Decennial (Short Story)
Decennial (Short Story)
"Tomorrow was to be my decennial - the day I turn ten. That would be the end of my state-sanctioned life." A Lunar Awards short story entry.
Authors’s Note: This short story is a submission for Season 3 of the
. I’ll be honest, the Lunar Awards actually caught me off guard. So I found myself in an awkward position of publishing this while having an ongoing three-part serial at the same time. Some of you may notice that this story is in the Flash Fiction section even though it’s over 1,000 words. Unfortunate, but otherwise it’ll be lost in the archives.Without further ado, enjoy.
Standing on the sidewalk of the Memorial Bridge, I saw the raging waters below. I glanced at the back of my left hand; nine tally marks were etched there. Tomorrow was to be my decennial – the day I turn ten. That would be the end of my state-sanctioned life.
It was as the motto says: From the Earth you came, and to the Earth you shall return. I never question it.
Until that day.
Hard to believe that it had been exactly five years since I tried to kill myself. The railings of this giant suspension bridge were low enough that anyone could easily climb over. I would have jumped, if it wasn’t for that man.
***
5 years ago…
I had enough. If this was all that life had to offer, then I wanted no more of it! Just video games and porn. Just eating, drinking, and jerking off. It was all so empty. But such was life as a consumer unit.
Unlike the robotic worker units who were made to work without ceasing, we consumers were cloned to consume without ceasing. Right from the time we were cloned, we were fully mature. It was strange, of course. Dogs had puppies, cats had kittens, but we humans were adults from the very beginning.
Living in my pod, the pleasures of this life had been growing emptier by the day. Then, I realized that no one in this forsaken existence cared about me. Not the tens of thousands of “friends” I had gathered all over cyber-space, not my neighbors whom I knew little about, and certainly not the State.
Thus, I resolved to end it all.