Jerome was over a mile and a half out on the Bay Trail when he realized he had less than six minutes to live.  It started with that mild stitch in his left side, at first, a mere annoyance that became grippier, more intense, especially on uneven surfaces.  Then it became harder for him to breathe, his calibrated rhythm of 1, 2, 3 inhale, 1, 2 exhale breaking apart into an erratic pant.  He had suffered through moments like these before, just letting them pass.  Today was different somehow.

He was thirty-five and in remarkably good health for someone who had spent college and the first two years of a career in investment banking with his mouth on the lip of a bottle.  It ran in the family, he would tell his friends.  There wasn’t a blood relative who couldn’t put away frightening quantities of booze on a weekday night and still show up fresh and on time for work the next morning.  Until they made it past forty, that is,  and just couldn’t do it anymore.  Seven years ago, Jerome’s thirty-two-year-old cousin Anthony, the one he called “Tone,” died of alcohol poisoning three days before his wedding, his young liver already shredded by cirrhosis they found out about only because the doctor had insisted on an autopsy.  Running became Jerome’s way of saying no.

But the short stabs of pain in his chest he felt after the first mile always worried him.  At first, they were uneven, like little pinpricks, tiny bubbles bursting.  Then they became heavier and rhythmic, like music playing too loud.  It was as if a clock had been set inside him, the ticking reverberating through his frame.  The faster he ran, the more intense the pain became.  He knew he should stop and rest, but he was afraid to.  As long as he kept running, the clock in his body would keep ticking.  If he stopped, the clock would stop as well.

This was what it’s like to feel your life ending and not know how long you have left.  If only he knew.  If only he had a number, he would be fine.  He could deal with the rest.

Pick a goddam number.

Six minutes.  The time it took for him to run another mile, more or less.  The time it took to run from the reedy area where the feral cats lived to the six-story glass building that overlooked the trail just before the bridge overpass.  He would have long enough to run a mile and then die by the water, the tires of the cars on the bridge above bumping against the pavement like snare drums in a symphony orchestra.  And if he could make it past that bridge, he got to live.  He got to prove that all those years of drinking hadn’t really done that much harm, that he deserved to live longer, that he wasn’t his cousin Tone.

Minute 1.  Someone had left little paper plates with meat for the cats.  He saw two of them staring at him from behind a clump of bushes, their gray fur matted and riddled with tiny insects.   The pain was about a 6 by then.  A moment he regretted?  Calling his kid sister a cunt for stealing five dollars out of his wallet to buy herself a pair of cheap earrings for her first high school dance.

Minute 2.  A leftover puddle from the last rainstorm, which had been at least two weeks ago.   Pain was close to a 7.  Moment of regret?  Cheating on his math test and getting an A from Mr. Avery, who prided himself on turning around mediocre students like him.

As he turned the corner, he nearly tripped on the buckle in the paved surface.

Minute 3.  The jet ski ramp.  Strange that he never saw anyone on a jet ski out here.  Pain was over 7.  He regretted never having ridden on a jet ski.

A young dude in red shorts ran toward him, fresh and nimble as a gazelle, as tanned as a model.  He gave Jerome the runner’s nod.  Jerome wondered if the guy would be interviewed on the news after discovering Jerome’s dead body on his return loop.

Minute 4.  The rest stop, neatly constructed of faux cedar shake siding, complete with a dual drinking fountain and an observation deck.  Convenient for the non-onlookers of the non-jet skiers.  Pain was a solid 8.  He regretted not nodding back at the gazelle dude.  It would have been his last human contact.

The stitch had subsided but now returned.  Maybe it was always there, just eclipsed by the heart pain.  He turned the corner of the path and ran beside the row of office buildings, their spacious parking lots nearly empty on a Saturday morning.

Minute 5.  The last of the three buildings, the one with tasteful benches and a slate patio.  Pain was somewhere between 7 and 8.  He glanced up at the blackened windows and regretted not landing another job after being fired from his last.

But none of it mattered anymore.  He had one minute left—a single minute in a life of thirty-five years.  And no notion of how to spend it.   No idea what his last thoughts should be.  No desire to call anyone and tell them he loved them.  Or hated them.  He was about to die alone.

He counted the last seconds in his head.  Then the pain stopped.  The stitch was gone.  He breathed easy and slowed to a walk.  Kinda sick, the way he had learned to use death to get him through that last mile.

He leaned against the railing and watched the gazelle sporting past him, listening to the snare drums pounding above him.