Devoid

Trigger warning: suicide

April 29, 2030, a proud couple welcomed home their first daughter. She was born three days prior but after the infant mortality rate rose to almost 50% in 2022 a baby was not considered technically alive until he or she was released from the hospital. The spike in deaths caused all types of myths and superstitions. One such myth suggested that saying the name of a child before bringing them home would somehow affect the chances of survival. 

The moment the couple and their new baby pulled into the driveway, the car was met with a horde of relatives ready to meet the baby and congratulate the parents. Somewhere in the glee and jubilation, it was mentioned that her name was Maya.

When her parents had to return to their jobs, Maya spent the days with Auntie. Auntie was a friend of the family who once taught first grade. After retiring, she took up baking and singing at Catholic funerals. Maya and Auntie spent every day together unless it was summer. The very best way to describe Auntie’s house was a Montessori preschool meant for one lucky child. It worked very well. Maya could read short books and do simple math before her first day of school. 

When it was time for Maya to begin school, she just hopped into her father’s truck. He was a teacher at an elementary school surrounded by corn fields and cow farms. The school was dilapidated but no one seemed to mind. Maya made fast friends with almost all of the teachers, even the mean ones. Before and after school, she would go from room to room asking each teacher if she could be of any help. She loved cleaning off chalk boards and reorganizing the number blocks but her favorite job was helping the librarian to put books away. 

The hours where Maya was in class were not so much fun. She had a very hard time making friends and always seemed to be getting into trouble. Around the second day of kindergarten, she forgot how to read. By the time she was in second grade, the conversation around pills began. She fell so far behind her peers in academics and virtually every other unit of measurement that her parents were desperate to help her. It all seemed so easy, one little pill every night and in the morning the perfect child would crawl out of bed.

By the time she was 15, Maya’s grades were sub-par. She still did not have friends but pretended to be at peace with the situation. Since she was 15, it was the year she would take The Test. 

The Test was a response to the average lifespan of an American being almost sliced in half due to deaths of despair. Almost no one felt satisfied or happy and human life seemed to have lost its value. The results of The Test would determine what job a person would do for the rest of their lives. This way, no one would flounder around trying to find the point of their existence. Like almost everyone, Maya was indifferent to The Test. Whatever happened would happen.

Actually, there were two tests. The Yellow Test and The Green Test. The Yellow Test would determine which university a person would attend and which major they would pursue. On account of the cause for the pills, Maya would be taking The Green Test. It would decide for her what trade she would call her life's work and perhaps which trade school she would be enrolled in. Trades work and professions were equally celebrated so everyone’s feelings got hurt. 

On the day of the test, Maya put on her best clothes and smeared the gruesome red lipstick into her face. She hated the act of dressing up but her parents insisted on the perception of perfection and wellness. At school, she took her spot at a computer and began. After four long hours, the screen went black and blue letters made themselves visible. They proclaimed that Maya would be a funeral director and embalmer. Her score arranged itself in such a way that she was eligible to begin working in a mortuary and studying specific courses the very same week. 

Her first day at the mortuary went perfectly. It was slow but it gave Maya the perfect chance to get to know her new co-workers. For the first time, she felt as though she fit in. All of her jokes landed and she seemed to find everyone interesting. It was clear that there was love in the air. Not a love for anything physical but a love for the human experience and the ability to help one another through the most difficult parts of it.

The second day was a bit more busy. Maya sat in with a family as they planned a funeral for a three day old infant. By the time the arrangement conference was over, someone had already gone to the hospital and brought her back to the mortuary. Maya watched as the men bent over the child and did the very best they could to make her look alive. They smeared cosmetics on her and dressed her in what was supposed to be her baptismal gown. 

The next day, the parents came back to see their baby. Their movements did not seem voluntary. It looked as if they had to bargain with their brains just to breath. The child's grandparents came, too. It was their first and last chance to see the granddaughter. The entire situation was torturous. The funeral directors thought of the time when their children were small. The grandparents felt lucky for the chance to care for their adult children but unhelpful and guilty. There was nothing Maya could do because she was young and inexperienced.

 Life went on like this for five years. Maya had finished her schooling and begun to work full time. She was so good at her job but maintained a good work life balance. She owned a beautiful little house and was on her way to becoming part owner of the funeral home. Maya was the apple of her boyfriend’s eye. He loved her so deeply and planned to spend the rest of his life with her. Thank goodness for the pills and The Test. 

Everything was perfect. Maya had achieved the American dream and sooner than most. However, everything felt wrong, constantly. There was absolutely nothing to fix but everything somehow felt broken. None of the people around her could see this intangible problem. All they did was commend her on her accomplishments.  

One morning, Maya woke up and could not shake the feeling that no one loved her. As she went through the day helping a man to bury his wife the feeling just grew stronger. Her boyfriend did love her but she did not love him. The one way street of his affection was worse than anything. Her boss told her she needed to be more present. It made her feel as if her entire life was just a series of places she could not fit into. She wanted to quit but The Test had spoken. Even if all of this had happened before The Test was created there was nothing she could do. She had the mortgage and the pride of an entire community to maintain. 

When she arrived home that day, Maya collapsed on the floor of her kitchen. She cried until she hyperventilated and puked. This cry was the kind of cathartic cry that left her feeling bubbly and new. She turned on some music and got to work cleaning up the vomit. Just as she finished cleaning, it came to her that she would have to go to work again in the morning and the morning after that for what felt like eternity. She began to cry again.

After missing three days of work without asking for time off, the frustration of Maya’s co-workers became fear and concern. They called her parents and boyfriend but to no avail. Maya had not spoken to anyone since she left work four days ago. Calmly, a phone call was made to the police station. The police found Maya on the floor of her bathroom surrounded by empty pill bottles. This was the third response to a suicide that week. 

Maya’s body made its way to the funeral home that she was supposed to own. Her co-workers pumped her full of potions and covered her face in heavy cosmetics. Nothing they did felt adequate enough. There were only so many tricks to make a person look like themselves after laying on a bathroom floor for a few days.

 Her funeral was just like everyone else's. A pastor she had only met once read a Bible verse about time and seasons. Then he made some comments about her success in life and then preached the Gospel. The organist played the same three hymns she played at every funeral. Her parents sat in the same two chairs that all grieving parents sat in during funerals.  

As Maya’s parents sat in the folding chairs and listened to the hymns they could not figure out what went wrong. Everything seemed so perfect. Maya was the perfect child. She did everything she was meant to. She excelled at the path The Test had chosen for her. There was nothing they could do to help her. There was nothing the government could do to decrease the number of deaths of despair. It was the new plague and everyone was out of ideas on how to retard its spread.