Island of the Unemployed

WELCOMING COMMITTEE

River and Simon waited in an open field by train tracks that oddly terminated in the middle of nowhere. They were accompanied by a gray-haired army of wheelchair-manning elderly people. A ship arrived earlier in the day, and the company didn't allow greetings at the dock. No one knew why. It was simply the way the company insisted on performing the handoff after funding for the retirement community was cut.

"Do you mind if I ask a personal question?" River asked, making a careful approach what he guessed would be a delicate subject with Simon.

"It has to do with where you were born."

"You want to know where I was born," Simon replied.

"Well, yes. I mean, I was just wondering."

"I've heard that to be a topic of conversation among the residents. I suppose people wonder about me, don't they?"

Simon wasn't oblivious to the fact that people found him to be unusual. He knew they thought his worldview to be quite strange. But, he found their worldview to be just as mystifying.

"But is it true? I mean, about being born on the island."

"Does it matter?" Simon replied.

"It's not a big deal. I'm just wondering."

"If you really want to know. The answer is no. I was not born on this island."

"What? Everyone says you were!"

"Well, they probably weren't there, so how would they know?"

"So, you were born in the usual way then?"

"Usual way?"

"In a birthing lab."

"Does it really matter how we got here? It seems to me it only matters that we're here."

"I'm just curious."

"We better get ready. I can hear the train coming."

A rumbling sound in the distance gradually transformed to the loud clanging of steel against steel. The mood changed notably as a quiet sense of urgency took hold among those manning wheelchairs.

"I'm afraid this could be a bit of a shock to you," Simon said. "The people arriving have been through a lot these last few days."

"That's what I've heard. I guess it's lucky for them we're here to help them."

"Help them?" Simon asked.

"Yes. Maybe even save some of them."

"Save them? My dear boy, we aren't here to save them. They're coming to save us! Now, I want you to wait for the initial wave of passengers to exit," Simon instructed. "There will be some farthest from the door that will need the most help getting out. You'll have to work quickly."

River tried to make sense out of what Simon just said. Were these people going to be hurting or not? There was no time for follow up questions.

The train stopped. Members of the welcoming committee rushed to put mobile steps in front of the doors of the train cars. The doors flew open. Bodies fell to the ground. Those on board were forced to stand, and many could no longer do so. Those able to stand stared with blank faces, visibly traumatized, wondering if the people standing outside the train were there to hurt them. One man, who fell to the ground when the doors opened, laid with eyes open. He was quickly moved out of the way, but the image of the man's lifeless opened eyes were already permanently imprinted in River's brain.

River was stunned, frozen in place by the scene playing out before him. His mind told him to move, but his body wouldn't obey. The sound of the sliding walls engaging triggered even more panic among those in the train car. They began to shove, and trip over one another, in an effort to get out. Most fell to the ground as the step down was too big for them.

Members of the welcoming committee were met with fear and resistance. All the while, the wall gradually forced a continuous exodus from the train.

"Go now!" Simon called.

River entered a dreamlike state as Simon nudged him into action. Go now! Go now! echoed in his head. Everything around him seemed to move in slow motion. His field of vision narrowed just wide enough to fit in one or two distressed faces, the images of which would not soon fade from his memory. He approached a man on the ground by the door of the train car.

"No! Please! Leave me alone!" the man begged.

"I'll take care of him." An elderly woman intervened. "You need to help inside the car."

He looked up, and saw a man stumble to the floor in the back of the car, as the wall closed in on him. River leaped onto the train car.

"I'm sorry! I'll get up!" the man whimpered, thinking River was going to punish him for falling. River took hold of the man from behind. He wrapped his arms around the man's chest, and dragged him out of the train car. Then he laid him on the ground far enough away from the fray to keep him from being trampled. The man looked at River, as shock registered on his face.

"Haden?" the man said.

"What?"

"Is that you, Haden?" the man asked in an almost inaudible voice. "I'm sorry!"

"What did you say?" River asked.

"I didn't want to do it. They made me do it!"

"It's okay," River tried to comfort the man. "Everything is going to be okay."

"I didn't want to send you to an institution!" the man sniveled, tears flowing.

"What did you say?"

"They made me do it!"

River looked for the wheelchair he brought with him. It got lost in the mayhem. He spotted a vacant wheelchair not far from him.

"I'll be right back!"

"Don't leave! I'm sorry! I'm sorry I was so hard on you!" River found it almost impossible to pull his gaze from the pleading eyes of the delirious man, as he went for the wheelchair.

What is he talking about? "I'll be right back," River repeated.

He passed an elderly gentleman struggling to get one of the new arrivals pulled up onto his wheelchair. River paused, torn between stopping to help, and getting back to the man he left lying on the ground. He chose to help.

"Thank you, young man," the elderly gentlemen said. "Do you think you could help me get him to the infirmary? I'm not sure I can manage it." The man's back hunched, and his legs bowed out in a V shape.

"I'm sorry! I can't!"

River looked over to the wheelchair he was heading toward. It was gone. He searched for another. The moaning and suffering around him became more and more overwhelming. He felt a sudden pressure building in his belly, an experience he remembered from the sailboat during the storm. Vomit spewed from his mouth. He bent over, letting it spill onto the ground. Time after time liquid ejected itself from him. When it finally subsided, he stood, wiped his mouth, and began looking for an available wheelchair.

By the time he found another wheelchair and returned to the man he had pulled from the car, the man was unconscious. After several attempts to pull him into the chair, only to have the chair slide out from under him, he finally draped the man over his right shoulder and plopped him down on the seat as softly as he could manage.

As the man slumped in the chair, River examined his face. So, this is what it's like to get old. Wrinkled faces like the one before him simply didn't exist in the Grid. Nobody there looked so weathered and creased, not even those who had lost favor with the company.

He thought of Mila's father. Poor Mila. If only she hadn't been so stubborn. The thought of Mila elicited a tug at his heart. He had only known her briefly, yet there was an undeniable connection.

Someday this is going to be me. Someday I'm going to be old, just like this man. Too old to be much good to anyone.