Ten minutes and this is all I managed!

11.00am
The news is on the radio, mostly bad stuff happening in other countries miles and miles away from where I currently find myself. I have only ten minutes left before the end.

The say that your life flashes before you at the point of dying, so why should it be that, when given ten whole minutes, I can’t seem to pull anything into my brain? Was my life worth nothing to me? Is that why I find myself in this position?

I mull over the questions, listen to the squawk of the seagulls as they circle the thermals high above my head. The wind is blustery today, lifting my shirt tails and rustling the leaves that have begun to bud on the trees. My watch says seven minutes. If I were having fun, it would surely be over. As the cliché goes.

11.04am
I espy a boat on the distant horizon; watch its slow progress across the edge of the world, my hands running through the long grass at my feet when I crouch down. I think I hear the plane approaching, a far-away buzz, a drone. A murmur.

A shadow moves over the cliff-edge, falling to the rumble of rocks and waves some hundred feet below where I now stand. A alarm beeps on my watch signifying that there are only two minutes left. The plane circles and moves back towards me. I lift my hand to my face to keep the sun from my eyes.

A figure leans from the passenger seat of the aircraft. I note it’s a small Cesna. I can see the number on its tail: 10-F55. I wonder if it’s a radio code. But, it’s too late to wonder.

There are only seconds left.