Six Months Living Expenses

Flash Fiction | 5 Minute Read

For the life of me I can not what prompted this story when I first wrote it, but it’s one of those little things that’s be rolling around on my hard drive, so I figured I’d share it. I hope you enjoy it.

This is a 5 minute read.

Six Months Living Expenses

I stare at the papers in front of me. I hear the doctor, I understand what she is saying, and the data is, surprisingly, clear. My time is limited, and not in the existential sense. I have a timeline with an endpoint. A visible one. Six months to live. Life mostly lived, and I don’t know how to believe it. “Shouldn’t I feel worse?” I ask.

“Krystal, I am so sorry,” Dr. Lance reaches across her desk to grab my hand still clutching the scans, “You will. You will feel a lot worse very quickly.”

“Well, that sucks,” I say. I can’t help but think about having to train my replacements while not feeling well. I thought people weren’t supposed to think about work at a time like this. “I thought I had kidney stones, or appendicitis at the worst. Dr. Google really failed me this time.”

“You should never play internet guessing games with your health. How long did you feel this pain?” she asks with a sympathetic look that I worry carries a knowledge about my delay in coming to see her.

“It started last Christmas,” I say.

“Only two months?” she says.

I clear my throat. “No, Doc, last Christmas. Like, fourteen months ago.”

“Oh,” she says. “That makes a bit more sense.”

“Could I have saved myself had I come sooner?” I ask. Tears welling in my eyes over the greatest mistake of my short life. The unbelievable is starting to take shape and I am starting to take full responsibility for what is unfolding before me.

“It does no good to think of the past like that, Krystal,” she says as she releases my hand to get up and walk around the desk. She pulls me up into the world’s most awkward hug dripping with guilt, sadness, and some sort of conflict of interest. “You must move forward and live what you can now.”

“What can I do with six months?” I ask. “I’ve got a Spring and a Summer and that’s it.”

“Don’t rush it,” she says. “I heard there’s snow coming next week!” She smiles, but her eyes are glassy and I wonder how I landed with such an emotional doctor. “Remember this, Krystal, Every month has at least four weeks, every week has seven days, every day has twenty four hours, and every hour has sixty minutes. People waste minutes every single day. You don’t have to do that anymore. Starting right now, you can live more fully than anyone else knows how.”

“So this is a gift?” I asked.

“It might be. I guess it depends on what you do with it.”

I leave Dr. Lance’s office and I realize she was right. I am going to die in six month’s time. There is nothing anyone can do about that. However, what I do between now and then is another thing entirely. 

It is both tragic and liberating; this visit to Dr. Lance’s office turned out to be a permission slip to live.

Where does one begin when they decide to choose life?

Why, work, of course. Once again, it is the first thing I am thinking of, but this time it is not because I want to work. It’s because I want to be done with it already. Choosing to live means not spending another minute working for someone else. I’ve been a good girl working every offered overtime shift for ten years, and I have saved enough for emergencies -- just like all the financial advisors advise: six months of living expenses in the bank to guard against any and all unexpected events.

How did they know? 

Six months of living expenses and incredible credit? Oh, ladies and gentlemen, I am ready to live. I just have to quit my job first! I don’t want to leave them in the lurch or anything.

On my way I wonder if I have to give them two week’s notice. These are extenuating circumstances, no? Two weeks is a huge portion of my life at this point. I can’t be wasting that kind of time out of formality.

The bookshop is only two blocks from Dr. Lance’s office -- that’s how I found her on one of my lunch breaks. Jason is at the front counter looking as bored as could be. I stop for a moment and take in this scene of a man wasting his time. Surrounded by books he’ll claim he wants so desperately to read, but in this moment of precious dwindling minutes, he holds no book in his hands, he is reading nothing. Instead he stares out the window soul-deep in private thoughts that are somehow more riveting that the literature surrounding him. 

He sees me and his whole face snaps back to the here and now. He smiles all the way through his eyes. A couple of customers “ship” us, and the old ladies spend half their browsing time playing matchmaker, but it’s only now, when the shrinking of time seems to twist my vision into focus like the turning lenses of a telescope, that I’m wondering if they saw something I missed. “Krystal! You working tonight?”

“No, Jay, not today,” I say and watch him shrug back into the faraway boredom place. “So, Jay…” I say, “You’re wading through some super deep thoughts.”

He blushes. “What?” 

“When I walked in,” I ask, pointing back to the door I just walked through. “What were you thinking about?”

“Oh,” he said, “I don’t know. Nothing really.”

“Well, it had to be good enough to keep you from reading. Find anything new I should know about?” I ask not wanting to think about how little reading time I have left.

“I’ve got my eye on the new Frander series.” He nods over to the window display.

I grab the first book off the top of the stack and toss it to him. “You know, you should start now.” I shrug. “No time like the present and all that.”

“I guess,” he drawls out.  Then he squints at me. “What you up to Krystal?”

“Just trying to do more with my now,” I say.

“Uh oh, have you finally stumbled into the Eckhart Tolle stash in the back? I told you to be careful back there!” He laughs and I laugh with him. I don’t know how to turn this topic the way I need to without taking the wind out of his sails.

“No, Jay. I just came from the doctor,” I say. Time to cut to the chase. I remember I have no time to waste. 

All evidence of his laughter is gone. “And?”

“And… well… I’m quitting. Sorry,” I say.

“What? For real? Is work bad for your health or something? I can buy that!” he’s around the counter, book in hand elbowing my side. I wince but I am not sure he notices. What terribly accurate aim he has for someone who doesn’t know about the death growing inside of me.

“No, man, but I gotta get living quickly, you know?” I say, trying to smile.

“Krys, what are you talking about? How am I supposed to work here without you?” I guess he forgot he worked here long before I ever showed up. His aunt owns the place. 

“You know nothing lasts forever, right?” I am skirting around the real problem that he is going to have to learn to live on this planet without me. I want to be direct, but I am still not entirely comfortable with the facts myself. 

“So, you got a new gig?” he asks.

“No. I’m quitting work,” I say.

“People can’t do that, Krystal,” he says.

“People who save up can,” I say.

“Yeah, but how long could you have saved for?” he asks.

“Surprisingly enough, a lifetime,” I say.

“Yeah okay,” he laughs, “but really -- how long can you really last on your savings?”

“Six months,” I say.

“And then?”

“That’s all I need, Jason. Six months is a lifetime. That’s all I have,” I shove my hands deep into my denim jacket pockets, staring at the beautifully worn hardwood floor between us. “Tell your aunt I’m sorry, alright?” I walk out the door leaving him to put the pieces together. I am not ready for the grief of others, I haven’t even found my own.

Leave a Comment and Don’t Hoard this Story!

This is another story where I am not completely in love with the title. Now that you have read the story, do you think I should have called it just “Living Expenses”? I also toyed with “Emergency Fund” and “Day One,” but none of the titles felt just right to me. Do you have preference among these, or do you have your own suggestion? Let me know in the comments!

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