Time of Death
 
9 o'clock Sunday morning...
 
"Shouldn't I be in church?"
 
He just lay there
wondering
while they moved around him
doing their meticulous little routine.
 
People of sort...
Doctor, technicians, medical students, policemen, photographer…
converged around him
hoping to learn
this Sunday morning.
 
On another table, next to him, were
his 501's, checkered flannel shirt,
a crushed container of Skoal, the engraved pocket knife
that his wife gave him last Christmas
and...
his favorite gold Timex which read exactly
"Three-thirty-five."
 
The scenery didn't seem quite right.
 
They moved around him
doing their meticulous little routine
while he lay there
still as the night.
 
"Liver: 1800 grams
Spleen: 300 grams
Both severely lacerated.
Brain: 1400 grams...."
 
All his thoughts were frozen in time
the moment his Timex had struck
"Three-thirty-five."
 
by Manish Kohli, MS II