Exit Party

I fluffed the synthetic lilacs and anchored the purple foil balloons across the arch, careful to avoid contact with the sheer blue depths within. The Party Room had no windows. She'd selected 'sunlight' as her light filter, so I set it to 2 p.m. in Tuscany. I walked over to the connected sterile prep room to check on the prefab cake, which was beginning to cool from being taken out of the oven. The celebration specialists would soon add icing in whatever color was indicated in the file. The scent would drift into The Party Room, and it would smell like confetti cake. Vanilla, that is to say.

I reached into my briefcase and pulled out her final file, mentally checking off the boxes. Lita Navarro, 28. Hobbies: jigsaw puzzles, poetry, old jazz records. No next of kin. She chose the “garden party” theme, knowing it would be held underground.

All of the standard compliance and waiver forms were signed, with photocopies stapled to the back of the file. The Final Statement was signed with looping cursive. Her request was to hold her party alone, which was unusual. There was an approval from the Department Head written neatly in red pen. Request: solitary celebration approved in 2 of 10 cases this quarter.

I was just replacing the folder when I heard the hiss of the seal of the main door disengaging.

She was early.

No one ever arrives early. No one wants to.

I walked out of The Party Room to the hall, waiting.

There is the soft padding sound of ballet flats on the composite tile. She rounded the corner, and I saw her frizzy hair first. Her dress was grey with a faint light stain spreading across the hem, accidental like sun-damaged car paint. She smiled.

“Hi,” she said.

I cleared my throat, extending a hand in greeting. “Ms. Navarro. I am the Final Approver for the Department of Departures. Pleased to meet you.”

“I didn’t want to be late,” she said, taking my hand and giving a light shake. Her eyes scanned the room. “Is it ready?”

“It’s… yes. Almost.” I motioned toward The Party Room, humming with soft jazz music. The scent of vanilla had just begun to seep in, sweet and pleasant. “Do you need time to review your file?”

“No.” She walked past me, stopping just shy of the doorway. “I know what I signed.”

She said it intentionally, looking up toward the simulated sky, blinking hard.

“It does feel kind of like Tuscany.”

“You’ve been?”

She didn’t answer. Then she said, “I’d like to start early, if that’s allowed.”

Technically, it was. But I hesitated. In my experience, people usually stall for the first few minutes. Sometimes they even asked for more time. It was rare to request to begin a Final Celebration nearly fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.

“Sure.”

Lita walked slowly around the perimeter of the garden simulation, her fingers trailing through the holographic bushes. She touched them like they were real.

“You know,” she said, “I used to want a real garden. But then I killed a basil plant in college and gave up on growing anything ever again.”

“You’re not alone,” I offered. “Most people do.”

She didn’t smile. Just sat down on the iron café chair beside the celebration table, which was draped in white lace and topped with a single unlit candle, awaiting its cake counterpart to become whole. Her file stated that there were to be no guests, only the specialists. So it was just me.

“Do you want me to review your Final Statement out loud?” I asked. It was the closest people got to a eulogy in these situations.

“No.” She glanced at the cake, being placed carefully on the table by a specialist and now iced and decorated with edible flowers, as per her file. “But I’d like a piece of that. Is that weird?”

“Not at all.”

I cut her a slice and passed it over. She took one bite, chewed thoughtfully, and placed the fork down.

“When was the last time you had confetti cake? It tastes so good,” she said. “Like the kind of cake you eat at a school birthday party, where everyone gets that one skinny slice of pizza and a Capri Sun.”

I marked the statement in the file. Subject accepted ceremonial cake.

“You can sit if you want,” she said, not looking at me. “You don’t have to hover.”

I sat across from her. I was trained to make it as comfortable as possible.

“Did you ever have a party like this? When you were alive?”

“I’m not—” I began to say. But stopped. It wasn’t worth the correction. My mind went to a memory of a picnic in a park with my girlhood friends. I shook my head, no.

“I mean,” she continued, “did you ever get the kind of celebration that felt final? Not like a birthday, but something else. Something where you knew, this is the last one of these I’ll ever get.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Unless you’re choosing to undergo this, I don’t think we usually realize it’s the last time until it’s already passed.”

“That’s the trick, isn’t it?” she said, wiping her mouth with the napkin. “Knowing it while it’s happening.”

She stood and ambled over to the digital pergola, where the sun cut little diamond shapes on the floor.

“Do people usually cry?” she asked. “In here?”

“Sometimes. Not always.”

She nodded. “I don’t think I’m going to.”

“I believe you.”

She reached into her dress pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper, folded in half twice. “This isn’t my Final Statement. It’s something else. Do I need to file it with you?”

“No. You can read it, if you’d like.”

She looked down at the paper. Her hands were steady.

“This is me,” she said. “Down to a little piece of paper.”

She didn’t read it aloud. Just stood there. Lips moving. Silent.

Then: “I’m ready now.”

I rose, smoothing my coat. The console readout was green.

“Would you like to activate the Sequence yourself?” I asked.

“No. You do it. You’re the specialist.”

I nodded and turned to the control panel. Keyed in the authorization code. A shimmer passed across the edge of the Party Room like heat haze. The depths of the arch glowed a deeper, opaque blue.

“Thank you,” she said. “For making it pretty.”

“You did most of it yourself,” I said.

Lita turned to face the digital sky. The light filter glowed golden.

“Here,” she said, stretching out her hand to me. “I think I do want someone to read this, after all.”

I took the paper and nodded at her, placing it in my pocket.

I pressed BEGIN FINAL CELEBRATION SEQUENCE.

I lit her candle. I cued her playlist. I closed the hatch behind me.

There would be a few minutes until she would be instructed to walk through the archway.

When the room was sealed, I unfolded the note:

I never did anything remarkable. I never made any meaningful relationships. I worked and had a decent job and was comfortable in life, but it wasn’t really enough. Not for anyone else. If my comfortable life felt hard, there wasn’t a single person in the world who cared to hear about it. In the end I had no one close enough. I had enough to live and do the things I wanted, but no one to really enjoy it with.

I was liked just enough by my family, my friends, my boyfriend, my coworkers, to be a person in the world. But what a meaningless existence. If I shared anything deeper about who I was, they just offered me advice. Here’s how you fit in. Here’s how you fix you. You are something that needs to be fixed.

I am someone who will always be told they need to be fixed by others, and I don’t think that I actually do. I think that what’s waiting for me through the arch is better than anything I could strive to achieve here. I hope this body will be put to great use, because I loved her very much. I thought she was enough.

I think what comes next is where I’m meant to go. That’s why my party is just for me, because I want to selfishly enjoy it. This is my last day and I finally get to let someone know how excited I am. I feel good. I want everyone to feel this excited about their lives as I do now for this. This is what I think my life was always supposed to lead to, and I’m ready.

I clutched the letter in my hand until the Sequence ended. Then I said goodbye to someone the world never really saw at all.