ENDINGS:   TERMINUS

Terry received the death sentence at exactly 4 pm on a warm Friday afternoon in June and of course he hadn’t been expecting it- he had been expecting a reprieve. He had been looking forward to ‘Happy Hour’, simply viewing this appointment as yet another mild ‘inconvenience’. Instead he suddenly felt as if he was tipped on his head and the world had come to a sudden stop on its axis.

They said it happened like this, when you received bad news. And if he ever found out who they were he would be sure to pay them a visit, because it seemed to have turned out that they were pretty spot on. 

The man sitting opposite was blank faced and there now seemed to be a space where his face had been. A pale man in a precisely pressed dark suit counteracted with a carefully orchestrated slim white stripe, who was speaking far too quickly and possibly not in a language that Terry could immediately recognise. Terry wondered if he was perhaps developing tinnitus as there was now a highly pitched ringing right inside his head, very much like his alarm. He sat still and waited for the emergency services to come and switch him off. And then he heard the words, very clearly, very carefully enunciated. It was as if the man opposite was spitting out pips from between his teeth like gunshot. Terry believed that he couldn’t quite make out the exact colour of the eyes behind the thick glasses. 

‘Can Sir,’ said the man in the suit.

Terry thought it was a question, can Sir what?

‘There’s little we can do I’m afraid,’ continued the man. ‘It is rather well advanced. Things might have been different if we had been able to catch it earlier, but with cases like this...’ He brought his fingers thoughtfully together in a steeple formation balancing, pressing; impressing?

 And then he knew and then it dawned on him, like a revelation, a moment of pure Buddhist enlightenment. This was now a different kind of knowledge and he wanted to laugh out loud right in the man’s face. But the man wasn’t laughing. All Terry could think at that strange, suspended moment in time was... I’ll be late for Happy Hour, it’s my round... the lads will kill me. 

And then: I’m only twenty- five I’m only a quarter of the way through.  And then: Okay, maybe three quarters given the life I lead. A half? Make mine a half from now on. And then: I’m too young to die.

‘I’m too young...’ he said to the man opposite who was now frowning a deep compassionate and well practised frown which chiselled its way neatly across his fake tan forehead.

‘I know,’ said the man when Terry hadn’t really expected any kind of reply. 

And then he felt as if he was in a no- man’s land drawn between the Friday night piss up and a significant black hole. So that was the truth of it then in black and white; just like the man. 

‘I’d like you to make an appointment to see one of our counsellors, we can help you every single step of the way. There is no need to be alone,’ the man retorted.

But I am, thought Terry. One way ticket, no way out. Sorry lads, and I used to so look forward to my Friday nights and Thursdays weren’t too bad either and Tuesdays were quite good too. Sorry, but I may have to get off the roundabout now and just when I was beginning to rather enjoy the ride...

 ‘I’m sorry,’ said the man, extending his hand.

 ‘So am I,’ said Terry, not taking it.

And then the man with the long face and the frown stood up and deliberately shook hands with Terry, just like that, a sort of ‘good to do business’ with you kind of a handshake.

 ‘I’ll see you next week then, ‘

 ‘It’s a date,’ said Terry.

Outside in the late afternoon sun Terry plucked a golden hair from his suit, long and straight, not quite golden, probably more strawberry blonde on closer inspection. It belonged to Trish in the office.

So no more of those then, he thought. No more Trish by the photocopier, on the stairs, in the cupboard. He thought briefly about Sarah from sales, Polly from the pool, Rachel, ah... Rach. No more ‘how’s your father’ whenever he felt like it. No more getting pissed every Friday night. No more nothing in fact. His watch said ten minutes past five. It was precisely forty minutes since the death sentence and he was still standing. Terry walked towards the underground and made his way towards the end of the line.