Epitaph

Fog drifted onto the ground with a soft, subtle insidiousness, quietly laughing into the choked air of the graveyard. I could taste the humidity, feel the mist seeping into my pores and inciting shudders to raise the tiny hairs in my neck and arms, though the fog wasn't the only cause of my reaction.

I'd been coming here for years. This hallowed ground knew my footsteps, had grown comfortable with my worn soles and pensive stare. Others knew of it, but nobody could relate. Such a predicament had never been heard of.

There it stood, confident and smug in the cold ground. I knelt slowly in front of it, an unconscious sigh pushing out of my chest and slipping into the surrounding mist. I never dared to touch it, though I logically understood that it couldn't have possibly struck me dead on the spot, but logic failed to explain even its existence, so I didn't want to risk anything.

This grave, perfectly worn with casual cracks and splinters, bore the curse and spite of my name, Ambrose Nietzsche carved delicately into the stone. I ran my hand through my hair stressfully, my eyes tracing over the words in perplexed grief as they had for as long as I could remember. There must've been another Ambrose Nietzsche, as strange as the name was, but despite the oddity of this occurrence, it was not the strangest element to this stone.

Underneath my name, the date, July 7th, 1989, stared up at me with a smile - the exact date of my birth. Not only was my name a strange one, but the likelihood of another Ambrose Nietzsche born on July 7th, 1989 had to be a million to one.

Considering that my name was Ambrose Nietzsche and the day of my birth was July 7th, 1989, then the nonchalant July 7th, 2010 carved next to it had to be the day of my death.

For long hours, I would stare at this stone, trying to reason with it, trying to understand its purpose. Who put this stone here? Was I being watched? Was it simply a prank? Was someone trying to warn me of impending doom? Its existence molded my mind into something darker and more paranoid than I had been so many years ago. Each day the weight it pressed upon me pushed me into a darker oblivion, and despite the small fortune spent on therapy, nothing would stop its incessant gnawing in my mind. I would die on my twenty-first birthday.

Cautiously, I stood, watching the tombstone with prying eyes. Today was February 14th, 2010 - Valentine's Day, four months and twenty-two days away from my death. It always seemed like ages away, but this day, this evil day, now seemed to be getting closer and closer. Each step I took bore a burden so heavy I could feel the breathing slow in my chest and rattle my ribcage. Each monotonous ticking of each monotonous clock roared with jarring anticipation of the worst. I knew my time would come, and I even knew when.

With a quick exhale, I turned and walked away, the soft ground cradling my weary footsteps. I didn't have to die that day, I convinced myself. I could control my fate. No fake tombstone could tell me what day I would die. I controlled my fate. That's what my therapist had told me so many times before. Yet, still, I had no reason to believe that that was not the day I would die.

The days and nights waxed and waned, as they always did, with the restless uncertainty of impending doom clawing its way into my harrowed soul. I developed a severe case of insomnia, unable to sleep for fear of never waking up. I had time, I coaxed to myself. I had time until July.

A loud clock chime in the middle of the night told me I didn't have time.

Eleven o' clock, July 6th. It had already come? This quickly? My thoughts oscillated rapidly and erratically around and around and around: I was going to die in one hour.

In my dilapidated apartment, I paced back and forth, and every creaking floorboard sent anxious tingles through my emaciated body. There was no way to stop time, no way to change what the world had created. My heart beat like the fluttering gasp of a butterfly’s wings, pushing and pulling hot blood through my temples.

Eleven-thirty. Mere minutes separated me from the day of my demise.

Therapy could do nothing for me now. This was reality.

I bit my fingernails into bloody stubs as I stared and stared at that grandfather clock. I watched as it morphed into the tombstone, the roman numerals etched into its stone face, so that each tick and each tock reverberated through the dark, shadowy corners of my mind, begging long-repressed demons forth from their crypts.

I squeezed my eyes shut, clenching my fists as I lay trembling on the ground. There was so much that I hadn't done with my life, so many years wrought with misery and worry.

A knock pounded on the door.

My head snapped to attention. I looked at the clock. Eleven-fifty-eight. No, it was too soon. It was too soon. I had two minutes until my twenty-first birthday.

"Ambrose?" a tender voice called.

I knew that voice from some distant world. The voice was soothing and calm, quietly concerned. I couldn't remember who it belonged to. All I knew now was death.

"Stay away from me!" I shrieked, voice cracking with heightened strain. I stood and staggered backward, away from the door. "Stay away! I want to live!"

"Ambrose, it's Eve! Please open the door!" she cried again, knocking on the door once more. "I don't want you to be alone!"

Eve? I knew the name, too. I knew her. I knew her beauty and her little laugh that told me everything would be alright.

"No!" I screamed. She was obviously a distraction. She was sent here by fate and that epitaph to aid in the end of my life. I would not succumb.

"Ambrose, please. Please open the door. I know you can get through this. You just need to stay calm and wait this out! You're not going to die!"

I ran my fingers through my hair, squeezing my eyes shut and shaking my head, as if it would dispel this demon from my door. "No! No, you stay away from me! I know what you want!"

"Ambrose, I'm not going to hurt you! Please unlock the door!"

"No! No, get away form me!" The words clawed its way from my throat like fiery rebellion, singeing my lips. I looked up at the clock. Eleven-fifty-nine. Oh, God, my time had come. This Eve would steal my one minute away.

"I'm going to get the key from the landlord. Don't move, okay? I'll be right back and everything will be okay!"

"No! No, I want to live!" I took two trembling steps back, but where I had barricaded my window with a few chairs, I tripped and cried out as I fell backward. The window shattered under my weight, and I screamed her name as I soared out of it.

Eve. She was my girlfriend.

I vaguely heard the grandfather clock chime midnight as I plummeted to the unforgiving earth.