In between these now-daily visits, Varya had taken to having conversations with her mother in her mind, playing the role of antagonist herself. But it wasn’t the same. She could never quite see things the way her mother did. Instead, her thoughts were muddied by dozens of shades of grey in between the black and the white.
Varya smiled now as she watched her mother. Her son was well cared for there, among the spring flowers. She took a step forward and reached out her hand. The air rippled, like a gentle vertical wave. It felt akin to caressing a cloud and, as always, she felt drawn to the shield between the two worlds. Moving closer, she pressed her face into its shimmering aura and stood on the borderline soaking up the miracle that was this opportunity to see her son each night, as though he were still here. Her son. Varya stepped through and smiled, opened her arms.
“Mummy, Mummy!” The small boy ran to her. He tripped and fell but he didn’t cry. There was never blood in here, no grazes, no bruises. Varya strode quickly to meet him as he stood and brushed himself off.
“Kir, my baby boy. Come here.” She crouched and picked him up, inhaling the scent of baby shampoo in his eternally freshly-washed hair. She pressed her cheek against his and tried not to cry. No more harm can come to him here. He is safe, she told herself.
Varya peered over his head at her mother, who was straightening up slowly and rubbing her back.
“I can’t stay for long,” Varya told her.
Elena nodded. “You need your rest. You’re tired. You should use this time to sleep.” The words echoed strangely, slightly tinny, as they always did.
Varya shook her head. “No. This is more important than rest.”
Elena limped over and placed a hand on Varya’s cheek.
“And a cure is vital. But you must rest, allow your mind to wander and find a solution.”
Varya moved, just slightly, but enough to deflect the older woman’s hand.
“My mind must focus to find a solution, Mama. And I can’t focus if I’m asleep.”
Elena sighed and swatted dismissively at the air between them.
“Bah. You work too hard. Find your peace and what you seek will come to you.”
She hobbled past Varya, heading toward a nearby park bench. The sound of her walking stick struck the pavement loudly, echoing in the silence. No joggers passed them in this unearthly park. No parents walking with babies, nor dogs trotting alongside their owners. Even the birds were quiet. Elena sat, resting her hands atop her walking stick, and watched.
“What do you want to do tonight, little one?” Varya asked her son.
“I want a guitar, Mummy. Can I have a guitar? I want to make music. I’ve seen pictures of guitars, but we can’t find a music shop. We’ve walked and walked but there isn’t one. Where can we find one?”
“I’m not sure, baby boy. I’ll find out for you, okay?”
Kir nodded vigorously. “Then we can go on a guitar treasure hunt. I like treasure hunts. We went on a puppy dog treasure hunt today and I found five puppy dogs!”
“Is that so?”
“Yep. There was a brown one and a black one and one that is called a Dalmartian.”
Varya laughed. “You mean a Dalmatian.”
“No, Mummy, a Dalmartian. He came from outer space in his rocket ship I think, or a whizzing round saucer, I’m not sure because he couldn’t talk but I did ask him.”
The boy peered up at her earnestly. Then he gave her a coy smile.
“But it might just be pretend, but I’m not telling,” he whispered.
“Bah, flying dogs. That boy’s head is filled with nonsense. It’s this place, Varya. It plays tricks with the mind.” The old woman stomped her stick on the ground.
“I’d like to meet your Dalmartian one day, baby boy. You say hi, from me, next time you see him, okay?”
“Okay, Mummy.”
“I have to go now, sweetheart. I’ll be back soon.”
The boy pouted. “You always go. You never stay.”
“Mummy needs her sleep.” Elena appeared behind him and took his hand.
“I want to go, too. I want to sleep, too.” Kir snatched his small, smooth hand out of his Nanna’s gnarled, wrinkled one.
“Aye. I wish you could, believe me. Following you around all day would exhaust me, if I could still be genuinely exhausted in this place.” Elena took his elbow and gently tugged. “I think I saw a possum just before. Shall we check to see if he’s still there?”
“Where? Where was he?”
Elena gestured vaguely off into the distance. The boy moved with what seemed like lightning speed.
“‘Bye, Mum!” he yelled as he went.
Varya held her hand up in a silent salute. She exchanged a nod with her mother but hesitated.
“He’s safe with me,” Elena told her. “Go now.”
“No pain?” asked Varya, knowing the answer, but still uncertain.
“No pain.” Elena shook her head. “It’s still a good day, this long, long everlasting day. Always a good day.”
Varya nodded and felt the tears gather in her chest.
“Thank you, Mama. Thank you.”
Elena smiled slowly. She picked up a small black box from the park bench and slipped in into her dress pocket. “I’ll move this back into the apartment for your next visit. I don’t think we’ll be out here tomorrow.” She waved her walking stick at Varya. “Now, shoo. Go back to where you came from and take your rest.”
Varya inched her way back through the shimmering air. She watched the little boy becoming smaller and smaller. She closed her eyes and the vista dissolved. She closed her mind and slipped into a deep and peaceful sleep.
Chapter eight
“Okay, I’m heading off. You’re all right to take Daniel to school today?” Zoe swung her handbag up onto her shoulder and picked up her medical bag. Before Varya had left the night before they’d hastily worked out a schedule of drop-offs and pick-ups so Daniel wouldn’t have to walk to and from school by himself. They were leaving nothing to chance—Ben Williams still hadn’t shown up. After two days and no word, it was clear he wasn’t going to come home of his own accord.
Varya looked up from where she sat on the couch next to Daniel. The boy watched spaceships fly around the wall screen, shooting at each other, while Varya scanned medical journals on the screen on her lap.
“Yes. Yes, that’s fine,” she answered. “I’m starting late and finishing late. You’ll pick him up from school?”
Zoe nodded. “Yes, I’ll get him. I’ll do a short shift.” She held her hand up to Daniel, trying to get her son’s attention. “See you later, hon’. Be good for Varya.”
Daniel raised his left hand in salute, without taking his eyes off the screen. Zoe rolled her eyes, nodded to Varya, and headed down the hallway. Varya heard the door shut behind her friend as she headed out for the day shift at the city’s palliative care unit. A good death, a painless death, that’s what the goal was. But always death. The children who Zoe cared for were beyond the point of recovery. There were no extra treatments to try or experimental programs to get them into. There was no cure, no hope. Only waiting, goodbyes, and a good and painless death.
That’s what they’d told her about Kir five years ago. The tumour was too advanced, it had wrapped itself around his tiny heart. Do a transplant, she’d said. Not possible, the surgeons had shaken their heads. Too close to an artery. Too rare. Too many unknown variables. Too young. No hope.
Prepare for a good and painless death.
That was the point at which she’d met Zoe, in that room with the animals and rainbows printed on white walls. The tubes and beeping monitors decorated with brightly coloured circles.
“How are his pain levels today?” she’d ask as she popped in to say ‘hi’ at the start or end of her rounds. In the early days they were good, not bad at all. Maybe they could just take him home? Maybe Zoe could talk to their paediatrician? Zoe had hesitated, suggested she and Varya grab a drink in the hospital cafeteria
while Kir slept.
Yes, Varya could take her son home, Zoe explained as she stirred her sweetener into a strong, black tea—it was quickly becoming the new national drink since the coffee supplies had started to dry up—but things could turn very quickly and he would be more comfortable at the hospital. Varya could stay beside him. But that tumour, wrapped around the artery. It could choke it at any time. It would cause pain to Kir that couldn’t be treated at home. Or the tumour in his brain could rupture, causing seizures. Which, again, could only be treated at hospital.
A rare cancer, they’d been told. Aggressive, sudden, but silent until it had grabbed her son in a chokehold. No cure. Too fast.
Eventually, Zoe explained, when the pain became too much for Kir’s tiny body—when, not if, she said—Varya could ask her paediatrician to slowly increase the morphine in his drip, keeping him out of pain. He would become drowsy and calm. Varya would probably have the chance to say a final goodbye before they increased the dose a final time and allowed him to slip into his forever rest.
This was all before Varya decided to take Kir home, despite the medical advice. Before Sebastian said his own goodbyes and left them.
Varya clenched her fists and glanced across at Daniel, willing her heartbeat to slow, her breath to even out. She tried to bring herself back to the present, to connect with the people who were still here.
She breathed in one final time and exhaled slowly and audibly. Daniel looked up at her.
“Hungry?” she asked.
“Always,” he answered, stretching his skinny arms above his head.
Varya smiled. This kid, Zoe’s kid, kept her anchored. His long-limbed loping ways were at times painfully reminiscent of an awkward age that her own son had never reached but comforting to have around.
She stood now, placing her screen on the low table, and heading out of the small living room to their even smaller kitchen. Rummaging around in the fridge and pantry, she came up with a simple breakfast platter of cheese, crackers, and dried fruit. Daniel glanced at it with a frown as she laid it down on the coffee table between. He paused the spaceships on the big screen, leapt over the arm of the sofa, thundered into the kitchen, opened and shut a few cupboards, then stalked back into the living room with a hunk of dried sausage and a stack of rye bread.
Varya smiled and went back to her screen, perched on a bar stool, chewing on a dried apricot. They sat in companionable silence for several minutes.
“Varya…”
Varya looked up from the medical journal she was poring over, surprised to hear Daniel speak her name. Normally she was lucky to get a grunt or a ‘hey’.
“Daniel,” she responded in kind.
“What was it like, back when people got old? Like, you know, older than sixty-five?”
Varya was glad he was still looking at the wall screen as she tried to arrange her face into something approaching a suitable adult expression. She cleared her throat but failed to start. She took a deep breath. Daniel twisted around to face her, bringing his knees up and resting his elbow on the back cushion.
“You know, before Rest Time?” he pressed.
“Yes, Daniel, I knew what you meant,” she said, more curtly than she’d intended. She paused. Images of her grandmother’s disapproving face flashed through her mind, skin cool and smooth in the valleys between the wrinkled peaks.
Tell him the truth, her grandmother’s ghost seemed to whisper to her. Varya shook her head.
“It was… terrible,” she said brightly. Daniel’s face fell slightly, and Nanna shook her head in disgust. Varya swallowed and pressed on with the official version. “Once people reached their eighties, sometimes as early as their seventies, their minds and bodies would start to deteriorate. An entire aged care industry sprung up to care for them, often abusing them behind closed doors. Many lost their minds to dementia, they stopped recognising their own children.” She told the story with all the enthusiasm of a spooky ghost tale on Halloween. It rang false even to her own ears.
Daniel had that faraway look in his eyes. He’d stopped listening.
“But surely not everyone was like that?” he interjected. “A kid at school says that he heard somewhere that lots of old people used to be fine, that they even kept working into their nineties.” His eyes lit up now. “He said he found a story about an old lady who went out every day to feed her sheep with hay bales from the back of her pick-up truck in the drought of 2018. She was eighty-nine. That’s twenty-four extra years on top of what we get.” Daniel stopped and looked at Varya expectantly. Imaginary Nanna crossed her arms, leaned against her bright, yellow Laminex bench, and raised both eyebrows questioningly.
“Daniel,” she started, in her best imitation of what she understood to be a ‘teacher voice’. The challenging look on Daniel’s face told her she’d got the tone right. “Daniel… yes, you’re right. There were certainly some people who lived well into their nineties independently. They kept working, earning money, stayed healthy, and needed little help.” Daniel regarded her triumphantly. “But…” She held a finger up in the air. He glowered at her. “But most of those who were over sixty-five started to decline almost immediately. Their health fell apart, with multiple and complex issues, they stopped working and became a drain on the economy. The healthy, younger people had to pay higher taxes to fund the infirm for decades after they’d stopped contributing to society. The droughts and the storms, the earthquakes, and the bushfires, they kept coming. Resources were scarce and, as a society, we simply couldn’t afford to support a massive section of the population who couldn’t support themselves. The birth rate continued to decline, and people realised that this was actually a good thing for the planet, for the environment. And so, we went about transitioning to a new economic system and looked at other ways to reduce our population gradually and sustainably. This—the Rest Time Chips—was one of them.”
Varya had been a teenager when Rest Time was introduced in Australia. They’d still been behind the early adopters—China and Russia—but ahead of many others, including most African and Pacific Nations. For a while, these countries hadn’t needed Rest Time, or the Time Chips—the brutal effects of climate change had taken care of their overpopulation problems. Western Europe and the United Kingdom were still arguing amongst themselves about exceptions and enforcement protocols. But it was coming, even there.
At first it had been voluntary in Australia, with lethal injections provided to those good citizens who were selfless enough to want to ease the burden on their children and grandchildren. But then the food and fuel shortages worsened, the recession turned into a depression and dragged on. The government reduced medical support to over-sixty-fives. Then they reduced the pension at the same time the price of food sky-rocketed. Wealthier elderly, and those who had wealthy children, were taken care of. The lower and middle classes suffered the most. Emaciated bodies were more and more commonly being removed from private aged care homes. Mysterious outbreaks of influenza in government-funded aged care facilities took care of large numbers of the elderly. Research into illnesses which commonly affected the elderly, such as dementia and arthritis, ceased due to their strategic funding cuts.
The slow squeeze was successful. Octogenarians started to show up at their local doctor requesting a lethal injection kit. Septuagenarians looked around and began to see they were the next to go. Retirement wasn’t something anyone spoke about or looked forward to anymore. People held onto their jobs, literally for dear life, fearful of being labelled unproductive and being tapped on the shoulder. The meaningful glances, the unsolicited information: “Did you hear they’ve started selling those injection kits over the counter, if you’ve got I.D. that shows you’re over sixty-five?”
The government ensured the time evangelists were given an ever-increasingly large platform. A program was launched to send these productivity advocates into schools to talk about the innate satisfaction of working hard and living life to the fullest while you were young and healthy. They
preached that a life of idleness was detrimental to your health and wellbeing and that those who idled were a drain on society.
The invention of the Rest Time Chips by a joint Australia-China eminent research facility simply breathed permanency into the new end-of-life ritual.
“But before Rest Time Chips, kids weren’t taken away so people could steal their years,” said Daniel quietly. His expression was reproachful and mournful at the same time. Varya’s heart caught. Imaginary Nanna wiped a tear from her eye and sniffed.
“People have always fought over scarce resources,” Varya began, gentler this time. “Oil, gold, land, water. And time has always been a scarce resource. It’s just that, in the past, nobody really knew how much of that particular commodity they had, until they ran out of it.”
“But now we do know.”
Varya nodded. “Yes. Now we know. And now some people fight because the Rest Time Chips have turned time into a commodity that can be bought and sold. And, of course, stolen.”
Daniel thought for a moment. “Maybe sixty-five years is enough.”
“Maybe.” Varya shrugged and turned away, suddenly exhausted.
“I hope Ben comes back soon,” Daniel mumbled.
Varya closed her eyes, wishing she could pretend she hadn’t heard him. But she was the only one here for Daniel right now. She ran her finger around the edge of the medical journal article on her screen: The interaction of Rest Time Chips with the nervous system and their effects on the body during life. She wondered if she should leave Zoe and Daniel, whether her dependence on them for emotional contact had delayed the achievement of her goal by soaking up precious time. Perhaps focusing on another child had dulled her sense of urgency. As her fingertip traced the edge of the screen once more, she pressed gently just after the curve. The screen went black as she pushed herself off the bar stool. Her feet felt heavy as she found her way around the back of the couch and sat down next to this child that wasn’t hers but was hers to care for right now. She gently pulled him into her, resting his head on her chest.
Stealing Time Page 4