At the End

Stanley looked wide-eyed into the machine. It said he would die in three days. Only three days. That was no time at all, he thought. And at the end of them all he would be dead. Everything he was and could be would fade away into history or theory, none of it to be remembered or realized. It did not matter what would kill him, even if some dark part of him had to wonder. All roads led to the same place. Did anything matter anymore? Why even live now? Stanley found no answers, until three days had past.