Friday, July 1, 2011

The Beaureau

It's been hard for me to settle for as long as I can remember. I'm never satisfied with where I am or what I have. Since I moved to Seattle four years ago, I've lived in 6 "permanent" residences, with a stint of homelessness and various couchsurfing expeditions. Now that I'm on my seventh location, I haven't bothered changing my address, since I've blended with my surroundings and lost touch with the credit card companies and government that used to know my name. My workplace is really my only legal tie; I rely on my friends and my good name otherwise for security and regular survival.
The trend of technology has taken me this long to finally embrace. Pillars of expectation have crumbled and revealed their obsolete nature as I sit before the screen with infinite knowledge behind. All I could ever want and dream has been presented to me, and from every insignificant action to every crisis I've endured, I find myself in the paradise former civilizations have only dreamed of.
Maybe that's how they found me. I can only leave any sort of trail for so long before the patterns match up with my trademark destruction. I've been writing and they've been reading, putting two and two together. So this morning, my roommate came to me quite distraught with a piece of mail in his hand with his address and my name on it, presuming I was already overstaying my welcome. I was just as surprised as he.
It was from The Beaureau of Processing in Washington, D.C. Apparently, they have been closely monitoring me all my life, and I was selected based on my abnormal production/consumption ratio for something called "preferred annihilation", some kind of fancy assisted suicide. I've been declared an existential criminal, the afterlife is to be my prison, and the rest of the world will be it's own witness protection program, with me left as less than a memory.
So, they've given me a week to think of how I want to die and what they should do with my remains. I can't make it public, no one would believe me anyway, but I can't even have a funeral or let any of my family know I'm going away. The Beaureau and I already know I will be a case of disappearance: a loose cannon who's been running all his life and they should've seen it coming. I wonder what story they've already planned for me, at my workplace and with all the people they've got tabs on out of my association. I never thought I would be a dangerous person to know, but I guess it really is the quiet ones you have to look out for.
I can't help but think that I'm not the first, that our government has been secretly euthanizing its citizens for years, or maybe it's a new thing with all the worries of overpopulation. I saw a movie once where postapocalyptic survivors that won individual island getaways were actually being harvested for their organs unbeknownst to the group. Maybe all the people who "move away", get "new jobs" or simply weren't there one day, maybe they were selected too.
I'm disappointed that I won't grow old, and I didn't think I would really lose my chance for a family of my own. Even if I became a soldier or went to prison, I would have a chance to come back and find a wife. But then I think of the famous Seattle musician who said "when you're dead, you're made for life." Before Van Gogh died, he was just some crazy artist who cut off his own ear. Maybe whatever I'm leaving behind really is all the same and the experiences I've had has made my life every bit as fulfilling as my father's.
Anyway, I don't want to go quietly, so I've refused their orders. If you or someone you know has been selected, don't worry, and please message me. What's the worst that could happen? Let's fight this thing and see what happens.

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