It was just a simple check-up, nothing out of the ordinary, an annual habit. But it turned out to be more than that …

The doctor had just told me that I had a terminal disease and that I only had a week to live.

I ran as fast as I could away from the hospital, in an attempt to outrun the disease and its terrible character. I guess I was just in denial at that particular moment. But what would you have done, if a doctor, dressed sterile, because he was afraid of you and what you might cause to him, and told you that you were about to die in a week?

When I finally arrived at my home, I looked at all that wealth and asked myself why I had wasted my whole life working. I busted my chops for years trying to climb the social ladder and in the way I lost my closest friends, got divorced. All those wasted years and I only had a villa to show for!?

I went inside and started trashing the place as a hysterical madman because I didn't know what I could have done otherwise. I simply had to express the anger that I felt deep inside me when I realised that I had postponed everything because of my job. When I finally cooled down, I sat down on what was left of my office chair and started thinking what I would do with the remainders of my scattered life. I decided to have a party for the few people I love and who had always been there for me, but I didn't say what the purpose and reason of this gathering was.

The party was a huge success and I was glad nobody realised that I wouldn't be around the next time they gathered. That would probably be at my funeral, but I was to happy to even think about that. The only thing on my mind at that moment was how they would remember me and the thought that I would never see them again came at a later time. I decided to let everything loose and it was the first time that I drank too much since my college days. The next day I woke up thinking and wishing I was already dead.

I dedicated that day on - what I called - a movie-marathon, because it was one of my passions and I hadn't gone to a movie in a couple of years, because of my hectic business life. In a mood of generosity, I invited some complete strangers to see the movie with me (I explained to them that I would pay for everything). It was one of the most remarkable things I had ever done and I liked it, because hey, you only live once. There was also the fact that I noticed how I could enjoy myself with people I had never seen before. I concluded that day with a visit to the local disco, where everybody looked at me as if I was from another planet. But never the less I had a great time and danced in ways I couldn't have foreseen a week ago.

After a few days of extensive partying, I took up the plan to write a short "letter" to my loved ones, explaining the way I had behaved these last days and trying to share my feelings about all this. To my surprise, I had absolute no more problems about the fact that my life was coming to an end and I even found it a liberation to write about my feelings so openly.

It's now the seventh day and I am still sitting here thinking about forgotten days, about the things I regret, but also of all the good times I had. And now I'm just sitting here, musing about my life and related things, with a glass of red wine and my favourite music on, just waiting for death to come and take me …