They Know The End

Brent Carlyle Tolentino

1:37 pm

Death-Cast did not call Brent because he wasn't dying today, and frankly, he didn't even care.

Why would he care if Death-Cast didn't exist to him?

The people he knew always told him that he was an old soul and he agreed. His music taste was still stuck in the 80's and he had notions that were rooted in the past. Which meant that he had outdated ideals. But they had carried him this far, so why stop now?

He believed in a time before Death-Cast went international, when times were actually normal. People didn't have unnecessary anguish from knowing the fact that they would die in a day. People didn't have the fear of the fact that death had never been closer than ever to life.

His mother died a little after Death-Cast was fully integrated into the world. She was one of the people who received the message closely after the announcement that its service became available to the world.

He remembered the day completely. His mother had been sick for a while now. She was busy smoking a cigarette on the patio of their humble home while he was cleaning the house when their telephone rang.

She was trapped in a reverie when he picked up the phone.

"Hello. I am calling from Death-Cast. I'm Harold. Is this. . .Lylia Tolentino?"

"How did you know my mother's name?" he asked them.

Clacking of keyboard keys. "You're Brent Tolentino, her son?"

"Do I know you?"

"No you don't, and you don't have to. Could you put your mother on the phone for me please?"

He moved the telephone away from his left ear and looked at the front door. He inhaled the strong scent of nicotine and sighed. Then, he put it close again. "She's very busy at the moment."

There was a deep sigh. "I am so going to get fired for this." Then louder, "Well then, listen closely, Brent. I want you to tell your mom what I am about to say."

"You still haven't told me who you are." My heartbeat was the only thing I could hear.

Silence.

"Is this some kind of joke?"

"No."

And then the Death-Cast operator proceeded to dump on him the speech that would haunt the rest of his life. Even while thinking about it now, chills settled into his body.

"On behalf of everyone here at Death-Cast. . .tell your mom. . .w--we are so sorry to lose you. Tell her to live this day to the fullest, okay?"

Before he could reply, Harold hung up on him.

Filled with fear and trepidation, he told his mom about it. She laughed it off. "Those horror stories your friends told you are getting to you already?" she jested in Cebuano. "Go back to your chores! Mama's too tough to die!"

Throughout the entire day, it was like a veil hid him from the joys of life. Every other hour, she would comfort him with her usual spiel.

"Wala ra 'to oi." It was nothing.

"I bet it was a prank from one of my friends."

"Don't be stressed about it. I'm supermom!"

"You really believe it, don't you? Bah! It was just a joke!"

They were accompanied by a playful slap on the back, a hearty laugh, and an annoyed eyeroll, respectively.

But a few calls later, she would realize it wasn't a joke or a prank. They would watch the television from a neighbor's house, announcing Death-Cast, an organization that calls people on the day you would die.

In a span of minutes, my mom was pale. She lost all her charisma and her soul left her body. She couldn't think straight. The mood changed from cheerful to somber. The gray clouds that day complemented the erratic change in her.

Perhaps she was too paranoid, because suddenly she was clenching her chest. Her breath was accompanied with a groan. He came down from his room when she saw her collapse to the floor.

With shaky hands, he called the ambulance. But he put back the telephone and just looked at his mother's dead body. The only thought that ran through his head was the call earlier. They were right. They were serious.

They just killed his mother.

A neighbor who begged for malunggay and ended up seeing a boy holding the telephone limply on one hand and staring at his mom's corpse at the other side of the room was the one who called for medical services.

From then on, Death-Cast didn't exist to him. Better to think nothing of his mother and her murder than spend everything mulling it over.

But life liked to remind him every once in a while. And the most recent one was encounter with a boy who argued with him over Decker discounts.

Decker discounts meant Deckers meant people who die meant Death-Cast.

Everything led to death, and by extension, Death-Cast.

So after the bus the boy was in left, he turned in his shift early and spent the rest of his time mulling over the murder, death, and everything in between.