Old coworker, city Bus, and box of screws

"I was sitting on a green wooden bench outside a hardware store with an old coworker I haven't talked to in three or four years. We were waiting for a city bus, even though the store was in the middle of a dirt field and there weren't any roads around. He was wearing his usual blue jacket and holding a paper bag with a box of drywall screws inside. He leaned back, looked up at the sky, and just casually mentioned that he was going to die in about five minutes when the timer went off. He wasn't upset or scared, just stating it like he was reading a train schedule. I checked my wrist, but I wasn't wearing a watch, just a thick rubber rubberband that was cutting off my circulation. I tried to ask him why he didn't just get up and walk away, but my voice was really quiet and flat, like I was speaking into a heavy pillow. Then the bus didn't come, but he was just gone. The paper bag was still sitting on the bench next to me, slightly crumpled, and the air got really cold and quiet all at once. I picked up the bag and started walking across the dirt toward a row of tall pine trees, feeling this immense, dull heaviness in my chest--not shock, just this overwhelming, hollow sadness that he was gone and I was stuck carrying this stupid box of screws around by myself. Woke up lying flat on my back, staring at the ceiling fan with that heavy weight still sitting right on my chest."