March 20, 2044...

Sometime between 4 and 5pm, at the cusp of a dusky twilight that is much easier on my too-blue eyes, I'm ascending steps of stone or concrete, heavy and solid beneath my shoes. There are at least four sets of these two-pace-steps-of-seven leading up to the old building that could be a library or court house as easily as a museum or municipal building to any onlooker not familiar with it, for it stands unmarked and solitary upon it's stair grown hill.

It's the day after my 58th birthday and I'm going somewhere important. Despite this, I am traveling with only what I can carry in my pockets. One thing is constant, I am dressed for business, in as much as I ever dress for business- I am an Artist afterall. Unfortunately, I never make it there, not even to the top of the wide steps. No, a moment before my killer and murder weapon collide into me, I feel the intent like a cold finger, gliding up my spine and curling a hand around my throat that directs my jaw into the attack in a sick need to see it coming. 

It doesn't matter. I've known this day was coming, I knew this was the moment when I set foot on the first step, and I knew I would not fight. I am tired of fighting, every day has been a fight, and some part of me always looked forward to this day when I am released. I welcome the pain, the last sensations of a twisted existence, humbled by the gentle way the knife is abandoned in favor of my body, he lowers me to the steps at a slant so I won't roll down the way the knife has clattered. My blood soaks my shirt, slides around my sides and makes rivers across my back that suddenly converge into a warm set of puddles pooling at the edge of every step I lay against. 

I taste my blood and feel it weigh down my lungs, while too, each inhale drowns in the crimson tide only to escape before a full circulation through every perforation of the blades tip. My sails are torn, my heart nicked and skipping with a chugging threat to stall completely, but it's difficult to focus on through the nails torn through my gut like a stinging, burning, piked to the stairs kind of feeling that leaves my legs unresponsive and my hands uselessly trying to contain the mess. I can feel the warmth draining away with my blood, and I marvel that the pain does not cease, but transforms into a white searing acceptance that, if it hurts, I no longer care. My killer sees in my eyes that I forgive him, though I try to say the words, I cannot hear past my thud-silent heart, and do not know if they escaped me, and he leaves as quickly as he came.

If anyone notices me dying on the stairs, none rush to my aid. My last sight with my mortal eyes is of a true blue sky and a small sputtering of clouds. I am not breathing. My heart is not beating. My body is shutting down systematically and I am reminded of a shroom trip many years ago, when I felt the same sensations of each cell doing it's part in my body, and it causes me to smile. I feel my brain chuck non-essentials and still not have enough resources to keep going so, what is left of my conscious control I use to let go. Just like that, I am dead. 

I see myself, for a moment, laying in a pool of blood on the steps, not a soul within fifty feet of me, save my own drifting away above my abandoned body. I do not know where I am going now, but I am not worried.

-M.E.

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(I drempt this future many times with slight variations -mostly in my wardrobe and whether the man wore a mask or didn't- but this is the gist.)