Recyclable

The line was moving faster than it did last year. That meant one of two things, that either efficiency was up, or the more realistic alternative being that fewer New Year’s babies were being born. The practice had become akin to shooting an albatross. No one wanted a New Year’s babe these days. I couldn’t blame them. There was a certain dread to it, that specific date looming, always counting down the days. You couldn’t shake it or ignore it, and despite the day to day activities of life, it was always present in the back of your mind. 

Some got used to it, but many more did not. I noticed that this year, several faces were missing from the last.

I always paid attention in the line. Since I was old enough to understand my recycling day, I had tried to memorize their faces, knowing it would be another 364 days until I saw them again. It was taboo to offer names or introductions. The process was solemn, a day of reflection. There were never any conversations or repartee, but sometimes there were long glances or nods, affirmation of the bond we all shared. 

So I gave them names, nom de plumes I plucked from old books that I read voraciously in my younger years before they made the banned list. 

It was how I first met Eve.

From the moment I saw her, I knew something more than myself.

We locked eyes, a brief moment of acknowledgment, but we lingered longer than I was accustomed to, and then she did something that changed my life forever.

She smiled.

It was brief and slightly melancholy, and yet it filled my heart with such fierce longing that I almost spoke to her right then and there. Only with extraordinary force of will was I able to keep my tongue in check. 

After, when I exited the wellness check chamber, my limbs still awkward and not quite fully connected synaptically with my brain, I saw her again, leaning against the wall and waiting for me. My overtures were clumsy and immature, but she didn’t seem to mind. Rather, they seemed to endear me to her in some way that I could not fathom. 

I wondered often in those early days how I could luck upon such happiness. For sixty-seven years I had been a cog in the machine, recycled each year upon my day of birth, just another face in a sea of faces, doing my due diligence to assure the future of our race, a macabre dream with no end, existing to exist.

And then there was her. 

To say that she changed my life seems like a disservice to the phrase. She became my life, enveloped me in a cocoon of hopes and dreams, freed from the mundanity of the cycle, untethered from the great machine that we all served. 

Our courtship was brief. We both knew what we wanted, and the papers were approved only days after submitted. 

A year later we were blessed with our daughter, Lizzy, plucked from the very pages of a Jane Austen novel. She was both precocious and stubborn, with a loving nature that was fiercely intense, as if she knew such a thing was much needed in our world. 

Seven years later we welcomed Jordan, though to subdued fanfare. It was not that we were reticent for his arrival. We loved him with a feverish fervency the moment he opened his eyes and gazed upon us, but his genetic blueprint came back positive for the virus. He was a carrier, which meant he’d never be approved for marriage, never know the love of another human being in that way. 

To say we worried was a minimization. There was not a moment from his birth that I did not fear for his future. I knew Eve was of like mind, though it went unspoken. It was evident in the way we doted upon him, heaping praise and love and affection for the most minor of achievements. Even Lizzy was cognizant of her brother’s affliction, which made her position of older sibling that much more substantial. Each high mark was a cause of celebration, a victory we held high until the shine long faded. Thankfully, the victories did not lack in abundance. Jordan was gifted with a high IQ, something that became apparent early on.    

By the time he was twelve, he was invited to the university. Not one to let such an opportunity slide, we were completely supportive of his transition, though we did require him to live at home during his formative years. He graduated, unsurprisingly, at the top of his class and was immediately assigned to the hive brain, what we called the quantum computer that had spent the last two hundred years trying to find the cure for humanity’s malady. 

It seemed that our fears were for naught. 

As a parent, no, as a father to a son, I should have known better. 

There was no sign. That’s the only solace I was able to take away from it. The last evening before his recycling, we had gathered together as we always did for a family dinner. It was replete with lively conversation, laughter, and even a game of charades. 

The next day I was informed that Jordan had chosen expiration over recycling, and nothing was ever the same. 

The woman in line before me coughed, snapping me out of my reverie. I had dubbed her Poppins years ago, because she always wore a tall hat with a feather in it. The feather changed from year to year, but not the hat. It had faded from its once rich black color to a more muted gray. I reached out a hand and placed it on her shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

The look of alarm she gave me reminded me why such overtures were considered anathema. Here, in the line, we were all going through something, and we needed to go through it alone. 

I withdrew my hand with mumbled apologies, stepping back to give her more space. She gave me a few more anxious glances, at which I avoided eye contact, until she was assured that I wouldn’t attempt further contact. 

My line of sight had wandered to the next line over, just twelve steps away. It was shorter by far, numbering less than ten citizens, and yet it moved far slower than ours. I recognized the majority of them. The expiration line moved slower on purpose, I assumed, to give those more time to reflect and ascertain if their choice was hasty in retrospect. 

Just a dozen steps. 

I wondered what thoughts persuaded my son to bridge that distance. Even as I contemplated this, one of them, a man I had labeled Othello, departed the expiration line, head hanging low as if embarrassed by his brazenness.    

“I’ll be waiting for you on the other side,” Lizzy had said to me less than an hour ago.

I had said the same thing to her mother seven cycles ago. If Eve had been ahead of me in the line instead of behind me, I would have seen her depart. 

I could have stopped her.

Even as I had that thought, I wasn’t convinced. After Jordan, Eve had not been the same, but not for a moment did I entertain the notion that she would choose expiration. It made no sense, not with Lizzy and I waiting for her on the other side. At least, it didn’t at the time.

Poor Lizzy. 

She had developed an anger that festered within her like an infected wound. In a way, she felt betrayed by her mother’s choice. Over the years, I had tried to assuage her of that feeling to no avail. Her stubbornness did not allow her the blessing of forgiveness, and so she latched herself onto me like a life raft amidst a raging sea to compensate. 

 Lizzy was meticulous in her vocation, the main goal of which was to never leave me to my own devices for long. Each afternoon since that day, I would exit the adjustment bureau where I worked to find her waiting for me. We would have dinner, Lizzy lingering until she sensed sleep creeping upon me, only taking her leave once she had given me several hugs and kisses on the cheek. The night always ended the same, her at the door, giving me a look of such intensity that it was frightening. She would tell me she loved me and that she would be waiting for me after work.  

It filled me with sorrow to see her so. I wanted her to find what I had found, to love like I had loved, to know that same sense of belonging. 

Of course, Lizzy had time. There was no aging with recycling, but I also knew that with each passing day, her heart hardened a bit more to the idea of romantic entanglement. I could tell in the way she flippantly dismissed my probing when the subject arose, citing work as an excuse, or the way she angrily shut me down when I mentioned she would have more time if not for her need to babysit me. 

I was once again drawn out of my own contemplation, this time to the soft sounds of sobbing. 

Looking around in consternation until I found the source, I was somewhat nonplussed to find that it came from the expiration line.

This was a day of firsts, apparently. 

I did not recognize the woman, which was a bit surprising. 

I had moved ahead in my line and drawn parallel to her. She was standing still, head high and chin jutted forward, but her lips crumpled and every few seconds a small sob would escape her mouth. A couple of tears had dried on her face, leaving faint streaks.

Something came over me, a feeling of such empathy that I was moved to leave the line before I quite understood what my feet were doing. I knew that they were all staring at me. I would have done the same at any other time, and I’m pretty certain that I heard the woman who’d been in line ahead of me gasp, but I did my best to ignore it.

Coming to the stranger’s side, I gently reached for her hand. At first, she flinched and attempted to withdraw, but I put my other hand on top and pulled it up, cupping it against my chest. She looked into my face and her composure wilted, the lines of grief deepening, the tears falling unchecked now.

“Who did you lose?” I whispered.

It took a few seconds for her reply.

“My husband,” she finally mumbled. “Two cycles ago.”

“Do you have children?”

She nodded, her lower lip trembling.

“Th-three,” she stuttered. 

I smiled at her.

“Today is not the day,” I said softly. “Maybe next year, but not today. Today they are waiting for you. Don’t disappoint them.”

I tugged on her arm and she came willingly. We walked to the end of the other line. It was moving faster now. When we reached the threshold, she turned to me, and this time it was her that smiled. 

“Thank you,” she said.

I nodded and placed a piece of folded paper into the pocket of her coat, the letter I had been carrying for several years now. She looked down quizzically and reached for it but I shook my head. 

“When you get to the other side you’ll see a beautiful young woman with auburn hair waiting. Please give that to her.”

I saw comprehension dawn in her eyes. Before she could protest, I ushered her to the door as it opened in front of her. When it closed I stepped out of line again and took my twelve steps, surprised that my feet felt so light.

After all these years I had finally understood, and I knew that Lizzy would too once she read the note. I wasn’t leaving out of grief, but of love. This was her life now, and she needed to live it. I was going home, to be with my wife and son, and someday in the far future, we’d all be together again.