Into the Gloaming

You can't just go around killing people

"You're a very smart girl Persephone. Smartest in your class aren't you?"

"Sometimes." I was getting seriously frustrated and scared.

"You're very grown up for your age, so I'm going to explain to you what it is your Mum and I set out to do."

I sat down on a pile of clothes near Dad, defeated. I didn't see how this would answer any of my questions, but I didn't say anything because I was scared, and had always wondered what it was that he and Mum were doing.

"Seffy, think about when you went to the museum on your own, I said I'd come and get you at four o'clock didn't I?"

Uh oh, I thought, he's lost his mind, this has nothing to do with anything, at least he seemed pretty calm.

"Yes"

"Because you knew I was getting you at four o'clock you could plan your day at the museum better, you got to see all the exhibits you wanted to see because you knew how much time you had, and then you were ready to leave when I came to get you." He was speaking very slowly, like every little aspect of his insane ramblings was terribly important.

"Imagine if you knew I was going to come and get you but you didn't know what time. If I'd come earlier you might not have seen everything you wanted to see, or if I came really late you might have seen everything and then got bored waiting for me. Do you see what I mean Persephone?"

I had no idea what he meant, but I nodded anyway.

"So you have to think about this concept in relation to your whole life. If you knew exactly when it was going to end, you could do everything you wanted to do, and then be ready to go when it was over."

"I guess you could" I said, mulling this concept over in my head.

"Some people die before they are ready to, but in modern society most people live much longer than they need to. Just think about people in nursing homes, that wouldn't be much fun would it?"

"Well playing bingo is pretty fun." I said

"They've done everything they can for the world, and now they're just sitting around, using space and time and money that they shouldn't need. If man was designed to live that long then he wouldn't deteriorate like that."

"and she wouldn't deteriorate." I added, to be politically correct. I relaxed a bit, this was sounding more and more like one of his standard speeches.

"I've told you all about overpopulation before Seffy, and old people are the reason, someone in the UN once said "It's not because we suddenly started breeding like rabbits, but because we stopped dropping like flies." Do you see what that means?"

"People live too long?"

"Yes Persephone, that's it exactly. So I thought of a way to fix that, people come in to see me, and I talk to them about all the things they want to do in their lives, and we figure out how long it will take, and then we make an agreement, that on a certain day, they will come in to see me again when they've done everything they wanted to do, and then they stop using up all that space and all that time and all those resources that they don't need anymore, now that they're a non-productive member of society."

"How can someone stop using space and time and resources? They'd have to be..." Dad was looking deep into my eyes, watching as my brain cranked out the right answer. He nodded.

"They die? How do you know they'll die when you say they will?"

"We help them die. However they want, with whoever they want, and they get to have a big party if they want, and they have a chance to say goodbye to everyone they love, and set their affairs in order, and then they die and everyone is happy."

"Mrs Donahue wasn't very happy."

"Mr Donahue hadn't explained what was going on to his wife, he should have told her long before he did so that she had time to accept it, but he didn't."

"So you're going to kill Mr Donahue? You can't just go around killing people."

"Well Seffy, as you know, it's wrong to kill people, and besides, technically I am not the one doing the actual killing. But what if someone is very sick, and in a lot of pain, and they are going to die anyway, but it's going to be a long time before they die and they're just going to be in lots of pain for years and years. Wouldn't a quick painless death be better than more suffering? Should you be allowed to help them die then?"

"If they wanted you to I guess"

"Well helping someone die because they're in a lot of pain is called euthanasia, and lots of people think it's the wrong thing to do, and would rather let these suffering people live in constant pain than to give them the dignity of death. Why should someone else take away your right to die if you want to?"

I didn't understand what youth in Asia had to do with anything, but I could see that Dad had a point. You can't tell someone that they can't die. Of course they can die if they want to. Just most people don't want to.

"So what we've done is combined lots of good ideas into one thing. People get to plan their lives out however they want, there's no more overpopulation, no more old people sitting around being useless, and people don't have to live in pain. Don't you think that sounds like a good idea?"

I imagined all these ideas falling out of Dad's head like bubbles, and him catching them all and then squashing them all together until they were a really big idea. That would certainly make carrying the ideas around much easier for him.

"If it's such a good idea why do you have to be so sneaky? Why can't you just tell everyone that you're trying to help them?"

"It's not as easy as that Seffy, they don't think like you and I do, they just think that everyone should live forever, but they don't see how bad that would be for everyone."

"If everyone lived forever there'd be no room." I thought out loud

"Exactly right Persephone, there'd be no room and no food and the world would be a much worse place to be"

I imagined if there were so many people that there was only enough room to stand up. I'd probably suffocate. Maybe we would eventually evolve into very long tall people who could just nibble things out of trees like giraffes. Everyone would be really good at basketball.

"So Persephone, I want you to remember all that I've told you, because you might hear some bad things about me, but just remember that I am helping people. I'm ahead of my time Sef, someday everyone else will understand, they have to see it from a global perspective, but until then we can only carry on quietly doing what we're doing, and then you can run Life Planning when I'm gone."

"I can run Life Planning?"

"Yep"

"But then everyone will be mad at me for killing people."

"Not if you're very clever about it sweetheart."

"So is that what happened to Mum? She planned her life and it was ready to end? What about me? Didn't she want to watch me grow up?"

"She had planned her life Sef, she had planned to live until your children were toddlers and she had given you all the advice she could, but accidents happen no matter how well we plan things."

"Accidents?"

Dad jumped up, piling up the things which had fallen out of the suitcase.

"No time to lose Sef, go down to the kitchen and grab all the food that doesn't go off. Things in cans. Fill up as many empty bottles as you can with water."