“What if this was your last day on earth?” (standard:other, 1138 words)
Author: Natalia	Added: Jul 05 2002	Views/Reads: 6077/2358	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
It's my last day on earth, and I have to decide what I want to do with the time I have left. What would you do? Where would you spend it? What one thing would you take with you? Have you chosen the same thing as me?

“What if this was your last day on earth?” 

It was my last day on earth. Tonight I would die. And I had 4 hours. 4
hours to do everything I ever dreamed of doing, but never did. So for 
my last day on earth I choose to live it out at a London tube station. 

A strange choice you may think, but on my last day I wanted to be
surrounded by people, getting on with their lives. Shouting, rushing, 
bustling, shoving, but most of all living. 

So I find myself an uncomfortable orange plastic chair, stained with
time and wear and sit at the table of a small coffee shop, and watch.  
Its amazing, but the very colours of the seat I am sitting in, reminds 
me of a carnival. The oranges, blues and yellows as the fantastic 
costumes dance in front of my eyes, begging me to get up and join the 
dancing apparitions. I hear the catcalls of passing dancers, and see 
the feathers, beads and swathes of material that would flash in front 
of my eyes, inside the centre of the jostling mass. 

“What if this was your last day on earth?” 

The smell of freshly ground coffee in a thousand different flavours
reach me, taking me on a fantastic voyage across land and sea, to 
humid, wet jungles. I can almost hear the rustle of the wet undergrowth 
in the tall rainforest, as small animals I have never and will never 
see or know the name of get on with their lives. I can almost feel the 
fat raindrops splatter on top of my head, running down my face, and 
falling off my lips, cooling my sticky skin. In my mind I can hear the 
whoops and calls of the animals around me, and I can imagine the blur 
of colour as a magnificent bird of paradise flutters past my face, 
enticing me closer with its symphony of light it's tail feathers 
provide. 

“What if this was your last day on earth?” 

The sights and sounds of the jungle fade before my eyes, another memory
gone, another dream lost, and I am greeted by the sight of the new 
jungle. A heaving mass of bodies, each one speaking their own language, 
a secret language that whispers only to me. 

A tall man walks past, not giving me a second glance as he hurries off
in his crisp suit. My eyes are drawn in by the colour of the suit, 
black as the night sky, black as a hole in space, black as the pupil of 
the eye. In a blink of my eye I am transported into weightless space, 
encircled and consumed by the emptiness, which has its own texture, 
cool and soothing. Tiny pinpoints of light surround me, winking back 
suggesting a million years of life and history for each of them. There 
is no sound, no weight, no light except that which radiates from the 
solitary stars, and all I can do is gasp at the beauty of it. 

“What if this was your last day on earth?” 

The man in the suit had gone, and I look up into the face of the
ancient, station clock. My clock would tick for only one more hour, and 
then it would stop – never to be wound up again, never to make another 
sound. I get up from my spine-curving chair, and walk across the 
platform, saying my sad goodbye to my carnival, jungle and the oblivion 
that was my seat at the coffee-house, in search of a new adventure. 

I am jostled by harassed looking woman, pushing a pram of screaming
children, and holding a wailing baby. She curses at me for being in her 
way and storms off amid the howls of her infants. It was music to my 
ears to listen to something so innocent and pure, and I stood and 
listened until I could no longer perceive the wails of the sweet, sweet 
baby's voice above the pandemonium that was my urban jungle. 

“What if this was your last day on earth?” 

I continue down the tunnel, surrounded by people, but still so utterly
alone. Even the colour and the texture of the concrete walls were a 
beauty to behold. The graffiti a work of art. I marvelled as I walked 
down through the masterpiece which was totally ignored by the busy, 
unaware people. This is my art gallery, these are my artists, my works 
of art. I would say as sad goodbye to my private gallery, known to 
no-one, admired by only me, if I knew that I would not see it again. My 


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