Note: The following story may be disturbing for some readers and is not intended for children.
Fortunato’s parents are helping her pick out her Carpe Diem™. There are bland ones, bright ones, ones with lights of all different colours, glow in the dark ones, ones that come with built-in telecommunication. They can all be found in any shape or symbol she could ever want! That of course was all for show, and inside they are all the same tiny device; yet, the prices vary wildly between the variants. Despite all these fun options, Fortunato finds it hard to decide. There is something gnawing in her chest; a tightness so suffocating she wishes to throw up all of her insides. Her mother scrolls through the page until she reaches the bottom. “Any of these look good to you?” she asks. Fortunato shakes her head quickly; trying to hide the dread, showing itself in her expression.
Her father chimes in to say “Fortunato, our retirement date is getting closer every day, you have to start supporting yourself, we won’t be here to babysit you forever.” Fortunato nods. “Okay, now, off to bed, we’ll see if anything catches your eye tomorrow!” he says with a smile. The mother closes the laptop and Fortunato heads to bed.
Fortunato’s parents leave for work long before she wakes up for the day. They enter the factory through the employee entrance with the sanitation airlock. The small chamber between the sets of two doors has sprayers at the top ready to spray down the chamber if needed. There is a drain in the bottom to catch all the excess fluid made during the cleaning process. The small chamber is bright and white. The parents head through the second set of doors into the foyer. The computer at the front desk greets them with an image of a smile and they smile back. They scan the Carpe Diem™s implanted in their wrists on the terminal at the desk. The small devices chime, buzz, and shine a green light. “That always gets me motivated for the day!” says the Mother.
“Haha! What does, the jingle? Or the dopamine?” the Father chuckles back.
They both laugh some more before walking around the corner and down the grand hall. The Mother gives the Father a kiss on the cheek and they both retreat to their work stations. At the end of the day, they clean up their stations, head back down the great hall, and exit through the airlock, their Carpe Diem™s singing and buzzing as they do so. The green lights in the devices turn off. “Woo!” cheers the Father
“We did a great job today, honey!” says the Mother.
Later that evening when Fortunato’s parents get home, they once again go shopping for the perfect Carpe Diem™ for their perfect daughter. However, once again, the Mother reaches the bottom of the page and it is all for naught. “Is there something wrong with this selection, baby?” asks the Mother.
“Yes, if there is, we can get one custom designed for only a small extra fee” adds the Father.
Fortunato sits and thinks for a moment. She shakes her head and says, indignantly, “They all look so… unnerving, I guess.”
“Why is that, sweetheart?” the Mother asks.
Fortunato thinks for a moment before responding, “I guess I just feel like it is taking something away from me, like, because I don’t have a choice” she says.
“What do you mean, honey? You have all of the choices in the world right here!” her Father says gesturing to the computer.
“No, I mean in having a Carpe Diem™ at all” says Fortunato.
“Sweetie, it’s a right of passage for everyone who turns 18; you should feel proud of yourself! This is a big deal!” her Mother says hopefully.
“And to be fair, it isn’t against the law to not get one” adds her Father. Her Mother shoots him a glare.
“Yes, but if I don’t get one, my ration card will decline unless I am somehow able to apply for emergency status, right?” asks the girl.
“Yes, but you won’t have that problem, not many people have that problem because they get their Carpe Diem™s and end up really liking them; they hardly notice them!” says her Father.
“I don’t know if that is true, I have this... friend who didn’t like his very much” replies Fortunato.
“What is your friend’s name? I would love to meet him.” asks the Mother quickly.
“Oh, well, he is just a person I talk to when no one else is around really; we don’t talk much” Fortunato replies nervously.
“I see.” says the Mother. “Okay, well, we will try again another day. Get some rest okay?”
“Okay.”
“Goodnight, kid” says the Father.
Before heading to bed, Fortunato calls this friend’s number. “Hello, sweetheart!” says the boy.
“Hey Hart...” replies the girl.
“How are you doing? You sound down.” Hart asks.
“Parent’s are bugging me again. That and I still feel as depressed as always, but that won’t be surprising”
“I- I hate to see you like this all the time. I know you are, like, scared, but there is a simple way to feel better…” states the boy.
“Hart! That’s why I feel like this; that’s what I just talked with my parents about. I even brought up your feelings and my Mom started to pry.”
“I am sorry! It’s… It’s getting harder; harder to resist” the boy interjects. There is an anxious moment of silence.
“How long since it was implanted?”
“It’s been a few days, the d-blockers are starting to fail, as you can probably tell” he pauses to think, “I- I am happy, it’s weird, I don’t think I should be, but I am. I am getting less scared of it taking over my mind. The more the CD takes, the easier it gets to give. I think it might be better than starving to death, but I know I am biased by now, and I know you still have fight in you, so I won’t push it if you don’t want it.”
“Hart I- Hart...”
“I don’t-”
“Hart, I am so god damn alone. I just want someone, who I can talk to that gets me, that still understands what I feel. I- I just wanted to talk to you about- about normal things, about your day, your work. It’s taken too much Hart. You have restraint now, yes, but in the first minute of me calling you, you are already suggesting I get bugged!”
“That wasn’t-”
“That is a hint of who you are becoming, Hart! You keep it down, you keep it suppressed now, but where is it heading?”
There is a pause before he responds: “I will push as hard as I can for you.”
“I know you will Hart, but eventually you won’t have the strength. Look, I have this, honestly, crippling fear, that my family, the people I am closest to, think I am foolish; they think I am an immature child who will learn when I grow up that stabbing a poison beetle in my arm will be the solution to all the world’s problems. They love me, but they are waiting for me to grow up and be the intelligent woman they so lovingly raised. I am there! I mean, I am young, but I am intelligent, I feel like I know things, and I don’t think I will be getting any dumber or whatever! They can’t seem to face that! I just wish I had a god damn ‘trusted adult.’ I wish that it didn’t feel like I was talking to a wall!”
“I- I know, hun you have told me this-”
“YOU were that person, Hart! The one that I could say ANYTHING to!”
“I- I still am-”
“Are you? If so, for how long? God… I had a damn future with you planned, an escape or some other nonsense pipe-dream” she stops to take a breath, listening to Hart’s soft crying begin over the phone, “Hart, I think you are the living representation of my deepest pain and my greatest failure. If I am in excruciating pain now, how will I feel in a few weeks, a few months, when you are nothing but a shell with a tiny piece of copper doing all the heavy lifting.”
Hart, sobbing louder now, “I- Fortunato, I still love you though, I still-”
“I love you too, Hart, but there is less and less Hart to love every day”
Hart’s Carpe Diem™ can be heard springing to life on the other side of the phone, buzzing wildly. Hart screams in response to the device’s activity, “NO! NO PLEASE! Don’t take this feeling from me! It’s me! This is me! This is all I have left, please let me prove myself!”
Fortunato mumbles under her breath somberly, “Hart-”
The boy on the other side of the phone can be heard taking in a sharp, shaky breath as the device completes its work. He lets out a small breathy chuckle. “Fortunato-” he begins with a shaky happiness and an audible smile, “I love you, never change. You gave me more joy than this thing ever will. Goodbye.”
The call ends with a beep. It is silent; Fortunato drops her phone and sits there before beginning to cry, crying until the exhaustion wins her over, and she sleeps.
The next day, the parents walk in to work as they always have, through the sanitation chamber, scan at the front desk, around the corner, down the grand hall, and to their places on the factory floor. Fortunato’s mother likes to talk to the lady in the work booth next to her, Beatus. “Today is my last day, I am finally retiring!” Beatus says excitedly!
“Hey! Good for you! I am so happy for you!” the Mother says cheerfully, “Finally, done with working, that must feel so freeing; that’s the dream! Free from the stress of the 9-to-5,” she says cheekily.
“Yeah, it really is something. It doesn’t feel real.” replies Beatus. The woman’s Carpe Diem™s beep twice softly. “Oh, we should probably get back to work, shouldn’t we?” the Mother giggles.
“Yes, probably for the best!” Beatus chuckles.
Later that day after they are all done with their shifts, the Mother, Father, and Beatus meet up. “So I hear you are retiring!” says the Father to Beatus excitedly.
“Yep, you heard right!” replies Beatus.
“That is great news, you have done so well! You deserve it!” he says.
“Thanks, it doesn’t really feel like that sometimes, so that is nice to hear” says Beatus. Her Carpe Diem™ begins to buzz. “Well, looks like it’s time for me to head out. It was nice working with you all!”
“Same to you” says the Mother, “thanks for all the fun conversations!”
As she walks away, Beatus replies, “No, thank you, thank you both.” She turns back around with a cheerful, heavenly grin on her face and shakily says, “I wish I wasn’t so happy about this.”
“Don’t say that!” the Mother says consolingly, running up to embrace Beatus. “Be happy, seriously, you deserve this.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, of course, I have seen you work hard for this.”
“Okay, thank you”
The hug ends, Beatus smiles at the Mother again before turning around and walking away. The Mother and Father watch her deposit her things and walk down the great hall and around the corner; she doesn’t look back. “It will be a little less sunny around here without her,” says the Mother. The parents pack up their things, walk down the great hall, around the corner, and out the clean, bright airlock as their Carpe Diem™s buzz and sing.
Month after month goes by and Fortunato’s parents are unable to convince her to choose a Carpe Diem™; so, they take matters into their own hands and order a bright pink one with yellow and cyan jewels. They wrap it up in a box for her to open for her birthday. She opens it last. The paper is removed and the box is broken into. She sees the device inside and in an instant throws it away from her. “Hey, hey, sweetie, are those not the colours you like?” asks her Mother. Fortunato stands up, breathing heavily, stepping away from the gifts before having to stabilize herself on the back of a chair. “Sweetheart, you okay?” asks her father.
“N- no” she stutters out in between heaves.
“We are retiring tomorrow, sweetie” says her Mother, “you couldn’t decide on one, so we decided to bite the bullet and get one we thought you would like; custom made and everything!”
“GOD DAMNIT!”
“hone-”
“No! Why would you think I would like this? Because it has nice pretty colours? The colours aren’t my problem, are you even listening to me?”
“Yes, of course we are, we just don’t know what is going on!” replies her Mother, “You have been in your room so much recently, you hardly talk to us, how are we supposed to know what your problem is with the Carpe Diem™s?”
“I am done, with all of this, all of it, but here, you want to know what my problem is? Talking to you about the Carpe Diem™s makes me depressed, going outside of my room makes me depressed, seeing the world makes me depressed, being alive makes me depressed, and you both have no idea why! You think you do, but if you did, you wouldn’t have so many questions for me! My problem is the fact that every single day of my life I have to accept the fact that I will never be a free person; I will never get the life I want. Oh, but life isn’t fair, right? WHY, THOUGH? We are the most advanced species on this planet and we haven’t figured out how to prosper? Have you ever stopped to ask that damn question, or does that make you depressed and scared too? Do you really believe this is just ‘how it is’? We attach these things to our bodies, doom ourselves, go to work, and just pretend like everything is fine? WHY? I have to accept the fact that I will never be a free person, and I am pretty damn sure that is not something that is possible to accept. All I can do is cope, all I can ever do is cope, because if I didn’t I would lose my mind and we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. I go in my room, I talk to people on the internet who vaguely understand me, or sometimes I just talk to no one and watch miscellaneous content until I am too tired to keep my eyes open. I scroll and I scroll and it’s working less and less. I am running out of ways to cope, but still I scroll because if I went outside, suddenly, I am even more alone. Have you even thought about what they call people like me? Traitors, I am a traitor, an enemy, a danger to the world. Do you know what that feels like? Do you know what it feels like to constantly be told by almost everyone around you that you are wrong, or misguided, or immature, or childish; ‘you’ll grow out of it!’ I am constantly gaslighted by people I care about that I am lost and wrong. It makes me feel like I am crazy. Then the traitor label, that one makes me feel like I am spelling my own doom and the doom of my loved ones. All of this is designed to make me feel like I am insane, and in my darkest moments, I believe it. No matter how much history I have behind me, no matter how many intellectuals of the past agree with me, it still gets to me. The worst part is, if everyone just understood these things and our historical education wasn’t heavily revised, we could fix all of this in the blink of an eye. God, that is the worst damn part! Knowing we are just inches away from freedom for all. Actual freedom and real happiness! Why don’t I talk to you? You have spent years of your life buying in to this, like many others have. The amount of work I would have to go through to get you to understand what I am talking about is unreasonable! I do think you guys are listening, I just don’t think you have the information needed to understand what I am saying. Instead, when I talk to you about this stuff, you see me as a distressed youth who doesn’t want to work, I am still ‘learning’ and ‘working through things’, eventually ‘it will all fit into place’. Even now, all of this probably sounds overwrought! Will everything fit into place? They want to kill people like me. Will it fit into place, or will I be dead first? If you aren’t siding with me, who are you siding with? In the end, this oppression is the issue – the conflict that matters, because this is the conflict that will do me in. That device is the dagger that they will drive into my heart. Every time I try to talk to you about any of this it becomes clear; they want me dead, and you want me to follow them. Maybe I’d rather them be the death of me, because at least it would be quicker than this.” Fortunato begins to hurry off, she turns back to look at her parents “I am never putting that horrid device in my skin” she says before she runs off to her room.
The next morning Fortunato wakes up feeling much better than the evening before. Her parents are already at work, like usual. She tries to call Hart, but he doesn’t pick up. A tear rolls down her face, she’s not too worried about him though. She gets up to get dressed and brush her teeth. The device is quite good at making you forget about it. It was only when she rinsed her bush that she noticed the pink jeweled implant embedded in her wrist; its sinews and probes dug into her freshly punctured skin making their way through her veins and throughout her body. It’s too late now, the device cannot be removed. Fortunato screams with all her heart as tears begin pouring down her face. “No NO!, PLEASE I am dreaming, this isn’t real, God PLEASE, NO!” Her parents had activated and implanted the device in her overnight. After a minute of screaming and tearing at the firmly secured implant, the Carpe Diem™ suddenly springs to life. It makes a buzzing sound and Fortunato falls over landing on her back on the floor. Staring up at the blank white ceiling, Fortunato chuckles; a big happy smile on her face.
Later that afternoon, Fortunato’s parents pack up all their stuff for retirement. Their shift ends and they say their goodbyes to their co-workers, as Beatus had. Their co-workers congratulate them on reaching retirement, as they had for Beatus. Then before leaving they decide to talk with each other:
“Did we do the right thing?” asks the Mother.
“It may have not been what she wanted, but at least she will be happy; she will be safe” says the Father
“Yeah, but shouldn’t she have a choice in the matter?” asks the Mother.
“In an ideal world, yes, but we aren’t in an ideal world; it’s too dangerous” answers the Father. The devices in their wrists buzz and excitement fills their faces. “Alright, let’s get out of here!” he says with a smile.
They begin walking towards the exit. They deposit their belongings and continue down the great hall. They walk around the corner into the foyer. The computer at the front desk quietly smiles at them. They happily smile back. They step into the sanitation airlock and the doors close behind them. The devices in their wrists blink red. The Carpe Diem™ fulfills the mission it was designed for, injecting its final payload through their entire bodies at once. The solid matter in their bodies is almost instantly liquefied with a sudden pop. Blood, the liquidized solids, and other miscellaneous fluids coat the inside of the chamber. The sprayers activate, spraying down the chamber with the power of a pressure washer; moving up and down to remove all the viscera from the walls, returning the chamber to its usual bright complexion. After the chamber is washed, it is rapidly dried in a vacuum; ready for the next lucky retiree.