On Borrowed Time

"This is a strange one. It happened in a remote farmhouse some years ago, a sleepy and peaceful village where everybody knew each other and where neighbors still greeted each other."

An elderly woman went to bed just a few minutes before ten, she usually watched television an hour longer but today she wasn't feeling so hot, suffering from a terrible headache she called it a night. She fell asleep but woke up half an hour later, and at first she thought she was still dreaming...

She heard footsteps, coming from her backyard. She tried to listen closely, but it was raining outside and the footsteps seemed to move further from the house, also the rain was banging against the window so it was hard to hear. A moment passed, and it was quiet again. She chuckled at herself for being silly, there was no way anyone could be in her backyard at this hour, there weren't any neighbors for twelve miles, and her two daughters lived far away abroad. Still feeling the headache, she went to sleep again. Ten minutes passed.

The footsteps. Again. She woke up and this time they were loud and clear. And the worst part was, they came from inside the house. She froze in fear, there really was someone sneaking around in her home, and she lived all by herself. The woman remembered something odd, a moment ago she dreamt of a strange person dressed in black picking a lock on the front door of the house. A large intimidating man, wearing a big black hoodie with the hood covering his face. He didn't even bother to pick the lock quietly, he made awful noise rummaging around, as if he didn't care if somebody heard. The woman thought to herself,

"It was not a dream, I did hear someone come in, he is inside the house".

Slowly and as discreet as possible she got up from bed and put her slippers on, to muffle her own footsteps. It was an old house and especially the bedroom floorboards were creaky. All rational thoughts seemed to vanish from her mind, but some kind of survival instinct made her remember one important thing: She still had her late husband's pistol in the bedroom drawer, just a few footsteps away. When he was alive, Herbert had teached her how to use the gun in case of an emergency. She always thought it was unnecessary because the thought of someone breaking in was far-fetched and there was no need for her to own a weapon in such a quiet village. Then, for just a second, she looked up  and thanked her kind sweet Herbert for looking out for her. Then, her husband's image disappeared and she heard footsteps approaching from the kitchen, the man was getting closer. She came to realize that he would arrive to the bedroom door in a few seconds. It was the only room where the lights were on, being easily scared she never slept in the dark. She bit her tongue as her imagination started running wild:

"Why would a burglar make so much noise? Why would he walk straight to the bedroom? He's not here to rob me, oh my dear Lord".

Trying to grip tight to the pistol seemed impossible, her hand was shaking violently and the gun was too heavy for her to hold. A few seconds passed. The woman managed to lift the pistol up and tried to aim it at the door. She saw the handle creak slowly. The fear was driving her insane, seconds seemed like hours. But while absolutely terrified, she was ready to protect herself, it was the only choice she had.

"Please God, I don't wanna die yet".

She thought as the door finally opened. She closed her eyes, and her shaky finger managed to pull the trigger. The last thought she could register was that guns make much louder noise than they do on television. Then, everything went black.

Three days later, the woman's older daughter called her little sister to ask if she had heard from their mother. She hadn't, and they both started to worry. This was not like her, they were all close despite not living near each other and that's why they kept in touch almost daily. The two sisters lived in Europe, although in different countries. The older daughter decided to make a long-distance call to the local police of her mother's hometown, she told them nobody had answered the phone in the house for several days and she was worried something bad had happened. The cops promised to check out her house soon, but it was the lazy local police so their "soon" was probably tomorrow at the very best. Only the coroner was a hard-working man, he was very kind and gentle to them seven years ago when their father died, she just hoped they didn't need his services this time. The next two nights, she couldn't sleep at all, she just waited.

Two days later she finally got a call back from the same policeman she had spoken to before, and he told her he had some bad news. They had found their mother lying dead in her bedroom floor. The cops were convinced at first that someone had broken into her house and that there was foul play involved. They found a pistol in her hand and a bullet hole in the wall against the bedroom door. But soon it became obvious she had in fact died of natural causes. There was no sign of forced entry, no unknown fingerprints or anything to signify that anybody else had been in the house. Then the cop told her there was nothing more they could do and the investigation was over. He offered his condolences. Devastated, the daughter hung up and sat on her bed with tears running down her cheeks, she felt dizzy and her vision turned blurry for a moment. She had tried to prepare for this moment, she even had nightmares about receiving a phone call from the cops, to tell her their mother died.

"I thought I was ready for this", she said to herself.

"And my poor little sister doesn't even know yet. How do I tell her?", a million different thoughts rushed through her brain.

Their mother was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor last year, she was hospitalized after passing out and collapsing on the floor. They only gave her an estimate of six months because the tumor had already spread too far. She had struggled and fought the tumor much longer than expected, so the older daughter started to get used to the thought that everything was okay. The doctor had prescribed her mecidal marijuana for the pain, and the old woman had a nasty habit of smoking much more than what was recommended for a daily dose, they caught her a few times smoking an extra joint before bedtime. But they could see she was in a great deal of pain all the time, that really broke their heart so they just let her smoke how much she wanted. The marijuana made her a bit anxious sometimes but mostly it was harmless, according to them. But now she was dead, she was gone, and the pain that was eating her away was also gone, she didn't have to suffer anymore. That was actually a bit comforting in the middle of all this, she thought as she laid on her bed, still in shock but a little more calm now. She would tell her sister, she had to, as soon as she could pull herself together.

Two things she couldn't quite understand just yet, were the gun in her mother's hand and the bullet hole in the wall.