He looked down again, “Too.” Everyone else seemed so okay with it, just accepted it as life. Jim had always dwelled on it though; why the word was there. He had daydreamed, as young boys do, about the possibilities. What would the rest of the last sentence be? What if he never said the word again, would he live forever? It is a known fact that the word is always correct. The last word he would ever say was “Too.”

The bus lurched to a stop snapping him hard out of his thoughts. Back to life, no use wondering about the existential. He was on the hunt for work, making the same rounds to the same stores on a different street. He made his way off the bus, a large gentleman walked through him, rather than around, “Please.” He took a small guilty satisfaction in the fact that it seemed his life would not end happily. 

Entering an unassuming convenience store, he was met with the soft sound of muzak. He made his introduction to the man behind the counter, “I.” An unfinished thought, what a way to go. Polite conversation, followed with a “Sorry I’m not hiring. Have a nice day.”

“You, too,” Jim replied cringing at the sound of the word leaving his lips. He knew no matter how often he used it that nothing would change, but it always caught his attention. Making his way back out of the shop, and down to the corner. The light was steady “Don’t walk.” If only you could flip the switch and change your own word, would it even change anything. Does the word itself matter?

Suddenly a screech of tires, “Look Out!” Jim looked up in time to see a young girl fall forward, while the man behind her got thrown to the ground, skidding to a stop in the intersection. Jim ran to the forming crowd, a man was already on his knees checking for a pulse, “Out.” Would Jim’s word have that much meaning when he said it?