Writing from prompts - One shots

10.10.18

Prompt - "People have started boycotting death. It's working"

It's been 140 years since people stopped dying. They have no reason to die. Why should they when they can survive perfectly fine for as long as they want to. Death is so inconvenient for everyone - what do you do with all their stuff when someone dies? How do you even bury people? It's considered weird now to put a dead body on the ground instead of into preservation chamber. Death is never unexpected anymore. Those who chose to die plan a date, location, service, and preservation style for their body. They can even chose if they die or just "rest". Resting is when your body is frozen and after a set number of years you can wake up and resume your real life.

Not every one plans to die though. In fact most people just keep living because why bother dying. In the western world it works fine. They have the money and technology to keep people happy and acting as if they haven't lived way longer than they should have. They all still eat and drink when in reality they have no need to.

Food is created chemically and everyone gets the same amount of each type every month. No food is grown anymore. Unless you grow it yourself. But most countries have made home grown food illegal. It means that people waste their rationed food. It also means they sell it. And that money doesn't go to the governments. The largest global black market isn't in guns, drugs or weapons. It's in fresh, home grown food.

Water usage increased way more the population increased. Since no one is dying the water usage keeps going up. Very few people seem to care about having children now as well. The population has plateaued at about 17billion. No one seems to care that there are no lakes or rivers or oceans anymore. The human race has reached a point where artificial water is the main source of water.  Fossil fuels ran out 80 years ago. Again no one seemed to care. They spend trillions artificially created fossil fuels. All homes have solar and wind farms. Everyone still uses excessive amounts of electricity. Nothing seems to deter them from ruining their own planet.

There is completely different story in the old "third world". Climate change has increased the temperature so much that may places are virtually uninhabitable. Those who remain are the only truly free people on the planet. The western world call them the dying. They grow their own food. Collect rain water so efficiently they can make a small drizzle's supply last a full year. These people are the only ones who still honour that in life there is death. They die of old age at roughly 120. That's longer than the previous life expectations before the boycott. They live such clean and healthy lives that they can live that long without boycotting death. It's almost like death avoids killing them. Like death respects their acceptance of it. It respects their truth to how life was meant to be.

Death welcomes the dying. He sees no one from the western world. But he doesn't want to see them. They lead such planned, controlled and soulless lives that even death won't take them. Is it really them boycotting death or is death boycotting them?