You know the way a cordless phone will start beeping when its battery is close to dying? Imagine what life would be like if, when you were close to dying, something inside you started beeping. You’d be in the middle of a sentence, talking to your wife or husband or friend or kid, and all of a sudden, there’d be this beeping coming from the vicinity of your heart. Since everyone has it, there’d be no question of what it was. Imagine the look on your face when it happens. Imagine the look on the face of the person you’re talking to. Essentially, you’ve just been told to “wrap it up,” but the “it” in question is your entire life.

So many interesting situations could come from this. There’s the mother talking to the daughter, who gets the chance to say all the things she wants to say, and the reverse. Those kinds of situations — familial — are obvious though.

What’s more interesting is the person who is sitting on the subway, among strangers, when it happens. Or the person who is alone with you in an elevator. Or the telemarketer who is talking to you when hers goes off. Or the taxi cab driver. Or the person sitting alone on his couch watching reruns of All In The Family.

How do these people, knowing they’re going to die in just a minute or so, act in such situations? Does the couch potato pick up the phone or choose to die alone? Does the person in the elevator confess about cheating on his wife so he can die with a clear conscience? Does the telemarketer finish her spiel? Does the guy on the subway stand up and preach his life’s lessons to a, literally, captive audience?

Would such a technology (I guess) be a good thing? I don’t see why not.