It was one of those beautiful spring evenings, with the soft breeze blowing blossom past my smile. The sort that makes you happy to be alive. I like to think that I appreciated it more than most, but then, I was more than a little bit drunk.
I was also about to die.
Staggering into my flat, I collapse at my desk. On the surface, left from earlier today, is my birth certificate. My right to live. I hold it to my face, and the crumpled old document is stained with fresh tears.
In 2003, life was defined as 30 years. Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment were given a minimum of 30 years behind bars, which could be extended if behaviour was poor.
In 2030, thanks to chronic overpopulation, we took that further. Life, 30 years, is our minimum sentence to live. If behaviour is good, extra years are added, but the average life ends at 30.
After then, the government had calculated, life goes downhill. You stop creating for yourself, and start obstructing young people, who are looking to start careers. You have had your shot at life. They compared it, in their manifesto, to foresting. Old trees block out the sun. In time, they must be removed, so that new shoots can grow. At midnight on your birthday, you are recycled, and your organs go to others. Those who haven't had their chance yet.
Tonight was my birthday. My thirty-fourth.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Ah, my present. An analogue clock, an antique from a bygone age, bought for me by a joking friend. Nobody had those any more. Nobody really did birthday presents any more, either. Unless it's alcohol, or something else to be consumed on the night, there's no point. If there was a time for presents, it was the morning after. This had been a joke. Time, for the man running out. Something for me to watch, as I waited.
As I waited, I did. I watched the minute hand creep towards 12. At most, I had ten minutes left. As of today, I'd had four years to get used to it. Somehow, nobody ever did.
"Live every day like it's your last", they said. Was that meant to sound productive? Was it meant to motivate us, to go out in the world and do something? In an past age, of community and responsibility, it might have done. Today, we are more hedonistic. We'd spend our last day either crying "why me?", or wallowing in pleasure. I did the latter.
Knowing every day might be your last has a variety of effects on the human mind, but it doesn't encourage you to build for the future. It doesn't even set you free to behave like yourself. Were you comfortable, knowing you were immortal, then you'd be free and act like it. When you know you might die at any moment, however, death is your master and you are enslaved to her. She looks over your shoulder, and every decision you make is to postpone her visit. You are forced to make compromises, and sacrifices, and live in fear. You are a mortal. If you don't want to die, there is no time for being yourself.
I'd lived this year like it was my last, indulgent and terrified, and now I'd find out if that was right. Prior to midnight, there was no way of knowing your luck. Some people got extra years, some didn't, and we were never told why. Every celebrity life guru had a book out on it, but they were just financing their own pleasure. Distracting from their own fear. Tick.
If you grow big and important, you might be seen as indispensable. Alternatively, that might just mean you're in more people's way. I had an idea of my own: mess up your organs. If they had less to gain from your death, they might postpone it. Tonight, I'd given it a good go. My liver was definitely past its sell by date.
Tick. Tick. It was 11:45, at least. March 28th. I read the date on my certificate over and over, still not quite believing that it matched. I'd been lucky four times. Would this be the year?
I ponder how I will face the end. I could stare death down, defiant 'til the last. Or, sportingly, I could accept my time is up. I eye my bed. It is tempting to not face her at all, to go to sleep and never wake up. Of course, we'd all heard stories of those who had escaped the deadline. Every year, some killed themselves. I remember reading about one man who had been set to live, but who had died of fear. Tick.
I feared to die. Somehow, I felt that this was it. Today was the day. This year was the year. You haven't truly lived a day like it's your last, you see, unless you end it by dying. Tick. Tick.
Tick.
Dong.
I sat up, startled, but this wasn't death. Big Ben was chiming outside. The clock had no minimum sentence, no expiry date. It had been disturbing London's sleep for over 200 years. The clock face and bell had been replaced, in that time, with a digital display. The chiming I had heard was also digital. Like the clunk of a car door, the revving of its electric motor, or the whirr of a camera shutter, this noise had been added artificially. Humans seem to need this; we are the creatures of music. Silence is eerie.
None was more eerie than this. The wait until the next toll was brutal, seeming to last forever. I looked at the clock, and it confirmed my terrified realisation. Big Ben was striking twelve. The clang that had roused me had, very literally, been my death knell.
I waited for the second, for the end, but the silence stretched on. Was I dead? Perhaps the authorities had found a way of cleanly ending life; I had died, without feeling, and I would never feel again. I was a phantom. Alternatively, perhaps this was only the start. They'd sent in chemical weapons to deafen me, to dull my senses, before finishing me off.
I stood up, and moved over to the window. Nobody came to stop me. My shoes still slapped against the tiled floor. Were they waiting for me to look out, to present a target? I risked it. If tonight was the night, I wouldn't spend my last minutes cowering. I had made my decision: defiant 'til the end. I would die on my feet.
Opening the window, I took one last chance to savour that sweet, spring night. Instinctively, I looked to Big Ben. The chimes may have stopped, but the electric green display still shone.
01:00
One a.m. Not twelve. It took a while to break my defences, but slowly the relief washed over me. Not twelve. Not an ending, but a beginning. Saturated with emotion, I sunk back to the floor, but I couldn't rest. Puzzlement tinged my gratitude, and it demanded my mind's attention.
Eventually, I figured it out. Daylight savings time. The clocks had all moved forwards. The digital ones updated automatically. My friend, whether deliberately or not, had failed to update his gift. I'd been safe; I just hadn't known it. For the past hour, I had been wasting my time.
But I had another whole year to waste.
