At 12:25 p.m.

David Hacham died.

Taken in The Cat-Club in Luxembourg City. It went in flames a few years ago - Sérgio Alves Santos

At 12:25 p.m.

David Hacham died on May 25, 2025, at 12:25 p.m.
At 12:00 p.m., he sat in his usual chair at his usual bar with his usual good buddy. The place stank of black bugs. No one knew where these insects came from, but they smelled like death. And everything was soaked in the vapor of electronic cigarettes—it had the same yellowish-purple color as the bruises from the beatings—that curled up toward the flickering neon signs above the liquor shelves. David and his buddy were both clean and sober, both wore overalls and both ordered a glass of golden whiskey.
Well, no one noticed at first—yes, no one—but David had a cell phone implanted in his chest. The glow of the screen pulsed faintly beneath his skin, casting an eerie twilight over him. The hole he had cut for himself was ragged at the edges, stark and bleeding, making it a little difficult to drink without coughing and spitting up a little blood.

Anyway, Dee, the old bartender, didn’t think twice about serving him a second glass. After all, it was about the money, and David always paid for his booze. Sure, Dee wasn’t used to seeing someone walking around with a phone embedded in their chest, so he kept staring at it, but hey, business was business. You pay, you drink. Nothing else mattered. They were all practical people. And what could be more practical than a phone in the middle of your chest? Instant answers. Instant messages. Always connected.

But there was a problem: whiskey kept dripping out of the damn hole, mixing with the blood to form a reddish, sticky goo on the bar. The smell of iron and alcohol made the air sharp, acrid. Hell, even the black bugs had disappeared, slipping under the furniture. Dee grabbed a rag and started to clean it up, but it just kept coming out of David’s chest.
Sick of cleaning, he handed the rag to David’s friend, who wiped at the mess too, but it still kept flowing. Then some curious guy who had wandered over got handed the rag next. And so, hand to hand, they kept mopping up the blood and whiskey, the rag growing dirtier, heavier—swollen, soaked through with red and gold.

David’s fingers trembled as he gripped the glass, his breath catching in his throat. His skin had taken on a waxy sheen, the artificial light from his chest still casting a luminescent glow down his neck. Then, just like that, he gave up. He realized he wasn’t going to walk out of there on his own feet that day. Yeah, that one’s bad.
Finally, his mind landed on the only thing he could still do, “Dee,” he muttered to the old bartender, “gimme a sandwich, would ya? Least you won’t have to dry it.”
Those were his last words. Because, at precisely 12:25 p.m., his cell phone rang.