Eight Minutes
Ali Fishman
Ali Fishman
It was a blazing hot summer day in Sante Fe, New Mexico. My family and I all lounged in the coldest room in our house: the kitchen. The TV blared the news and you could hear Anderson Cooper’s voice throughout the entire house. However, despite the volume, the monotone voice faded into the background. I continued scrolling aimlessly through my phone as I rotated between Instagram and Snapchat. Then, all of the sudden, the blaring sirens coming from the TV pulled me out of my trance.
I looked up to see a troubling look on the anchor’s face as he tried to collect himself long enough to speak. When he was finally able to form a coherent sentence, he passed the TV feed off to a mysterious looking man, who appeared to be sitting in a bunker.
He introduced himself as Dr. Jackson and he said, “I know this is going to be hard to hear and even harder to understand, but I need as many people as possible to listen to me.” He then paused, looking behind the camera to an invisible person, almost like he was looking for permission to continue. When he spoke again he spoke calmly, with his words evenly spaced out. “After an extensive amount of research, our team has concluded that in eight minutes the concentration of toxins in the air may be too high to sustain human life. We have tried a last resort preventative measure, but it is a realistic scenario that the human race will cease to exist in eight minutes.”
The TV then cut out, leaving us staring at a blank screen. I looked around at my family, who were just as speechless as I was. Eight minutes. That was all we may have had. Eight minutes was nothing in the grand scheme of things. Eight minutes was the time it took to pick up my Starbucks order or walk from Biology to English.
With the world crumbling around me, I did the most reasonable thing I could think of. I pulled out my phone, which was blowing up with concerned texts, and set a timer for eight minutes.
I then looked around at my house and my family. What were we supposed to do? My dad started to argue with the blank screen, screaming in complete denial. My brother claimed that it was a nationwide prank. My mom started quietly roaming around the living room, glancing at old photos and books. I didn’t do anything. I just sat on the floor with a feeling that could only be described as a weird combination of disbelief and acceptance. I guess this crisis exposed how each of us operated.
My eyes were glued to the dining room table. All I can remember is spending countless hours doing SAT prep sitting in those chairs. I remembered that I would always have a cup of iced tea when doing the seemingly infinite number of workbook pages. Mom would always yell at me, telling me I should grab a coaster, but eventually she got one for me because she felt bad that I was doing all of that work. I gave my whole heart to that SAT prep book and pulled off the score that nobody, not even my parents, thought was possible. I skipped breakfast with friends and movies just so I could ace that test. I did that because that test affected my future, which I guess no longer existed. I worked so hard because I wanted a legacy, but what is a legacy if there is no one to remember it?
Finally, after wasting thirty precious seconds by having an existential crisis, I built up the courage to open my phone. I wanted to see if anyone else was talking about this and not surprisingly, I had twenty three text messages on my phone. I scrolled through them and they were all seemingly last declarations. One of my friends confessing that he liked me, a girl in my grade apologizing for being mean to me in third grade, my best friend in the entire world coming out as gay. They were all things that people wanted to confess when they had the chance and I guess there were no repercussions because no one would be there to remember it.
I picked up my phone and recorded a short video for every person I thought of. I tried to tell them how much I loved them and how much they meant to me, but words were starting to fail and I was being careful not to waste any precious time.
I then looked at the timer, which read six minutes and forty seconds and then, without warning, my head entered the world of lasts. Last phone call, last hug, last bite, last smile, last touch, and last feeling.
At this point, my family had all balanced their reactions and they are huddled together by the front door. I walked over, almost hesitant to make any sudden movements. I made sure that my phone was safely tucked in my back pocket so I could check the timer.
When I arrived by the door, my family brought me into their little circle. We sat there for a couple of valuable seconds before deciding to go onto the porch. I watched as my dad pushed open the door, revealing the wondrous outdoors. For some reason the bland suburban street had never looked more beautiful. We all just stared out at the horizon, in both appreciation and anticipation. I think we were either looking for some sort of apocalyptic fog or a message saying that the saving grace measure had worked; but nothing came and we just kept staring at the street.
Nothing exciting was really happening, but I could not bring myself to draw my eyes away from the outside. I mean, how could I ever have prepared myself for the last time seeing a tree or grass? It seems so stupid now, but in that moment the little scrawny tree in the frontyard was one of the most beautiful things on earth.
We then went back inside and I picked up my phone, which read three minutes and twenty three seconds. My heart then started racing. I thought of all the things I hadn't done: the blue lagoon in Iceland, my first car, college orientation, graduation, my wedding, my first job, voting. Everything that I had prepared for was obsolete and in that moment, all that time I took preparing also felt obsolete.
My Dad went into the kitchen and pulled out four beers. He kneeled down and said, “I have always wanted to have a cold beer with my kids on a hot summer day sometime in the future, but it looks like now will have to do.”
I stifled out a laugh and so did my mother. We then all sat at the kitchen counter drinking beer, which I quite honestly did not like the taste of.
Then, with only one minute and twenty seconds left on my timer, I forced myself to stop thinking of my life as obsolete. I stopped thinking about all the time I had wasted preparing for my future and instead thought about all of the good things that I had seen. Suddenly, it was almost like every positive experience in my life started playing in my mind, almost like a movie: Waterskiing, the feeling of the ocean on my feet, Friday afternoon classes, the relief after a math test, studying at Starbucks with friends, the last day of school before Christmas, every sunset I have ever seen, and a rainy Saturday afternoon watching a movie.
For some reason, my entire attitude changed as the seconds started to vanish. I felt lucky to have just seen a single sunset or to experience only one Christmas. I knew that there were so many people, young kids or babies, who would never remember that beauty. I would be one of the few who was able to live on this earth, and that was enough for me to be utterly grateful.
Then, with less than a minute left, I decided to sit on the front stairs of my house. I did not know what to feel because for some reason, the fact that I thought I was leaving no one behind made me feel both better and worse. I had always thought that the worst part of death was the pain of the people you leave behind, but that all disappeared when I thought that we all were dying together.
Then I looked at my phone. The timer ran out and I braced myself. What I was bracing myself for, I will never know. However I just kept looking out into this marvelous world knowing that eight minutes would never be enough, but I used them as well as I could.
***
As you can probably tell, the world did not end once that timer went off. The saving grace measure from the scientists worked, as they were able to purify a large amount of the air. However, experiencing those eight minutes changed me. They changed everyone. Suddenly the meaning of life was completely altered and the possibility of a world without any people at all became somewhat of a reality. Every person on earth was confronted with the consequences of our actions and we were all forced to answer the same question: if we only had eight minutes, who would we talk to, what would we regret, and what would we be thinking about as the seconds dwindled away?
I looked up to see a troubling look on the anchor’s face as he tried to collect himself long enough to speak. When he was finally able to form a coherent sentence, he passed the TV feed off to a mysterious looking man, who appeared to be sitting in a bunker.
He introduced himself as Dr. Jackson and he said, “I know this is going to be hard to hear and even harder to understand, but I need as many people as possible to listen to me.” He then paused, looking behind the camera to an invisible person, almost like he was looking for permission to continue. When he spoke again he spoke calmly, with his words evenly spaced out. “After an extensive amount of research, our team has concluded that in eight minutes the concentration of toxins in the air may be too high to sustain human life. We have tried a last resort preventative measure, but it is a realistic scenario that the human race will cease to exist in eight minutes.”
The TV then cut out, leaving us staring at a blank screen. I looked around at my family, who were just as speechless as I was. Eight minutes. That was all we may have had. Eight minutes was nothing in the grand scheme of things. Eight minutes was the time it took to pick up my Starbucks order or walk from Biology to English.
With the world crumbling around me, I did the most reasonable thing I could think of. I pulled out my phone, which was blowing up with concerned texts, and set a timer for eight minutes.
I then looked around at my house and my family. What were we supposed to do? My dad started to argue with the blank screen, screaming in complete denial. My brother claimed that it was a nationwide prank. My mom started quietly roaming around the living room, glancing at old photos and books. I didn’t do anything. I just sat on the floor with a feeling that could only be described as a weird combination of disbelief and acceptance. I guess this crisis exposed how each of us operated.
My eyes were glued to the dining room table. All I can remember is spending countless hours doing SAT prep sitting in those chairs. I remembered that I would always have a cup of iced tea when doing the seemingly infinite number of workbook pages. Mom would always yell at me, telling me I should grab a coaster, but eventually she got one for me because she felt bad that I was doing all of that work. I gave my whole heart to that SAT prep book and pulled off the score that nobody, not even my parents, thought was possible. I skipped breakfast with friends and movies just so I could ace that test. I did that because that test affected my future, which I guess no longer existed. I worked so hard because I wanted a legacy, but what is a legacy if there is no one to remember it?
Finally, after wasting thirty precious seconds by having an existential crisis, I built up the courage to open my phone. I wanted to see if anyone else was talking about this and not surprisingly, I had twenty three text messages on my phone. I scrolled through them and they were all seemingly last declarations. One of my friends confessing that he liked me, a girl in my grade apologizing for being mean to me in third grade, my best friend in the entire world coming out as gay. They were all things that people wanted to confess when they had the chance and I guess there were no repercussions because no one would be there to remember it.
I picked up my phone and recorded a short video for every person I thought of. I tried to tell them how much I loved them and how much they meant to me, but words were starting to fail and I was being careful not to waste any precious time.
I then looked at the timer, which read six minutes and forty seconds and then, without warning, my head entered the world of lasts. Last phone call, last hug, last bite, last smile, last touch, and last feeling.
At this point, my family had all balanced their reactions and they are huddled together by the front door. I walked over, almost hesitant to make any sudden movements. I made sure that my phone was safely tucked in my back pocket so I could check the timer.
When I arrived by the door, my family brought me into their little circle. We sat there for a couple of valuable seconds before deciding to go onto the porch. I watched as my dad pushed open the door, revealing the wondrous outdoors. For some reason the bland suburban street had never looked more beautiful. We all just stared out at the horizon, in both appreciation and anticipation. I think we were either looking for some sort of apocalyptic fog or a message saying that the saving grace measure had worked; but nothing came and we just kept staring at the street.
Nothing exciting was really happening, but I could not bring myself to draw my eyes away from the outside. I mean, how could I ever have prepared myself for the last time seeing a tree or grass? It seems so stupid now, but in that moment the little scrawny tree in the frontyard was one of the most beautiful things on earth.
We then went back inside and I picked up my phone, which read three minutes and twenty three seconds. My heart then started racing. I thought of all the things I hadn't done: the blue lagoon in Iceland, my first car, college orientation, graduation, my wedding, my first job, voting. Everything that I had prepared for was obsolete and in that moment, all that time I took preparing also felt obsolete.
My Dad went into the kitchen and pulled out four beers. He kneeled down and said, “I have always wanted to have a cold beer with my kids on a hot summer day sometime in the future, but it looks like now will have to do.”
I stifled out a laugh and so did my mother. We then all sat at the kitchen counter drinking beer, which I quite honestly did not like the taste of.
Then, with only one minute and twenty seconds left on my timer, I forced myself to stop thinking of my life as obsolete. I stopped thinking about all the time I had wasted preparing for my future and instead thought about all of the good things that I had seen. Suddenly, it was almost like every positive experience in my life started playing in my mind, almost like a movie: Waterskiing, the feeling of the ocean on my feet, Friday afternoon classes, the relief after a math test, studying at Starbucks with friends, the last day of school before Christmas, every sunset I have ever seen, and a rainy Saturday afternoon watching a movie.
For some reason, my entire attitude changed as the seconds started to vanish. I felt lucky to have just seen a single sunset or to experience only one Christmas. I knew that there were so many people, young kids or babies, who would never remember that beauty. I would be one of the few who was able to live on this earth, and that was enough for me to be utterly grateful.
Then, with less than a minute left, I decided to sit on the front stairs of my house. I did not know what to feel because for some reason, the fact that I thought I was leaving no one behind made me feel both better and worse. I had always thought that the worst part of death was the pain of the people you leave behind, but that all disappeared when I thought that we all were dying together.
Then I looked at my phone. The timer ran out and I braced myself. What I was bracing myself for, I will never know. However I just kept looking out into this marvelous world knowing that eight minutes would never be enough, but I used them as well as I could.
***
As you can probably tell, the world did not end once that timer went off. The saving grace measure from the scientists worked, as they were able to purify a large amount of the air. However, experiencing those eight minutes changed me. They changed everyone. Suddenly the meaning of life was completely altered and the possibility of a world without any people at all became somewhat of a reality. Every person on earth was confronted with the consequences of our actions and we were all forced to answer the same question: if we only had eight minutes, who would we talk to, what would we regret, and what would we be thinking about as the seconds dwindled away?
//
Ali Fishman is a junior at San Francisco University High School. She is seventeen years old and when she is not writing, she enjoys volleyball, basketball, softball, photography, and reading. She has previously been published in Canvas Literary Journal, Body Without Organs Journal, and VOX High School Literary Magazine.
Ali Fishman is a junior at San Francisco University High School. She is seventeen years old and when she is not writing, she enjoys volleyball, basketball, softball, photography, and reading. She has previously been published in Canvas Literary Journal, Body Without Organs Journal, and VOX High School Literary Magazine.