“Ow!” he exclaimed. He lifted his shirt up to see if he had hurt himself badly and saw blood pouring out of a sizable wound.

“Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ! Someone call 911; my phone’s dead!”

But no one listened to him. They were either too drunk to pay attention to his cries for help or the bartender, who was too busy concerning themself with thoughts of their failed marriage to pay anyone else any mind.

He ran out of the unhelpful establishment and onto the city’s sidewalk. He looked left, then he looked right, seeing a telephone box as he did so. Despite his desperation, it refused to open when he got to it and tried to make it do just that, for it was naught but a piece of public décor. He thusly left its vicinity.

The man’s vision began to blur, he became lightheaded, and he started to stumble about until he could not endure movement for a moment longer. He soon stepped into a dead-end alleyway and fell over. An hour later, an individual approached him. Before the man could ask them for help, the masked stranger pulled out a switchblade in case it would be needed as they made him into the world’s latest mugging victim. Ultimately, it was not, though following their taking of his wallet, they kicked him right in his wound, indirectly telling him that, if even he could, he had better not pursue them.

It was not until a half-hour later that a pedestrian nearly passed by the alleyway, stopped, turned, perceived the man, and walked up to him. He slowly lifted his head up and said to them, “Please…help me.”

“You good, man?”

“Please…help me,” he repeated.

“I mean, sure,” the civilian said, “but I’ll need some compensation for my efforts. I gotta support myself, too.”

“I…I don’t have my wallet on me.”

“That’s a shame…hey, what about that ring on your finger?”

“My wedding ring…? I can’t…I can’t…”

“I get it, man, but you either do that or never see your lover again.”

The man sighed, then reluctantly handed over what was once a constant reminder of his marriage.

“Good choice. I’ve got a respite from Uber requests for a little while, so I’ll drive you to the hospital, though you’ll have to lie on the floor in the back so that your blood doesn’t get on anything I care about.”

***

“Alright, here we are. You’ll have to walk yourself in; I’ve gotta get back to work.”

As soon as the man left the vehicle, they drove away. He then hobbled into the hospital and promptly passed out to the sound of people screaming.

***

Upon opening his eyes, the man saw that he was in a hospital room and on life support. He had barely any feeling in his body. As soon as the nurse attending to him saw that he was awake, she promptly went to go get the doctor. Moments later, they came in. From their eyes alone, he could see that the news they had for him was far from good. He was right. They informed him of how he did not have long to live, regardless of how they had tried their damndest to give him something better than a bit more time on Earth. This news was proceeded by a verbal report of how his spouse left the hospital a voicemail. They said that they would leave him be as they played it for him.

Beep.

“Hello. Don’t bother trying to ask or tell me a single thing; I only have one thing I have to say. My husband, Al – the obvious drunkard with an enormous beer belly and a tattoo of his first wife’s name on his back – didn’t return home last night, which means he was probably out drinking again and did something to land himself in your hospital…again. Tell him that this is the last straw and that I never want to see him again.

Click.

That was it. There was no longer a reason for him to strive to stay alive. As he closed his eyes for what he knew would be the last time, he thought to himself, If only I hadn’t walked into that bar…If only.