The Consented Purge

A Story by Saoirse Iseult

A Semi-post apocalyptic story where a woman no longer sees the meaning in life.

In a country unnamed, the population growth had become unwelcome.

And in its cities and villages where policies to limit child-birth had remained untouched by reality, governments pondered and attempted to draw strategic plans to reduce this population.

The world had now become a difficult place to live in, and governing bodies struggled to feed all the mouths that they could reach. Fertile land was hard to find, plants in old fields died from lack of sunshine and waters grew increasingly poisoned from factory gases.

It was really impractical to be moved by love and making love, in this world.

Yet, to many hopeless romantics �" love made the world go round.

In this nation, it was a young woman’s strange comment that had reached the ears of the congress that had set an equally strange plan in motion.

They called it the “Consented Purge”.

The plan aimed at people who would willingly submit themselves to death for the sake of the nation.

It would be easier to develop adequate amounts of food and aid in labs with lesser people around.

Besides, many believed that leaving behind a depraved life was better as there would be a better new life waiting in their next incarnation.

And was it NOT a bad life?

Every single day, people stepped out of their houses with heavy gas masks covering their whole head.

The legislative office had even developed slogans �" Don’t like this life? Try the next!

It had a positive feel to it, with promises of painless finales.

Now, to bring the attention back to the young woman �" she was well-educated, but no company seemed to want her and she owed debts to the government from all the student loans she had taken.

In times when healthcare of rich people was purely managed by robots and technicians, and the poorer sick simply had the choice of resting at home or leaving it and breathing poison to death �" a nursing degree had proven useless. Being nostalgic of the Good Old Days was a waste of time.

These days, it was all about technicians.

Her rich congressman father wanted her to depend on him, but she had stubbornly refused.

Still, he had brought it upon himself to check on her once in a while, although he didn’t think she’d change much from the last time he saw her.

She was regretting her decision to live alone, but would never admit it to anyone.

Every day, she sat in front of the TV flicking through channels like the drooling idiot she had become, wasting all her skills, while friends would complain how much they envied her life.

She wanted to have theirs.

They were in motion, active, flexing mental muscles �" their lives were by far, more interesting.

Calculating where the next possible spot of pure sunlight would be if the winds blew the city in a certain direction, experiments awaiting them in the process.

But as with human nature, people always seem to want what they can’t get.

One day, amongst self-depreciative thoughts and visually growing fat, she sat and cried soundlessly. There were no tears, and anyone looking at her would think that she was staring at the TV as usual… but there was a genuine sadness, that feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction, her rotting intellectuality fed to craving carrions of the jobless world.

It so happened that the news on at the time announced the population growth �" a 30% increase of humans (without considering the nameless kids running around) in her part of the world.

“Maybe the government should just ask people to suicide,” She thought she had mumbled; her father was lucky enough to wander into the area and hear her nonchalantly brilliant comment.

It was true! There were so many people who already suicide �" some from trivial matters, others with stronger reasons. She couldn’t see a better reason than being a jobless non-technician.

Besides, her life insurance could probably make her estranged mother’s life easier.

Every single day, people found it hard to live and naturally died off if they were living in the slums.

She couldn’t understand why the government was saying that there was a population growth �" was it because the livable areas had subsided? And would continue to do so?

That the ratio between the lack of living space and sustenance and the total population created an excess, which was defined by the office as ‘population growth’?

In other words, it meant that 30% of the previous population would have to be deducted, to make up for the new humans that had been born. A balance had to be created.

That 100% (or even less!) would be appropriate.

But how many humans made up the 30%?

***

Before long, after Congressman Mr. L’s suggestion that set the unnamed country in motion, the young woman found herself amongst advocates for the Consented Purge movement.

Naturally, Mr. L had been unable to convince his daughter to change her mind about consenting to the purge. She had always been a stubborn person, since that very moment when he had set his eyes on her in the glowing Pyrex oblong that was her first cradle.

She had now slimmed down drastically, returning to her former beauty �" perhaps she had even become more beautiful with the thought that she’d be dying soon.

Mr. L’s office had given her a lovely gas mask that didn’t ruin her looks as she went around, door to door, in the area where she lived. She searched for other jobless men and women, and those that were unsatisfied with the lives that they were living.

She sat with them, smiling prettily as she spoke of the situation their country was in. The fact that they could still do something good with their otherwise meaningless lives �" that they could save the next generation by becoming a mouth less to feed.

These people would often be shocked when they learned that she was one of the people who consented, not to mention the Congressman Mr. L’s daughter.

Learning that such a good-looking woman would even purge herself for the sake of the nation, they felt that it would not be wrong (at all!) to purge their selves too. They felt inspired.

In what seemed like a tsunami, hundreds of people signed up for the Consented Purge.

However, something unexpected happened. Mr. L had walked out one morning, and disappeared.

It took several days before a small squadron of police found his body in a trench which was once the bridge that connected his house to the outside world.

The bridge had collapsed over-night as the iron nails that had held it in place had rotted away from the bizarre chemicals in the air.

Many came to mourn the loss of a revolutionary, he himself who had taken part in the Purge albeit indirectly. They stared at his frozen face in the coffin, looking a bit like Ash White from the old stories although there wouldn’t be anyone to kiss him awake, even if they could.

Mr. L’s daughter felt that it would be appropriate for her father to be thrown back into the trench as a reminder to many people that the Consented Purge was a necessity.

She had found herself with a vast inheritance, yet she was not too keen on living this way.

Her mother was also more than happy to look after the inheritance.

It had been decided, and the young woman was not about to turn back on her word.

***

The day had come. Everyone had dressed up for the occasion and had little cards with name tags and Purge identity numbers hanging on their necks.

The young woman finally cried liquid tears, so dried up her old husk had been. She was happy.

She waved excitedly at her mother, who was sobbing hard, before she climbed the special stage.

She even enjoyed the clicking sounds of her first pair of sexy black skyscraper heels.

The Agents (the official name of, what would be called in layman terms, Executioners) would ask if there were any last requests. Their voices were soft and kind, perhaps even relieved.

The young woman had a request, and she said so.

“I would like a requiem playing, and don’t let me know when you inject me,” She told her Agent.

He nodded his head. He was quite a handsome fellow, so she day-dreamed a bit about their lives together if the world weren’t such a dark place to live in.

Maybe they would’ve owned a cozy brick house, had a couple of kids with yellow hair and jet eyes with posy lips and several cats. They would’ve been a sweet family, like those from ancient Sitcoms.

She sat back comfortably into a specialized chair, grinning at other people who were also accompanied by their Agents. They looked equally content.

The consenters all wanted to die in their own ways. Clear cubes encased them into private mini-rooms.

She glanced up at her agent. He had flaxen, soft yellow hair that fell over his eyes.

He smiled at her, preparing the mechanics of what would take her dreaded life away.

Stirring music began.

“Let me sleep,” She whispered.

The End

© 2012 Saoirse Iseult

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Spoon

Holy Crapola this is wonderful! Dark. Wonderfully dark.
You had me wondering if she was going to go through with it but the further into the story I read the calmer and more relaxed everything seemed. If I was living in this world I might have been convinced of the value of such a horrendous solution. I have no criticism (except of the layout, but it doesn't detract from the story at all).
I find it hard to believe that no-one has written anything in response to this yet. Maybe you scared them off haha. Great, going in my favourites!