"It seems I have only two choices. I can proceed straight home—"
"Your license plate has already been registered,” one of the nurses stipulated, “and you'll be under constant automated satellite monitoring by GoogleEarth."
"—or I can submit to treatment immediately."
"So long as you have adequate healthcare insurance."
"I do."
"And do you wish to undergo treatment?"
"Well, sure, why not? I would've seen my own doctor sooner or later if I didn't get better, you know."
The eyes of the nurses managed to convey deep skepticism.
"I'm not a bad person, just a little out of touch."
"We make no moral judgments, sir. Our concern is merely guarding the public's health. Now, if you'll come with us...."
The nurses conducted me behind the sales counter and through a door.
I found myself in what was obviously an infirmary. The nurses took my health insurance information and left me alone.
It was then that I noticed something odd about the room.
Although its tiled walls and easy-to-clean floor contained a paper-topped examining table for patients, it had none of the other accouterments of a hospital. No machines, and not even a canister of tongue depressors.
Before I could unriddle this lack, a doctor entered.
In his scrubs, the man was tall, thin, and possessed a mop of red hair that stood up like a cock's comb. His face too was half-concealed by a mask.
"Dr. Gutenberg,” he announced himself. “Please strip to your underwear and climb on the table, so that we can begin your treatment."
I started to unbutton my shirt. “But don't you need to examine me?"
"Not at all, not at all. We have the readouts from the scanner gate. Your treatment is pre-ordained."
Sitting in my boxers on the crinkly wax-paper, I watched as Dr. Gutenberg opened a cupboard door and removed—a book! He began to rip pages out of it.
"This is a first edition of Jack London's Call of the Wild. Proven extremely effective against influenza. Effects of the pure Arctic landscape described therein. Its cost will show up on your bill, under the ‘drug’ heading. Not covered by your insurance, I'm afraid."
I quailed at the destruction of the valuable book, especially since I knew what it went for online. “Wait just a minute. What kind of physician are you?"
"I am a doctor of bibliostetrics. Under the Public Safety Act, we have the federal franchise for all bookstores. Now, lie on your side."
Reluctantly, I assumed the required position. Dr. Gutenberg rolled up the pages of Jack London's book into a cone, inserted the narrow end into my ear—then lit the whole affair on fire!
"Hey!"
"Don't squirm, you'll negate the treatment! Surely you've heard of ‘ear-candling.’ An essential part of bibliostetrics."
I quit wriggling and allowed the procedure to finish. After turning over, I underwent the same procedure in my other ear.
"Feel all better?” asked Dr. Gutenberg as I sat up.
"Not one hundred percent...."
He cupped his chin and pondered. “We'll have to perform a papier-mâché full-body wrap. Take off your shorts."
I complied. The doctor secured and plugged in a little electric pot.
"Electric glue pot. From J. Hewit and Sons. By appointment to the Queen and all that. Top quality stuff. Just like this plough blade."
Dr. Gutenberg flourished a big wood and rubber spatula.
"Now, just relax."
In a short time I was completely coated with sticky, smelly paste from the neck down. Dr. Gutenberg began to rip pages out of a different book.
"First edition Walden. Guaranteed to restore complete health."
Soon I was immobilized like a mummy. Curiously, I began to relax and feel better. Perhaps it was just the fumes from the glue pot. I drowsed off peacefully.
But I was jolted awake by waves of pain as Dr. Gutenberg ripped Thoreau's prose from my body! I screamed, and flailed about, accidentally grabbing Dr. Gutenberg's mask.
The naked face of the the “doctor” was immediately recognizable to me!
"You're Harry W. Schwartz the Fourth!"
"No, no, I'm Dr. Gutenberg—"
I climbed down off the table. “There's no such thing as the Schwarzenegger-Clinton Public Safety Act, is there? That entrance scanner is a fake!"
The mock doctor caved. “Yes, yes, I'll admit it! Sales were down at the store, and we came up with this scheme. The nurses are my nieces, and the contemptuous patrons were illegal immigrants hired from the Home Depot parking lot. And those weren't true first editions, just Weston Press reprints! Practically worthless, we get them for two dollars a carton."
Now the smell of the glue registered with me. “And this binder's paste is just melted brie!"
Harry W. Schwartz IV began to weep. “Left over from our last author signing! You won't press charges, will you? Milwaukee can't afford to lose another independent bookstore."
Picking off scabs of text, I said, “You realize that a lifetime supply of free hot cocoa is merely the beginning here."
Harry Schwartz IV smiled. “Wonderful. Take two free paperbacks and call me in the morning."
[Back to Table of Contents]
Exit Strategy By K. D. Wentworth
K. D. Wentworth says her current projects include two novels written in collaboration with Eric Flint, The Torus War and a sequel to The Course of Empire. Her latest story is an unusual look at how difficult the teen years can be.
On Thursday, when the March wind was biting-chill, Charlsie put on her best black lace leggings and her new hoodie, then popped down to the Second Life Temple to donate her body.
Dead leaves skittered along the Camden sidewalk and she kicked them out of her way. Her mood was positively foul. That afternoon, she'd gotten back her Sociology paper, “The Division of Labor: How Women Always Like Get the Shaft.” At the top of the front page, Mr. Shapiro, her Fifth Hour Soc teacher, had written “Dreary, Polemic, and Uninspired: C-.” She'd poured the best thirty minutes of her life into that paper. It was clear now that living was not for her.
A Church of Second Life priest waited in the temple doorway as she trudged past the cut-back rose bushes, dried-out plants, and bare earth of the dormant memory gardens. Above the massive wooden doors, one leaves, one stays had been etched into the gray stone in letters two inches deep.
"So, daughter,” the middle-aged man said when she was close enough, “why have you come to us today?” He had massive football-player shoulders and was dressed in the Order's traditional navy blue trousers and shirt. His eyes conveyed the soulful gaze of a basset hound.
"I'm, like, tired of living,” she said, unwrapping a piece of Tart Tangerine gum, “so, as your brochure says, I thought I'd give someone more optimistic a chance."
"Admirable,” the man said. He folded his hands, which was harder than it should have been because he had huge scarred knuckles that looked like he'd gone more than a few rounds in the fight ring in his day. “Is there a reason for offering yourself at this particular moment?"
Charlsie studied the red and blue thread friendship bracelets around her wrist. Amy and Madison had given them to her when they'd all still been speaking to one another. She twisted the thread until it broke and threw the bracelets on the ground.
"Everything sucks,” she said, “trying to make friends and then keep them, when they're all two-faced bitches, trying to learn the most boring stuff in the universe and then cough it back up for tests just so that one day I can work for practically nothing at some boring job. I'm tired of curfews, rules, fads, boyfriends, parents, especially my dad. Can you believe he even wants to tell me how to wear my freaking hair! You name it—I've had it!"
"I see.” His voice was a murmur so that she had to move closer. “Why don't you come in and we'll discuss the matter?"
"What's to discuss?” Charlsie crossed her arms and chewed her gum as though it were her
former best friend, Krissi. “And don't give me that counseling crap! I don't need anyone to tell me how to make up my own mind."
"What about parental permission?” the priest said.
His voice tried to hit a soothing note, but it had a gravelly quality. Must have taken a few punches to the throat during those fights. She jammed her hands in her hoodie pockets.
"We can't—proceed without that,” the priest said patiently.
If her parents got wind of this, they would freak big-time. They had even forbidden her to get her eyebrow pierced. Her dad in particular never let her try anything cool. She practically had to get his permission to change the shade of her nail polish. “I just turned eighteen,” she said, which was almost true—sorta. She did have a fake ID for clubbing that would back her up.
"Then you are indeed a candidate,” he said, standing aside so that she could enter the temple. “My name is Sister Angela."
Her jaw stopped in midchew. “Sister—?"
"I once was fortunate enough to avail myself of the church's services,” Sister Angela said. A smile lit up the rough-hewn face. The expression was very nearly sweet in a gruesome sort of way, kind of like being smiled upon by a slavering pit bull. “They gave me a second chance at life."
* * * *
"You're not going to give my body to some freaking guy, are you?” Charlsie demanded as the two of them walked back though the echoing nave to Sister Angela's office. Votive candles in tiny green glass holders were burning in the dim side alcoves and the flames bent double as they passed. The air positively reeked of bayberry. The whole effect was so retro, she couldn't believe it. “That would be just too ... gross."
"Why should it concern you?” Sister Angela said, “since you wish to abandon it yourself?"
"How come you didn't get a female body?” Charlsie said. “How come they stuck you with—” She gestured at the ungainly male form. “—this?"
"I had cystic fibrosis,” Sister Angela said. “I was dying from the moment I was born, so I was grateful for continuing life in whatever form it came."
"You should have gotten a refund, maybe even sued.” Charlsie flounced through a door in the back of the church as directed, and then another to the left, finding herself in Sister Angela's poorly lit office. Books, mostly steamy historical romances, were piled on shelves, soap opera gossip magazines heaped in the corner next to a computer desk. The room smelled faintly of Chanel #5 and distant machinery vibrated beneath the floor.
"We don't charge for our services,” the sister said. “We operate on donations. No one knows what form they will be given until they go through the process and then wake up on that blessed morning to take up their second life.” She smiled broadly, revealing chipped teeth. “We feel that it's best to let God choose for us."
"Well, God sure enough must have been pissed at you,” Charlsie said. Sister Angela's nose looked as though it had been broken any number of times. “Were you like a big-time sinner?"
"I think you're getting off the point,” Sister Angela said, taking the chair behind a well-worn desk. Her hands were again folded, but her battered male face looked like it would like to take a swing at Charlsie. Old habits probably died hard. “You're certain you want to enroll in the Donation Guild?"
"Guild?” Charlsie said. “I don't want to join anything. I just want to give my body away so I can be like—at peace."
"In order to do that, you have to become an acolyte in the Guild,” Sister Angela said. She opened a drawer and pulled out a handful of paper forms. “Just fill these out, then we'll go on from there."
* * * *
Jeeze, Charlsie told herself as she struggled with the Application Essay, this was worse than applying for college. All she wanted to do was off herself in a way that would make those conceited skanks back at school really jealous. None of them would ever have the nerve to do what she was doing. That was for sure.
"Reason(s) for wishing to discorporate?” the form asked.
Charlsie had never seen that word before, but obviously it meant “die.” Why couldn't they just come out and say so? Were they trying to confuse her?
"Everything sucks,” she wrote laboriously, then added, “And Everyone.” Including the Church of Second Life, she thought rebelliously, but didn't write that.
"Hobbies?” the form asked.
She threw the pencil down and crossed her arms. Sister Angela looked up from her computer monitor. “Having trouble?"
"What does it matter if I have hobbies?” Charlsie said. “I'm trying to die here, not post a bio on MySpace or get a date for Prom."
"We find that the body retains muscle memory, after the original personality is wiped,” Sister Angela said. “So it helps to have a file for the new owner. That way he or she knows if they might become a watercolor painter or a seamstress, a dancer or an excellent horsewoman."
"Oh.” Chagrined, Charlsie picked up the pencil again and went back to the form. After “Hobbies?” she wrote “tattoo artist,” “bungee jumping,” and “sky diving.” She'd never done anything of the sort, but she didn't see how it would hurt her body to give those a try after she was gone. It might as well go out and live a little. She certainly never had. Thanks, Dad, for seeing to that.
"Allergies?” the form asked.
"None,” she wrote, though she was allergic to shellfish and strawberries. Let the next occupant find out the same way she had, by trial and error. No reason why they should have it any easier than a born person.
"Sexually active?"
"Very,” she wrote, though she hadn't actually gotten around to the deed yet. She'd always meant to, though. Intentions counted. Everyone knew that.
Charlsie worked her way through the rest of the questions much faster thereafter. It was a lot easier, she found, if you just made the answers up, and by the end, she was pretty much enjoying herself, which hadn't happened for a while.
Sister Angela collected the papers and squared up the edges by tapping them on her desk. “Fine.” The weathered male face beamed at her. “I'll have these entered into the computer and we'll see you tomorrow, same time."
"But—” Charlsie said. Her face heated. “I was counting on biting the big one today."
"Oh, we never proceed that quickly,” Sister Angela said, taking Charlsie by the elbow. “The gift of a body to a dying person is sacred. We don't want anyone doing it on impulse."
"This is so totally screwed up!” Charlsie muttered to herself as she drove her clunker Tempo across town to another dreary pot roast dinner with the ‘rents. A girl couldn't even off herself when she wanted. Just as she'd thought, everything in this so-called Vale of Tears really did suck.
* * * *
After dinner, the pot roast lay in her stomach like lead. She didn't do her homework. She didn't pick up her discarded clothes, put away her clean laundry, or make any attempt to straighten her room. No point in bothering with any of that stuff if you were planning on exiting forever tomorrow. Instead she watched old movies on the television in her bedroom until what her mother called “the wee hours.” One, a black and white flick, The Big Store, starring three maniacs called The Marx Brothers, made her laugh until tears rolled down her face.
The next morning she slept in and let school go on without her. That ho’ Krissi could lord about the halls all she wanted with her posse, which admittedly contained every one of Charlsie's former friends. She just snuggled under the covers until midmorning when hunger and Nature's call finally drove her out.
Mom and Dad always took her younger brothers to school on their way to work and left the house before she did, so they wouldn't have any idea that she'd stayed home. She stumbled into the gleaming stainless steel kitchen and reached for the Slim-Fast bars in the pantry, but then realized, if she were going to vacate this body, there was no reason to obsess about her weight anymore. So, instead, she breakfasted on Vanilla Fudge Ripple ice cream, two bowlsful in fact, then showered for twenty solid minutes with no one about to yell at her abo
ut emptying the hot water tank.
When it was time to go back to the temple, she dressed carefully in her favorite denim miniskort and a lacy teal tunic (the one her dad totally loathed), cut low to reveal assets which she really didn't have. That would soon be someone else's problem, she thought airily. She was moving to a higher plane where great boobs were no doubt issued as standard equipment.
At the temple, Sister Angela's ugly mug was waiting with someone else, a fragile old woman with flyaway white hair, haphazardly pinned up as though she employed a hyperactive two-year-old as a beautician. The Order's navy blue pants and shirt hung on her like grocery bags.
"Charlsie, it's good to see you again!” Sister Angela said.
"Jeez, you don't have to sound so surprised,” Charlsie said, shivering in the spring air. She really should have worn her freaking jacket with the little mirror spangles, even if it didn't go with this outfit. “I said I would be here."
"Seventy-five to ninety percent of all initial applicants never return,” the old woman said in a quavery voice. “Most people are impulse applications who change their minds once they cool down and think the matter through."
"Charlsie, this is Father Andrew,” Sister Angela said. “Our head priest."
* * * *
"No way!” Charlsie said, her head reeling.
The two Second Lifers had persuaded her to come inside the temple to get out of the sharp wind. “It often affects people like that, my dear,” the old man/woman said, patting her cheek with a withered hand. “It's a perfectly normal reaction—nothing to be ashamed of."
"Is this a perv hangout?” Charlsie sank onto a polished wooden pew and breathed in the scent of lemon oil. “You're going to hand my body over to some old fart?"
"We prefer the term ‘seasoned soul,'” Sister Angela said. “And, remember, God does the selecting. Otherwise, we as imperfect humans might be inclined to play favorites. It's a bit like buying a lottery ticket. Some are big winners, others are just good for another ticket so you can play again, and some frankly are not much of a prize at all."
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