Not Your Time to Die

Nineteen Alexandre When I was a ten-year-old boy, I was treated to the movie Harvey, an imaginative story about a six-foot, three-inch invisible rabbit. Living miles from my grade school, my playmates were few. My parents were wonderful and loving, but poor substitutes for playmates. I was lonely and in need of a friend. That night after I saw the movie, my guardian angel, costumed as Harvey, mystically appeared in my bedroom and befriended me. Harvey would be my secret playmate until my family moved closer to a school where I made many new friends. Harvey gave me companionship when I needed it the most. A few years later, I nicknamed my guardian angel “Leslie,” after he saved me from being crushed by a monstrous freight train as I stupidly traversed a train trestle. Shortly thereafter, Leslie made his mission known to me: it was his duty as my guardian angel to protect me from harm so I could fulfill God’s plan for me. When Leslie snatched me from certain death—the train trestle, an airplane crash, out of control skiing—he would casually quip, “Rollo, it’s just not your time.” I’d ask Leslie when it would be my time and what God’s plan for me was. He would only say, “I don’t know the answer to those questions. Only God knows, so shut up and keep living.” When I was stricken with Guillain-Barré syndrome at 63 years of age, Leslie, posing as the hospital pharmacist where I was being treated, gave my IVIG a heavenly boost. The spiked treatment produced miraculous results, giving me the muscles and speed of a twenty-year-old. I asked Leslie, “Is the disease part of the Plan? Where is this all leading to?” He would give me the same kind of answer as all the other times, telling me not to worry about it, that only God knows his plan, and that everything would work out in the end. Leslie couldn’t tell me what the plan was or why God had created a plan for an aging sprinter to compete in the 2016 Rio Olympics. The fateful night of my last race, and I was pitted against my teammate Duncan Jones, who brazenly sold his soul to Satan for the win. Once the 200 meters race began, my legs were turning over as fast as I have ever run at the 20-meter mark. I pushed myself faster just to keep pace with Duncan Jones. While I strained to focus on my sprinting strategy and technique, an odd sensation pulsed through my chest and back. I began to feel a cold sensation and tingling in my fingers. “Crap, I am tightening up; the cold wind is cramping me up,” I thought. Feeling frustrated with my back and chest muscles contracting and Duncan just ahead of me at the 60-meter mark, my inner monologue screamed, “I’m going to get beat by Satan!” Duncan and I maintained our positions through the curved portion of the 200 meters race. Coming out of the curve to the straight away, I hoped to sling-shot past Duncan, using the momentum from coming out of the curve to propel me down the straight away. Duncan did the same, keeping himself ahead of me. My mind churned as fast as my stride. “I’m running out of track to catch up to Duncan. I can’t believe I’m losing to him. Is the plan God has for me? Lucia, I love you. God, give me strength to beat your adversary!” As Duncan and I approached the final fifty meters, he was leading me by just one meter. I knew the narcissist jerk was confident he had Satan’s help. He thought he’d be wearing the gold medal. Not only did I want to win this race for Lucia, Coach K, and myself, but more importantly, I didn’t want to lose the race to Duncan Jones and his deal with the devil. I would be okay losing to any of the other sprinters in the race—well, maybe not the Russian. The world doesn’t need a gold medal Olympic champion who’s in Satan’s pocket. Duncan would a negative influence on all future Olympic hopefuls. He would personify cheating; his win would show everyone that cheating at any cost is better than hard work and dedication. I wasn’t about to let that happen. With just twenty meters to the finish line, I pulled even with Duncan. We were in sync, matching each other stride for stride. I could hear and smell his labored breathing, his exertion, and he must have sensed mine as well. A peculiar scent caught my attention. “Sulfur? His breath smells of sulfur. His soul must already be burning in Hell!” A scant two seconds was left in our race and we had hit the final twenty meters, at the end of which the winner would claim his gold medal. In those two seconds, my vision blurred and I could barely see the finish line. The incredible strain I was putting on my body was affecting my sight. The thumping in my chest and back was not helping either. Pain shot through my arms and legs. I knew that if I had any chance of winning this race, I had to guess where the finish line was and desperately throw my body toward the line. I pushed off my lead leg and leapt to where I thought it line was. My vision went black.