June 21st, 2205
I knew the last day was coming. My implant had finally reached the single digits. I sat up last night, not doing anything but watching the one in my wrist change to a zero. I wonder if everyone does that. I wonder if my mother did.
I think I was lucky. I remember my mother saying that every woman in her family reached menopause early. I’m 51 years old. That’s pretty average. In this world, I’m old. Before the implant, I would have been middle aged.
That old saying about your life flashing before your eyes just before death, or in a moment of near death, is true. At least for me. It all comes back, but mostly I see the little details.
My mother scrubbing my sheets, the blood mixing with the soap and water like milk poured into coffee. The way my mother suddenly began to look older when she reached her last day. I wonder if I look older now. The way Maple’s eyes never blinked when she was talking about something she cared about vehemently. The perfect strength of Charlie’s handshake. The way my mind started to associate Maple’s scent with home, even if she was filthy, even if she had involuntarily masked herself with her floral soaps and shampoos. The way the glass she had been holding fragmented when she dropped it when she expired. She had glitched her implant one final time on her last day, almost like an addict, to forget that everything was about to end. Mine still had 647 days, when hers had 0.
I never had any children. That became the only way I could rebel. I was of no use to anyone; I was just a waste of an implant.
As I sit here in my bed and the day darkens around me I feel it all slipping from me. I feel like I’m exhausted, as though my brain is running on very few hours of sleep even though I always functioned best when I had gotten at least ten. But I sit here and I write and that’s all I can do that’s all i ever did i didn’t stop it i couldn’t even save maple or myself not even one single person. it’s like a venomous sundial of antiquity this little timepiece of fertility that kills it seemed so innocuous that first day those first years it wasnt even like a watch it was just this little screen that kept track of days or something i dont even know how i didnt know it would be my undoing everyones undoing. time is everyone’s enemy yes but people used to not know when it would finally catch up to them and that that was a luxury but now its no more at our heels it now lives perched on our shoulders whispering to us how much longer we have and then that precious precious time is spent worrying about how little time is left and we dont get t