Jane’s Aftermath

     There is a time in the future, far ahead but not too far, in which people have found the cure to death. Most children, as they are born, are given a miraculous injection which grants perfect immortality. This scientific breakthrough comes with a great, great price, however-- No one dies unwillingly anymore. Murder is impossible, and unless the person is burnt to great lengths as to separate every single cell from each other, they are not considered dead. Even then, we must wonder if they’re still alive, just scattering like ashes, with their thought processes intact. As a people, we hope not.

     Every time a child is to be born in this world, a person must be chosen to die. They will be burned in the hospital’s ‘dispatcher’, a slightly more pleasant name for the large, ugly incinerator that occupies most hospital’s basements these days. If you’re lucky enough, a volunteer will give their life for your child. Living forever is as awful as it sounds, and many bring their families with them to say goodbye on their final living day. The families of volunteers are given moderate sums as a way of saying thank you. Money has become enough to give a life.

     Hand in hand, arms swinging like two teenagers on a first date, the parents-to-be came through the hospital’s front door. The man, Jon, held it open for his wife of ten years, Lynn.They looked so happy, smiling and blushing like they’d just met in the hallways at college again, incredibly joyous for labor being barely an hour away.

     With a smile and a quick kiss, they sat in the white, plain waiting room chairs, Jon helping her sit down with great ease for being very, very pregnant. Talking quietly and grinning at each other, they waited only a few minutes before their doctor broke their comfortable banter.

“Lynn?” came a strangely deep woman’s voice from the door to the hall of labor rooms.

“Yes! Yes, that’s us. Come on sweetie, let me help you--” Jon was immediately on his feet and gently helped Lynn rise from her chair, with a little more difficult than before. They shared a moment of eye contact and looked the definition of glowing. Then he helped her into the hall with his arm around her waist.

“You’re right on time, you two, aren’t you?” The doctor said, her too-red lipstick turning to a smile. Her voice was deep and a little masculine but she was anything but unfriendly.

“We like to keep things scheduled to the second, we do!” Laughed Jon, and Lynn looked at him like she’d heard the funniest joke in her life.

“You guys are adorable. You’ll be in the room with the green door, right there on your right, okay? We’ve got another woman delivering shortly so there might be a bit of a wait,” the doctor informed them. “But if you feel contractions starting to get worse, or have any other questions, you can push this little button by the door here. That’ll let one of the nurses know you need something and we’ll be right over as soon as we can, okay?”

The couple smiled and nodded, and the doctor turned around the grab a paper off her desk, handing it to them with a pleasant face.

“By the way, if you wouldn’t mind filling out a volunteer form, just so we know who you’ve chosen, okay? Thanks, guys,” she said, before a strained groan from a room down the hall signaled to her she had another patient to attend to, and she shut the door behind her, leaving the two alone in silence.

A sign on the wall with a digital numeric readout listed the number of life-giving volunteers available today-- and that number was zero.

They looked at each other, at the sign, and at each other again.

“There’s... no volunteers here today, honey,” Jon tried to put it as vaguely as possible.

Another painful, painful silence.

“So that means....” He tried again.

“That means... One of...” Lynn couldn’t finish the sentence, but they both knew what that meant. They planned everything-- but they hadn’t planned for this incredibly unlikely event. There was always a volunteer! Every single day, except for today.

“Right. Right, okay, maybe... Maybe it’s wrong. Maybe-- let me just ask a nurse, then,” he said, pushing the little red button by the door as hard as he could. Within twenty tense seconds, a tired looking, short statured woman in her green uniform answered the call and knocked before opening the door. Before she could get a word out, Jon was asking, “Is this sign right? There should be a volunteer, right? We banked on a volunteer.”

     The woman looked at the sign for a moment, then back to him. “Yeah, it’s right. I’m sorry, sir, but there are no volunteers here today. Would you like me to call a family member and see if--”

“No, no, no, there’s no one to really call, um, thank you,” Jon stammered, looking anywhere but up, closing the door himself, almost getting the poor nurse’s foot. The sound of the door closing was strangely ominous.

     The silence was murderous. Every breath they took, they both heard, and they both wondered who would be breathing at the end of the day. Jon slumped into a chair across the room from his wife and buried his head in his hands. They listened to the other patient’s screams and wondered if she took the last volunteer, or if she was lucky enough to have a large, generous family.

“I think you should go.”

Jon looked up, eyes narrowed as if he didn’t just hear what he thought he did.

“What?”

“I think... I think you should be the one. You should volunteer.”

He stared at her, hard, looking as deep into her eyes as he could, and he saw none of the woman he’d seen when they’d gotten there.

“I don’t... You think I should die?”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, but... a child needs a mother.”

“Yes, but a child needs a capable parent! Why should I die?”

“Are you saying I’m not a capable parent?”

“I’m not-- I just think--” He cut himself off, knowing it was too late to go back on what he’d said. He took a deep breath and steeled himself, near tears, but now angry.

“I’m saying I just think I would be... I’d be the better, more responsible, capable parent in our little girl’s life.”

Now they were staring each other down and everything they had was crumbling around them.

“So you’re saying I wouldn’t be a good parent?”

“That’s... well, yes. I just think maybe you don’t have the experience--”

“Jon, infertility does not translate to being a bad parent. You understand that, right? I’m able to HAVE a child at least, if it takes a few more tries that doesn’t make me any worse of a mother!”

“I know. It’s just that, if your body was so against the idea of having a kid in you--”

“That’s not how this works!” Lynn was getting very, very angry now, a hand protectively on her stomach as if to block their baby from hearing them.

“Listen, Jon, I may have had some challenges but that’s not to say you didn’t, okay?”

“Yeah? And what challenges did I have, Lynn?”

A hesitation. Just what he wanted, until it wasn’t.

“I know about Marie, Jon.”

“Marie-- I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

If looks could kill, he’d wish he’d never been born. He cracked.

“Listen, okay, I know what you’re talking about. I’m sorry, it was-- it was a long time ago, you were sick, I couldn’t--”

“There are no excuses, Jon. We’re both guilty, but you’re so, so guilty.”

“What do you mean we’re both guilty?”

“Jon, shut up. Samuel was more than a friend and we both know it and you didn’t do a damn thing about it because he was twice your height and you didn’t care enough about me to stop him.”

“He wasn’t twice my height--!”

“That’s what you pick up on from that statement?!”

     A loud, angry sigh signaled the temporary white flag from Jon. He needed to think. He needed to leave, to get out, to run away to the cute waitress at the diner that said to call him if he needed anything. Anything at all. He knew that’s not what she meant, but he was tempted to take her up on the offer. Or maybe the bar girl down the street from there would be willing to listen to him vent? Anyone would do. Anyone.

     Lynn, on the other hand, was thinking about not comfort, but revenge. She was thinking about her plans with Samuel. Her plans she said she’d never go through with. Her plans that involved a drug she shouldn’t have, a well mixed drink, and a strong rope. A rope that could hold the body of a grown man from the rafters. She’d only toyed with the idea, a sick fantasy she was relieved to spill to a man that understood her for once. But now she was more determined than she thought possible-- She was going to watch him burn just a floor below her hospital bed, and she was gonna watch his skin fall off his bones and wish it was her tearing it off with her bare hands.

“Jon, you’re the one to die.”

“Fine.”

“What?”

“I said fine.”

Lynn had tried to take him by surprise and get a chance to finish her argument, but she didn’t expect it to be so easy.

“Why are you agreeing with me now?”

     Jon took a deep breath, held it for a second, then let it out. He clenched his fist and released it, tensed all his muscles and relaxed them, everything he could do to stop himself from screaming. He failed, and his voice came out in a harsh yell.

“Because god damnit woman, I’ll take death over you any day! I’m so sick and tired of you and everything you do and your disgusting, repulsive... Everything! Everything about you is hell to me and I am done with it! I’m giving myself up. Screw you, screw your multitudes of lovers, screw your cruel personality and your put downs and your personality-- I’m better off wherever I end up!”

     Lynn’s voice hit his ears but his fist hit the red button on the wall faster. He heard the quiet beep of the alert from the nurse’s station outside the door. He hadn’t noticed until now, but the loud groaning of the other woman had stopped a while ago. A child brought into the world, a life taken, the world keeps spinning. Footsteps of too-high high heels clicked up to the door and the knob turned. As it opened, Lynn gave him one last, venomous look, and mouthed to him two words, that could just as easily be communicated in one finger.

“You needed something?” The pretty blonde nurse asked, in an incredibly tired, underpaid tone.

“Yes-- We’ve decided I’ll volunteer for the baby.”

The nurse’s eyes looked surprised, but not TOO surprised.

“Excellent!” She said. Her eyes said she didn’t really think it was excellent. “And you consent?” She asked to the wife.

Before she could open her mouth to answer, her hand suddenly came to hold her stomach and she let out an inhuman groaning scream.

“The baby--”

“Doctor!” The nurse interrupted her, pressing again the button that had called her in.

     Running footsteps echoed along the sanitary white halls and towards the open door. In seconds, people filled the tiny waiting room, rushing here and there, picking up shiny metal instruments and helping Lynn from her chair, barely able to stand, and trying to walk her out to the delivery rooms. A less pretty blonde nurse touched Jon on the shoulder and told him to follow her to the incinerator. He did so gladly.

     The elevator ride was strange. The nurse didn’t seem to be... what’s the term, proud? Proud of him. Proud of him for doing his duty as a father, or as a human being. Proud of him for doing the right thing. She was too formal and too distant, and he wished he could talk to her like he did the girls at the diner. He kind of wished he could see Marie again. But not that much. He would miss some of her, but certainly not her mind.

     The silvery elevator doors opened. The place was too comfortable, too nice for the place he would die. There the incinerator was, no door to block it, no signs or warnings. A comfortable looking steel chair with dark stains embedded into the metal sat in the center of a small, white room, best described as a chamber. It looked a lot like what he’d seen of those rooms where they killed prisoners with cyanide, or whatever it was. He didn’t feel like a prisoner. He didn’t feel like he was wrong. He felt impatient and alone and ready to go.

     The chair was much less comfortable than it looked. Still warm from the previous volunteer, the ashes hadn’t been totally cleaned from it. He waited and fidgeted and rubbed his hands together, waiting for the several workers to press all the right buttons ,when he heard a phone ringing. Behind the tempered glass, he heard a muffled conversation between the pretty blonde one and whoever was on the other end of the phone. She didn’t smile, but she didn’t frown. Then she put the phone down and said something to the people with the buttons.

A man more capable of emotion got up and opened the metal door to his chamber. With a big smile, he gave him the facts.

“Good news! Your volunteer duties have been waived.”

Jon frowned now, painfully and angrily disappointed.

“What?”

“There was unfortunately a birth complication with the child you were volunteering for. It sounds like it was stillborn.”

     If his world hadn’t fallen apart already, it did now. He wanted to go. He wanted to feel the steel of the chair heat up and sting his skin, and watch himself be eaten by the flame, a less painful thing than living. He wanted to yell and scream and lock himself in this chamber and threaten them all until they pushed the right buttons, he wanted to go upstairs and hit his wife like he’d always wanted to, to hit her right in the stomach for failing fantastically when he needed it most. He debated punching the lights out of one of these stupid white coated lab monkeys, and getting himself shot by security. Or maybe he’d drive off a bridge on the way home. A million deaths ran through his mind, but he needed efficiency right now.

So with his dead baby girl, poor little Jane, front and center in his thoughts, he walked alone back to the lobby and into the street, staring down the headlights of a truck going too fast.