One Minute Fifty-three Seconds by Kseniia Chernova

They say, time heals
all wounds but what if you are torn to pieces? Time is no surgeon to stitch your body or restart your heart. The only thing that time can offer is an execution. Time brings death.
Shane has been patiently waiting for his end. Now he was sure that time doesn’t fly, it crawls. Shane was okay with just waiting but people around him weren’t. They wanted him to be a citizen, a friend, a customer or a husband. The last role was the hardest one as Shane could never look in Hanna’s eyes again. He was sure there will be so much pain in them, the misery he was the reason of. Shane avoided meeting his wife for as long as he could but today was the day of their divorce.
Hanna was waiting for him in the small café where they used to spend their Saturday mornings as a family. Today was also a Saturday but even the weather knew that this day wasn’t going to be as happy as 2 years ago. The rain reminded Shane of the time he and Adam went camping. The two days they spent in the woods were later called the wettest days in the last decade. Adam was 8 then. Today he would have been 11 years old.
Shane reached for the door and noticed that his hands were shaking. It was his first meeting with Hanna since that day at the hospital. 8/12/2018 has changed their lives forever. It was the day Shane went grocery shopping with Adam. Buying groceries was not an exciting task for the 9-year-old boy, so they decided to grab milkshakes afterwards. They were packing all the goods in their trunk when the bag with apples had torn open. Adam laughed at that and started collecting ‘apple-balls’ from the parking lot. Shane enjoyed spending time with his son, so when he got a call from his boss, he only distracted to answer the phone for 1 minute 53 seconds. Shane’s brief ‘Okay, I’ll see to it’ costed his son a life. The last apple rolled away from the parking lot and the boy run to get it from the road. Shane dropped the phone but didn’t make it to save his child from getting hit by the car. The next thing he remembers is riding the ambulance with Adam and then crying in the waiting room with Hanna, the doctor walking in with the sad face and himself muttering ’It’s all my fault’.
Now he is about to see Hanna one more time, one last time. Shane walks to their table and greets his wife politely. Hanna looks up and tries not to react to the changes in Shane. She would have never recognized her handsome and intelligent husband in this slouched, empty man who avoids looking her in the eye. He swallows hard and gets his pen out of the chest pocket.
‘Where do I sign?’
Hanna silently hands him the divorce papers as she still tries to shake off the shock. The signature is on the papers and Shane stands up to walk away. With the tears in her eyes Hanna grabs his arm.
‘Shane, it was not your fault. I don’t blame you. It’s been two years, you need to move on.’