only five minutes
A strange story arose about an old, downtrodden and poor husband named “Edgar Goose” who had very little money. He told his elderly wife that he decided to take his last stash of money, which amounted to $10, to Las Vegas, Nevada, to gamble the remaining money and see if he could turn that money into more money even though they had everything to lose. . So, Edgar drove his beat-up old Chevy pickup to a casino in Las Vegas. When he entered, he was dressed in rags. He looked around and decided to play a slot machine. At first, it took him a while to get used to playing one, but he quickly caught on.
At first, he was not very lucky, but suddenly, when he lowered the lever, the machine stopped on four “hearts”. The lights around the slot machine came on and made a lot of loud sounds. Then a ton of quarters poured out of the out tray. Edgar stared in disbelief, as did everyone else, at the number of quarters coming out of the machine. A kind woman came over to her machine and offered Edgar two plastic bags to put all the coins in. But Edgar wasn’t done with the slot machine.
He inserted one of his quarters into the machine, and the slot machines stopped again at four hearts. More coins fell from the tray. Edgar was getting rich quick. After several hours, Edgar had a small fortune of around $4,000. Then, one of the undercover casino owners who had been watching him, visited Edgar at his machine and told him menacingly, “You only have five minutes left, or we’ll take your winnings!”
Edgar felt a chill, a sensation of terror that made the blood in his veins freeze. He had taken it personally and needed to retire. He picked up his bag of quarters and took the bags from him and changed them for dollars. When he left the casino, he could still hear the manager telling him that he only had “five minutes” left.
At the same time, a storm was brewing overhead, and suddenly lightning fell from the sky and struck Edgar in the leg. He quickly fell to the ground. The people who saw everything that happened, rushed to him to see what they could do. Edgar had lost consciousness. Within 30 minutes, he opened his eyes inside an ambulance rushing to the nearest hospital. Two paramedics had been attending to his oxygen flow and another had placed a temporary cast around his leg.
“Five minutes.” Edgar said when he partially regained consciousness of him. “Five minutes… five minutes.” He kept repeating. The paramedics thought he was just in shock. When he was rushed to the hospital, Edgar kept repeating “Five minutes…”
When he was stable, the doctor asked him a few questions, but Edgar said, “We’re not guaranteed the next five minutes.”
His wife was contacted and rushed to the hospital in a neighbor’s car. When she got to the hospital, she saw Edgar in a comfortable bed. But she kept repeating “five minutes”. When he heard his wife’s voice, he widened his eyes and said, “There are only five minutes left… Only… five mi…”. Edgar fell asleep.
A minute later, Edgar opened his eyes. This time he said: “Four minutes left…” A minute later, he said: “Three minutes left…”.
His wife got nervous and tried to wake Edgar up. She thought he was reacting to the painkillers affecting parts of her brain.
Then, he woke up and said, “Two minutes to go…”
By this time, the hospital was shadowed by darkness, even though it had been a bright, bright day at 2:15 in the afternoon. Suddenly, the hospital trembled violently.
“One minute to go…” Edgar said. It would be the last.
Within a minute, a huge asteroid fell and hit Earth at 10,000 miles per hour. There was no warning except from Edgar, who had counted down the hours until the end of civilization.