Member-only story
A look into the future. Short fiction.
The interview began. A small group of children wanted to know how they got there. Not where babies come from. Everyone knows that, even though pregnancies are now rare and births are even rarer. The children wanted to know why they lived in a world where nobody they’ve ever met lives past thirty.
And they wanted to know my story, who I am and how I lived so long. I’m 117 and certainly the last of my kind.
I was too tired to keep hiding. I was hungry and lonely and guilty. I just didn’t care any more so I turned myself in. But they didn’t want revenge. They just wanted to understand. I suppose they deserved that.
Before asking, they described their plight, as if I didn’t already know.
“We understand that people used to live a long time. People lived up to three times as long as we do. At least that’s what our parents told us. And we’ve seen some books and other writings although we aren’t too good at reading. But there are gaps. We don’t fully understand what happened. We’ve heard that there used to be many more people. We number in the thousands, but our species used to number in the billions. People didn’t die so frequently of hunger and disease. And people got pregnant much easier, and much more frequently.
