This is a story for Alastair’s Photo Fiction.
copyright Alastair Forbes
12 Hours to Live
“How old are you?” Erin asked the mayfly perched on her arm.
“About two hours,” the mayfly said. “Sorry if I seem distracted; I really need to find a mate.”
“Don’t we all,” Erin muttered. “I’m 38 years old and haven’t found one.”
“What’s a year? I live for 12 hours.”
“Ah, in your time scale, I’m about 6 hours old,” Erin said.
“Six hours? Holy aphids, you’re old.”
“So, what are you going to do with the next 10 hours, until you die?”
“I’m going to fly around, find a mate, have children, maybe go sightseeing—I’m hearing good things about the yard across the street. I don’t even need to stop to eat.”
“Sounds like a busy day.”
“Busy life, you mean. When you’re a mayfly, you gotta go like there’s no tomorrow. Because there isn’t one. So, what are you going to do?”
“Uh, well you see, there’s this CSI marathon on TV today . . .”
The Green-Walled Tower 
June 30th, 2013 at 10:27 pm
Interesting perspective. 😀
June 30th, 2013 at 11:11 pm
Very interesting take.
July 1st, 2013 at 12:19 am
Brilliant. Can you imagine spending your life not eating, and never knowing what sunrise or dusk feels like?
July 1st, 2013 at 3:11 am
Brilliant approach! I loved this.
July 1st, 2013 at 4:09 pm
🙂 Thanks.
July 1st, 2013 at 5:19 am
I enjoyed the contrast between the two perspectives!
July 1st, 2013 at 4:09 pm
Thanks. It would be interesting to see how we would lead our lives if we lived 5000 years. We could definitely be a lot more relaxed about things.
July 1st, 2013 at 9:07 am
Really superb. It is better for the Mayfly to be on its way and not wait for more details on the CSI marathon:)
July 1st, 2013 at 4:05 pm
No kidding. Every minute it wastes talking is like six months gone for us.
July 1st, 2013 at 10:05 am
Fascinating POV – you’ve done it, David 🙂
July 1st, 2013 at 4:58 pm
amazing one david!!! just loved it. you are a genius!
July 1st, 2013 at 10:13 pm
Neat take.
Looks like the mayfly agrees with AnElephant – every day is an adventure!
July 2nd, 2013 at 3:09 am
Love the mayfly’s voice. Think maybe Erin should skip the CSI marathon if she’s seious about finding a mate.
July 3rd, 2013 at 1:24 am
Great take on the prompt.
I like the contrast in the two povs & what they do with their time.
July 5th, 2013 at 5:31 pm
I love this story.
July 5th, 2013 at 6:13 pm
Thanks, and thanks for coming to my blog. 🙂