Garreth's train rolled past a church that, judging by the crowd gathered there on a Tuesday morning, was no doubt hosting a life celebration or "living wake" as many called them. He had to admit that having the opportunity to say goodbye was a nice "perk" of the new way of things, but man... that was really seeing the silver lining. Sure, he'd love to have that chance himself, but not because someone else had decided when he was going to die.
Typically these parties or gatherings would be held the day before one's "discontinuance". He hated that word. On the actual day of death, the nanobots caused one's body to gradually and increasingly fade throughout the day to prevent dangerous acts of desperation by those who were nearing the end. Imminent and unavoidable death has a way of making people do crazy things, so the bots made sure to keep folks relatively mellow as their time approached. Then at exactly 8 o'clock they're just gone, as if someone simply flipped a switch. It was terrifyingly precise and methodical and "clean". It shouldn't be that easy to kill someone.
He looked at the sign outside the church. In addition to advertising Sunday Services it read And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? Matthew 6:27. He bit down on his tongue and shook his head as he looked away. The church... always molding and recreating itself to "fit in" with a changing society. They were even finding a way to make this new, ridiculous reality "fit".
Most people were actually granted pretty decent life spans, which was brilliant. And only a small percentage were given shockingly low numbers of days to serve as examples. People had actually begun to accept this as almost "fair" and just the "luck of the draw", as if somehow they weren't talking about someone else deciding when they were to die. But then what choice did they really have? It was either fall in line or suffer the fate of an even sooner "premature discontinuance" as they called it.
Of course, he was different. He did have a choice to make. And he realized that was a situation he was going to have to confront very soon.
YOU ARE READING
DISCONTINUED
Teen FictionCertainly they could trust that those in power ultimately had the best interests of the people in mind, right? ~~~ Luna slouched low in her seat, staring at droplets of water that ran diagonally down the window of the bus. The sky was a flat, depre...
