaurant. It was owned by a husband and wife–Luciano and Carla–and was relatively small. We got decent business, and I was paid a generous wage, so I didn’t hate my job. I still had long hours and my feet hurt from standing all day, but at least I didn’t work some dead end office job, right?
The gears on my bike were beginning to get rusty, and the pedals kept getting stuck. At one point, it completely snagged. I managed to get off the road in time, hopping off my bike. I squinted at the gears.
“Goddamnit.”
I’d never been good with mechanics, especially not with my bike. Every time I try to fix it, it always–somehow–ends up worse.
I sighed, dragging the chain back onto the gears. Grime and dirt got on my hands, and I tried my best to wipe them off on the frame of the bike. It didn’t work.
When I could get the pedals to actually go, I got back on, dirty hands gripping the handles. Now I was even later to work.
The bike took a few pushes to ride steadily, but I tried my best to push it. It’s not like I had any other source of transportation. The price of gas had risen recently, and I wasn’t paying 4 dollars per gallon. Instead, I rode that faulty bike that got me compliments about how I was “helping the earth.” I always liked the compliments.
I eased my way back into the bike lane, continuing my commute to work. Things weren’t in my favor, but it still just qualified as a “bad day.” All of this to say, my last moments were unexpected.
I pulled up to an intersection, preparing to make the turn left that I always made. Just then, an out of control semi truck came hurling around the corner. I tried to swerve, but the chain on my bike unhooked again, and the pedals did nothing to propel the bike forward.
The truck crashed straight into my body, throwing me across the street. The driver, a man who–frankly–looked extremely high, braked as soon as he could, and people all around got out of their cars to gawk at my body.
The force of the impact had broken both arms, my spine, my legs, and my ribs.
But do you know what killed me?
A heart attack.
And, that’s probably average, but I’d wished I’d be able to go out in a more interesting way than a heart attack.
People just stood there. Gasping. Pointing. Not doing anything. Blood seeped into the pavement, spreading out around me like a halo. My body was crumpled and destroyed, far beyond saving.
Nonetheless, even as someone finally called 911, I was still dead before help showed up.