A news flash came booming onto your TV. A highly tanned, polished and shining news anchorman spoke the words you thought you would never hear.

“Nuclear war has been announced, the government calls for calm”.

“Fuck calm, I'm making a break for the hills” You thought, as the words the anchorman was saying melted into background noise.
You ran from your house and jumped into your car, gunning the engine like it were a formula one car and ground it into gear.
With a scream of protest the tyres found traction and catapulted you into the stream of traffic.
You made for the hills figuring that you would be safe.
You approached the motorway that heads into the hills at high speed and had to jam on the brakes as you saw the traffic jam up ahead.
Cars sat nose to tail.
They were all filled with people who had the same idea as you. “Flee! Run! Escape!”
You looked into your rear view mirror and saw a doppelganger of yourself. Your knuckles turn white as they grip onto a steering wheel that’s useless.
Then came the flash of light and you were turned to ash in the blink of an eye.

The same news flash came onto my TV.
“Oh well” I said, “Looks like the time has come to breach the chasm.”
I switched the TV off, turned on my stereo at high volume, took six beers from my fridge and climbed onto my windowsill.
I opened a cool bottle of beer and watched the chaos of people running from a killer that can’t be outrun.
I reached for my phone and called my first love.

She answered on the first ring and said “Hello Ross. How are you?”
“I'm about to die.” I said with a tone of happy resignation in my voice.
“Me too,” she said, laughing. “What are the odds?”
“Are you scared?” I asked.
“Not anymore.” she said.
“Me neither.” I said, as I lit the last cigarette I'll ever smoke.
“I'm just sitting on my windowsill smoking a fag, drinking a beer and waiting for the fireworks to begin. How about you?”
“Funnily enough, That’s the same thing as I'm doing.” she said, and I knew she wasn’t lying to me.
“I just wanted to call you and say something I've been wanting to say for a very long time but never had the courage to.”
I took one of my last few breaths and continued talking “with hindsight I probably should have told you before now. Typical really, it takes a crisis of the highest order to get me to make my mind up about something.”
“You always were the indecisive kind” she said, and even though I was miles away I could see her smiling face.
“True.” I said, thinking that the time had come to truly open my heart and soul to this woman who had owned them both for many years.
“So, not wanting to hurry you or anything but we both have an unavoidable appointment, what was it that you wanted to say?” She said, I could hear that she was just lighting a cigarette.
“I just wanted to say that I never stopped lov........” Then came the blinding flash and I never finished saying what I wanted to say.

Had I been able to finish my words to her I would have told her that my whole heart and soul loved her deeper than anything I'd ever known before or since. But time, or a lack of it, robbed me of that option.

I plead to you not to let the same thing happen to you. If you love someone. Tell them while you can.
You, I and everyone else does not know how long we have on this earth and sometimes there isn’t a phone handy.