02:00

February had always felt like a checkpoint.

His birthday sat in the middle of it, unnoticed by most people but impossible for him to ignore. Thirty felt less like a milestone and more like an audit.

This year, February began in a clinic that smelled like antiseptic and stale air-conditioning.

“Just to be safe,” the doctor said, sliding the lab request across the desk. Hepatitis screening.

Charles nodded. Of course. Just to be safe.

He worked overtime. He barely slept. Safety was a technicality.

He didn’t tell his family.

He didn’t tell anyone.

The results arrived during the last week of February.

Negative.

He stared at the paper for a long time, making sure the word didn’t rearrange itself into something else.

Negative.

He folded it neatly and slipped it into his wallet behind his ARC card. Relief did not feel like celebration. It felt like postponement.

That night, he couldn’t sleep.

The dorm room was quiet. His roommates were on a different shift. Outside, the distant hum of factory machinery filled the air like a mechanical heartbeat.

12:52 AM.

1:26 AM.

1:58 AM.

He closed his eyes at 1:59.

Sleep finally took him.

His phone vibrated violently against the metal table.

He woke disoriented.

The screen glowed in the dark.

Missed calls.

Godfather.

Cousin.

Neighbor.

Godfather again.

The timestamp: 2:04 AM.

His chest tightened before his thoughts formed.

He sat up slowly and pressed call on his mother’s name.

She answered immediately.

There was breathing on the other end. Uneven. Wet.

“Ma?”

A pause.

Then: “Anak… your father… he died.”

The room felt smaller.

“What time?” he asked, voice steady in a way that didn’t belong to him.

“Two,” she whispered. “Exactly two in the morning.”

He looked at the time again.

2:07 AM.

March 1.

He had fallen asleep at exactly the hour his father stopped breathing.

For a moment, he imagined two clocks striking the same second in different countries.

He inhaled once.

Slow. Controlled.

“Ma, listen to me,” he said. “It’s okay.”

It wasn’t.

“I have a funeral plan under Papa’s name. It’s fully paid. You don’t have to borrow money. Don’t panic.”

Silence.

Then her crying finally broke open.

He pressed his thumb hard into the corner of his eye until the sting replaced whatever else was forming there.

“I’ll call them when the office opens. I’ll process everything from here. Just stay home. Don’t sign anything yet.”

He spoke like he was discussing remittance schedules.

Logistics were safer than grief.

He ended the call and sat on the edge of his bed while the factory siren wailed in the distance, announcing the next shift.

Seven years abroad.

He had missed birthdays.

Typhoons.

Ordinary Sundays.

And now this.

He washed his face.

Dressed.

Went to work.

Because he was the only one working.

March dissolved into paperwork.

Death certificates.

Claim verification.

Bank transfers.

Extra remittances for unexpected expenses.

The funeral plan he had paid for quietly over the years became real money. Real caskets. Real burial arrangements.

He processed it all from Taiwan.

He did not go home.

Not because he didn’t want to.

But because everything was already moving.

In April, an email arrived.

Visa appointment scheduled.

He stared at the screen for a long time.

Grief had not finished.

But life had already continued.

He filed his resignation.

Seven years condensed into clearance signatures and a final payslip.

Insurance payment.

Documentation savings.

Family remittance — smaller now, but still present.

He tightened his belt further.

Early May, the visa appointment.

Mid-May, he would land in Bulgaria.

The timeline stacked itself neatly on paper.

It felt nothing like that inside his chest.

At night, when exhaustion finally pinned him to the bed, he opened his phone and read stories about men who died and woke up somewhere kinder.

Reincarnated into ancient worlds.

Reborn into slow lives.

Surrounded by dependable allies who stayed.

He did not imagine himself as the hero.

He imagined a world where crises did not overlap.

Where grief was allowed to take up space without paperwork interrupting it.

He didn’t want to die.

He just wanted everything to stop happening at once.

Instead, he folded his father’s death certificate into a clear plastic envelope,

placed it beside his visa papers,

and kept moving.