Sleep

Ding!

The faint, muffled sound of a text alert resounds throughout the cold room. I wake to the howling winds. The branches of my garden tree knocking against the thick glass of my window.

Another day of living.

Perhaps, I shouldn't get up just yet. The skies are cloudy and the wind is cold - a wonderful day to stay in bed. I check my phone for approval. Maybe, I was sent some random spam message or something.

'New case. See ya!'

I sigh. Looks like staying in bed won't be an option. They need me today. Maybe I can stay in bed tomorrow. I slowly get out of my bed - reluctant to leave my cozy, little bubble of rest.

The birds chirp in a choir of disarray. Matching the mournful blowing of the winds. Everything feels cold to the touch. Oh, how wonderful it could be to stay asleep.

********

"Oh, you're finally here."

A man stands outside the gate to the clinic, his calloused hand goes up into the air to wave. I jog over to him - holding onto the lapel of my lab coat to prevent it from flying off my shoulders.

"Hey, Red. You waited long outside?" As I reach him, he turns around to walk with me.

"Not long," he opens the gate, "five - six minutes?"

I nod. A silence ensues between us. Our footsteps echoing as we move from gravel to sheet vinyl flooring. It was hard to find such a material. No one uses it now.

Inside the clinic, five surgical tables line the wall. Two office tables, wooden and used, sits to the left.

Red leans against the door frame, "How's work?"

"Same old boring job." I walk to one of the surgical tables, the only one not empty. A clothed figure lay over it. "Who's the unfortunate person of the day?"

"Name's Mandy Lee, 27 years of age. Died at 2 in the morning."

"Gene defect?"

Red scoffs. "What else could kill someone these days?"

I smile. He's right. No one dies anymore - unless you're somehow unlucky to be defective. Or maybe lucky - it really depends.

I uncover the cloth. A naked brunette woman lay on the table before me. She has a pretty generic face. Nothing too special. She had clearly been drained of blood before I got here. Makes my job easier.

"Have you put in the solution already?"

"Of course. I got bored waiting for you." He snickers as he wheels over the tray of medical equipment.

"Well you should have just finished the job."

"No can do. Incisions aren't my thing."

I grab a pair of gloves, and a surgical cap, and put them on. I take hold of a scalpel - a metal one. Like the one used by the people from a hundred years ago. It was cold to the touch. It's pretty much obsolete now - metal that is. Nowadays, people prefer using ARRIN over anything. It's everywhere. In our homes, in our workplaces, in our genes.

I make an incision. A small one. Enough to move on to the next step.

Red sits on one of the desks - fiddling with his things. He seems to have something in mind.

"You wanna ask me something, Red?"

"Sharp." He leans back into his chair. "How old are you?"

"I'm turning 32 this year." I insert a trocar into the body. I've done this a hundred times. I could probably even do it with my eyes closed.

"Not that. I mean how old are you physically?"

"You mean when I stopped aging?"

"Yeah."

I pause to think about it. "27. I stopped aging at 27." I go back to my work, puncturing the organs.

"Lucky you." He sighs. 'Haven't stopped aging just yet - and I'm 35." He points a finger at me, as though accusing me of some misdeeds.

"Oh," I murmur as I began to drain the gas and fluids from the body, injecting the chemicals along with it, "you'll stop aging soon enough. Don't worry."

I'm nearly done. If this process happened at least a hundred years ago, it would have had taken hours to complete. Now, however, we have ARRIN. It makes life easier that's for sure. Everything can be done in a matter of minutes. It's boring though.

Artificial Regenerative Robotic Inter-Nanotechnology. ARRIN. An eternity of living. The only death it can grant us is through some sort of gene defect.

Red contemplates my reply. Every year, he seems to become increasingly worried.

"What if I'm defective?"

"You're not." I say, suturing the incision. This was the slowest process of the embalming. Those that don't involve machinery. But it makes me happy doing it.

"What makes you say so?"

"If you were," I slowly say, making careful stitches, "you'd be dead by now." Those with gene defects never last long. A day, a month, or a year at most. You break and there's nothing anyone can do to fix it. It doesn't happen often though.

I cut the excess thread of ARRIN, sighing. "I'm done."

Red gets up from his desk and approaches me. He looks down at the body. "Good work. Clean as always."

He then motions towards the girl's head. Time to bury it. We move towards opposite sides of her body and, after a quiet agreement, we lift.

We place her in a coffin. A simple one. Handmade by Red himself. The corpse didn't need clothes. Nature will take care of her. Or maybe ARRIN. Nature seemed to have left us decades ago. Afterwards, we bring the coffin outside.

The burial site wasn't very far. A few steps away from the entrance. No one would see us. No one would dare. The thought of death was a tragedy unknown to many.

We place the coffin on the ground. A lifting mechanism awaited us outside.

Silence.

"I hope you rest well, Mandy Lee." Red speaks in a hushed tone. I said nothing. I did not know the person. I only came to make them look nice. No reason as to why. It was an important job back then - I thought I'd continue it somehow.

Red starts the lift and lowers the body into the ground. Grabbing a shovel beside him, Red begins to cover the coffin. I watch as he quietly digs up pile of soil, placing it back to where it once belonged.

Oh, how wonderful it could be to stay asleep.