part of thinking, but not all of it.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Many things. A poem. An idea. Your grandmother.” My grandmother died early of one of the last kinds of cancer when she was sixty-two. I never knew her. The compact was hers before it was mine—a gift from her mother-in-law, Grandfather’s mother.
“What do you think she would say about my Match?” I ask him. “About what happened today?”
He’s quiet, and I wait. “I think,” he says finally, “she would ask you if you wondered.”
I want to ask him what he means, but I hear the bell ringing, announcing that the final air train for the Boroughs will be coming through soon. I have to go.
“Cassia?” Grandfather says as I stand up. “You still have the compact I gave you, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I say, surprised that he would ask. It’s the most valuable thing I own. The most valuable thing I will ever own.
“Will you bring it to my Final Banquet tomorrow?” he asks.
Tears well in my eyes. He must want to see it again to remember my grandmother, and his mother. “Of course I will, Grandfather.”
“Thank you.”
My tears threaten to spill over onto his cheek as I bend down to kiss him. I hold them back; I don’t cry. I wonder when I can. It won’t be tomorrow night at the Final Banquet. People will be watching then. To see how Grandfather handles leaving, and to see how we manage being left.
As I walk down the hall, I hear other residents talking to themselves or to visitors behind their closed doors, and the sound of ports turned up loud because many of the elderly cannot hear well. Some rooms are silent. Perhaps some are like Grandfather, sitting in front of open windows and thinking about people who are no longer here.
She would ask you if you wondered.
I step into the elevator and push the button, feeling sad and strange and confused. What did he mean?
I know Grandfather’s time is running out. I have known this for a long time. But why, as the elevator doors slide shut, do I suddenly feel that mine is running out as well?
My grandmother would want to know if I wondered if it wasn’t a mistake after all. If Ky were meant to be my Match .
For a moment, I did. When I saw Ky’s face flash in front of me so quick I couldn’t even see the color of his eyes, only the dark of them as they looked back at me, I wondered, Is it you?
CHAPTER 7
T oday is Sunday. It is Grandfather’s eightieth birthday, so tonight he will die.
People used to wake up and wonder, “Will today be the end?” or lie down to sleep, not knowing if they would come back out of the dark. Now, we know which day will be the end of the light and which night will be the long, last one. The Final Banquet is a luxury. A triumph of planning, of the Society, of human life and the quality of it.
All the studies show that the best age to die is eighty. It’s long enough that we can have a complete life experience, but not so long that we feel useless. That’s one of the worst feelings the elderly can have. In societies before ours, they could get terrible diseases, like depression, because they didn’t feel needed anymore. And there is a limit to what the Society can do, too. We can’t hold off all the indignities of aging much past eighty. Matching for healthy genes can only take us so far.
Things didn’t used to be this fair. In the old days, not everyone died at the same age and there were all kinds of problems and uncertainty. You could die anywhere—on the street, in a medical center as my grandmother did, even on an air train. You could die alone.
No one should die alone.
The hour is very early, faint blue and pale pink, as we arrive on the almost-empty air train and walk along the cement pathway toward the door of Grandfather’s building. I want to step off the path and take off my shoes and walk with my bare feet on the cool, sharp grass, but today is not a day to deviate from what is planned. My parents and Bram and I are all
“What are you thinking about?”
“Many things. A poem. An idea. Your grandmother.” My grandmother died early of one of the last kinds of cancer when she was sixty-two. I never knew her. The compact was hers before it was mine—a gift from her mother-in-law, Grandfather’s mother.
“What do you think she would say about my Match?” I ask him. “About what happened today?”
He’s quiet, and I wait. “I think,” he says finally, “she would ask you if you wondered.”
I want to ask him what he means, but I hear the bell ringing, announcing that the final air train for the Boroughs will be coming through soon. I have to go.
“Cassia?” Grandfather says as I stand up. “You still have the compact I gave you, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I say, surprised that he would ask. It’s the most valuable thing I own. The most valuable thing I will ever own.
“Will you bring it to my Final Banquet tomorrow?” he asks.
Tears well in my eyes. He must want to see it again to remember my grandmother, and his mother. “Of course I will, Grandfather.”
“Thank you.”
My tears threaten to spill over onto his cheek as I bend down to kiss him. I hold them back; I don’t cry. I wonder when I can. It won’t be tomorrow night at the Final Banquet. People will be watching then. To see how Grandfather handles leaving, and to see how we manage being left.
As I walk down the hall, I hear other residents talking to themselves or to visitors behind their closed doors, and the sound of ports turned up loud because many of the elderly cannot hear well. Some rooms are silent. Perhaps some are like Grandfather, sitting in front of open windows and thinking about people who are no longer here.
She would ask you if you wondered.
I step into the elevator and push the button, feeling sad and strange and confused. What did he mean?
I know Grandfather’s time is running out. I have known this for a long time. But why, as the elevator doors slide shut, do I suddenly feel that mine is running out as well?
My grandmother would want to know if I wondered if it wasn’t a mistake after all. If Ky were meant to be my Match .
For a moment, I did. When I saw Ky’s face flash in front of me so quick I couldn’t even see the color of his eyes, only the dark of them as they looked back at me, I wondered, Is it you?
CHAPTER 7
T oday is Sunday. It is Grandfather’s eightieth birthday, so tonight he will die.
People used to wake up and wonder, “Will today be the end?” or lie down to sleep, not knowing if they would come back out of the dark. Now, we know which day will be the end of the light and which night will be the long, last one. The Final Banquet is a luxury. A triumph of planning, of the Society, of human life and the quality of it.
All the studies show that the best age to die is eighty. It’s long enough that we can have a complete life experience, but not so long that we feel useless. That’s one of the worst feelings the elderly can have. In societies before ours, they could get terrible diseases, like depression, because they didn’t feel needed anymore. And there is a limit to what the Society can do, too. We can’t hold off all the indignities of aging much past eighty. Matching for healthy genes can only take us so far.
Things didn’t used to be this fair. In the old days, not everyone died at the same age and there were all kinds of problems and uncertainty. You could die anywhere—on the street, in a medical center as my grandmother did, even on an air train. You could die alone.
No one should die alone.
The hour is very early, faint blue and pale pink, as we arrive on the almost-empty air train and walk along the cement pathway toward the door of Grandfather’s building. I want to step off the path and take off my shoes and walk with my bare feet on the cool, sharp grass, but today is not a day to deviate from what is planned. My parents and Bram and I are all
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