James finds himself staring blankly out of a bus window, completely enchanted by the moving lamp posts. However, what eventually catches his eye isn’t something he expected to see today, at all.

“Pam?” He fumbles with his sleeves as he tries not to stare.

Oh. Uh, hi, Mr. Halpert.” Pam walks behind James and stands towards the back of the bus, gripping the railing above her.

“James, please. Why don’t you sit here?” He gestures to the empty seat next to him.

“Oh, you know what? I’m alright. No, thanks though.” Suddenly the bus lurched forward and Pam lost her grip. Sliding across the bar, she lands against the back of James's seat.

“See, now you have to sit here.” He smiled brightly up at her, hoping to ease the tension growing between them.

“Yeah, okay. Thanks.” Pam sat awkwardly next to him, fiddling with her purse strap and trying to avoid his gaze.

“Um, you know what? I wanted to apologize. For, being…an a-ass the other day. That, that just wasn’t cool.” James’ chest tightens as he watches her eyes brush across his face.

Pam smiles up at him and feels her body completely relax. “Thank you, apology accepted, but, only because you stammered.” She patted her hand gently on his shoulder for a split second, and then lowered it back into her lap.

James stood up as the bus came to a stop. “So this is me, um, I’ll come by the store when your order comes in. Give you a hard time about your oil pastels and deliver some fresh purple paper.”

“Deal.”

James puts his hand up in front of her and she replies with a playful high-five.

James was so enamored by Pam and didn’t want to ruin the momentum of the blossoming relationship that he found himself standing at a bus stop twelve blocks from his home.

“Aw, damn it.”

****

“Okay, so if I’m going to do nothing, I guess I’ll do nothing.”

James lowered his body heavily down onto his couch, covered his legs with a blanket and flipped his television set to the Discovery channel.

He sat there for hours, and hours, eventually succumbing to the deep slumber of sleep late at night. The next morning he woke up with a terrible cramp in his neck.

At 9:00 am, on the dot, his telephone began to ring. He stared at it almost willing it to stop. After four rings the phone ceased, and his cell phone began to buzz.

“If it’s an emergency, they’ll leave a message.”

He crossed his legs and leaned his elbow onto his knee; he stared hard at the blinking light on the face of his cell phone. He didn’t recognize the number and was hoping it was just a coincidence.

The room fell silent and James turned back to staring blankly at his television.

Hours later he was abruptly startled to hear rumblings in the apartment next door. The previous tenants had moved out about a month ago and the landlord had warned him that there would be some remodeling going on from time to time. However, this noise seemed a little too close for comfort.

*BANG*

Without warning the south wall of his living room was crumbling down. James leapt up from the couch and clutched the blanket to his chest.

He was so caught up in the confusion that he just stared as construction workers continued to make more holes into the collapsing wall.

Finally when one of them peered through and saw James standing visibly shaken, he snapped out of the trance and began yelling at them.

“What the hell? What…what are you doing!?” James threw the blanket down and ran over to the falling wall.

“What the hell? Dude. Is this your wall?” The construction worker stood baffled gesturing towards the wall.

“Uh. DUDE. What the fuck does it look like?”

“Oh shit! Jerry! This isn’t the right wall, man.” The worker stepped back from the wall and headed into the crowded apartment.

James flung his door open and almost crashed into the landlord. James gripped the man’s shirt and shook him. He was shorter and easy to manhandle but he wasn’t afraid of James but he was surprised at his reaction.

“What the hell is this!? They’re putting holes in my wall!”

“I’m sorry James, they’re supposed to be working on one of the other walls. Let me see what’s going on.” The landlord brushed James’ hands down from his chest and stomped into the clutter.

James couldn’t hear the exact conversation but he was sure someone was getting their ass chewed. He leaned his body against the hallway wall and closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath, and wishing away all the mess. He was crushed to open them and realize it didn’t work.

****

After thirty minutes of arguments and discussions, James had accepted the fact that he was going to have to find somewhere to stay, temporarily, while they fixed the problem.

He called Toby and asked if he could stay at his place. Toby was recently divorced and lived in a two bedroom apartment alone. He had a daughter who was five and he picked out that apartment specifically because of the second bedroom, but since she rarely visited he was more than happy to help James out in his time of need.

James tossed his overnight bag onto the small twin bed and walked back out into the living room. Toby was standing over the stove stirring a large wooden spoon into a deep pot.

“Hungry?”

Almost instantly James’ stomach began to churn. He didn’t realize that he hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday and it was catching up to him.

“Actually, I am.”

“Sit down. I made some spaghetti, nothing fancy but its good.” Toby reached into the cabinets and pulled out two small white bowls, filling them completely with a large scoop of noodles and setting one on each end of the table.

The kitchen was small, with a quaint eating area fitted with a little round table and two matching chairs. The furnishings were sparse and the tiled apartment seemed to echo as each man clanged their fork against the porcelain bowl.

“Wow, this is really good man, thanks. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“Thanks. I haven’t cooked for anyone in awhile. So…how long do you think you’ll be here?” Toby held his fork inches from his mouth as he waited for James’ reply.

“Oh, I don’t know. Not too long.” James spun a large cluster of noodles around on his fork and gulped down a large breath.

“No rush or anything, if you need to stay a while that’s cool.”

James released a large amount of air and relaxed his shoulders. “Cool, that’s great. Thanks.” He finally put the fork in his mouth and pulled it out slowly losing himself in a train of thought. “Hey, if you knew you only had one week to live, what would you do?”

Toby stopped and placed his fork down beside his bowl; he furrowed his brow and thought hard about the odd question. “Do I have any special powers?”

“What? No, no it’s just you. What would you do?”

“So I don’t have any powers? Well then how would I know I only had a week to live? Isn’t there anything I can do?”

“No, no powers, I don’t know the doctor told you or something. You’re just you, nothing different about you at all.”

“Well I guess I would go to space camp.” He picked his fork back up and continued his meal without hesitation.

“Space camp?”

“Sure. I’ve always wanted to go and I never got the chance, so I guess if I knew I only had a week to live, I would make sure to stop everything I was doing, and…go.”

James stared at Toby for a couple of seconds letting what he just said sink into the deep chasms of his brain. He began to realize that sitting around waiting for nothing shouldn’t be what he does with the last few days of his life, if in fact there was a chance he could die. He should really be doing the complete opposite.

In that small moment, he realized there was so much more to life.