The building has too many stairs. Too many humans puffing and dragging themselves up like salmon trying to spawn in cement rivers.
Today's victim is Mrs. Callahan, second floor. Eighty years old, bones like breadsticks, perfume like a flower shop that lost the war. She always smiles at me in the hallway, calls me "chubby boy." I let her. I know what her clock says.
I'm on the landing when I see her climbing. Grocery bags swinging like pendulums, her shoes squeaking like rubber chickens. She stops every step to breathe. Her numbers flicker above her head—faster than yesterday. Much faster.
"Afternoon, Poppy," she wheezes. "You waiting for your mama to come home?"
I tilt my head. Blink slow. Translation: No, I'm waiting for gravity to claim you.
She laughs at herself, keeps going. The stairs groan under her weight. The clock ticks louder in my skull. Humans never hear it.
Halfway up, her bag splits. Apples roll down like tiny meteors. She curses, bends to grab one. Bad move. Her chest locks, her knees buckle.
And just like that, the clock zeros out.
She gasps once, twice—then folds in on herself like laundry. Apples bounce around her. One stops against my paw.
The hallway goes quiet. Too quiet.
From the third floor, a neighbor opens his door, sees her on the stairs. He screams. Yells her name. Runs down. His voice is panic, disbelief, denial—all those free human emotions they fling around before they understand the math.
I sit. Tail curled neatly. Stare at Mrs. Callahan, then at the man fumbling for his phone, calling 911 like a hotline can change subtraction.
He shakes her shoulder, pleads. "Stay with me!"
She won't. The numbers don't lie.
I lick my paw, drag it over my ear. Ordinary ritual in an extraordinary moment. Ordinary to me, anyway.
Sirens will come. Paramedics will sweat. They'll say "cardiac arrest" or "natural causes." Words humans invented to cushion themselves from the truth: clocks don't negotiate.
I blink once, slow and heavy. "I told you, old girl," I murmur. "Not today… but soon."
And soon just cashed in.