The Last Three Minutes — John N. Datesh

The Last Three Minutes is a cyber-ghost story, a thriller about a haunting by, of all things, his late wife's love and her laptop. It is based on a real, unexplained and unsolved three-minute time gap that haunted the author's own laptop.

Julian is a psychologically damaged young widower haunted by the last three minutes of his wife's illness, his only absence from Leigh's side. He had left her to die alone.

For the next year, Julian spends his time repeatedly measuring those eternal one hundred eighty seconds. He cannot relive them because he was not there.

On the eve of the anniversary of Leigh's death, Julian's laptop falls out of sync with real time: It loses exactly three minutes.

Julian tries madly to restore the laptop's time. His very failure convinces him that Leigh is reaching out to him through the time anomaly. As if in confirmation, a computer file suddenly appears, with detailed instructions for suicide by medication.

Julian embraces the directions as Leigh's offer for him to redo her last three minutes, to be with her to the end this time.

He sets out to follow her lead, no matter what or why.

Down to the very last second.