I feel a tinge of joy—the first in years—and a sliver of hope. But I’ll not relax until I am certain my daughter has escaped with the family’s savings. If they catch her trying to get across the border, they could confiscate her money and condemn her to solitary confinement in a Psychiatric Hospital for the “lack of caring.”

Although determined not to let the Minders detect my daughter’s plan, I cried when she left. With my body trapped in machinery and only able to move my lips and open my eyes, I could do little to prevent the tears being detected.

“What’s this,” the ever-alert Minder had said. “Isn’t your daughter coming next week?”

“Of course,” I mumble.

“So why so sad?”

“I’m thinking of my family and friends who died before the Prolongers took over. I’ve lived an extra seven years because of the pills, the equipment and the medical specialists.”

“Yes, and you’ll be alive another ten or more years; your daughter still has considerable savings. It might have been longer if your selfish son-in-law hadn’t escaped with his money.”

“And with my grandchildren.”

“A sad day but the President is doing all he can to recapture those who flee to a foreign country.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“You enjoyed the walk to the river with your daughter?”

“Yes, although the drugs are freeing and I often hallucinate about being outdoors, I’m happy my daughter can still take me to the river.”

“Sadly, it’s hard on the equipment so this might be your last trip outside.”

“Then we’ll visit here in my room, the chair is comfy.”

Of course, I hoped my daughter would never be in the room again but I couldn’t hint at that.

When my daughter arrived earlier today, although she did nothing to alert the custodians, I immediately saw in her face that this would be our last visit.

“Shall we head down to the rapids?” she smiled. “The autumn leaves are glorious.”

It was rhetoric question; I always want to go outdoors.

When I was young and had contemplated dying, I fantasized being in the open country, walking out into the snow, lying down and fading painlessly into the final sleep. Now of course, even if the Prolongers allowed it, I could not move by myself and while my daughter still had money they would not allow her to take me beyond the gates.

When my daughter visits, we always go down to the river; the sound of the rapids muffles our voices. For safety, we still speak in a coded language. When my son-in-law escaped with the children, we had to hide our joy behind an angry tirade.

“The police came and told me Tom and the children have slipped across the border with his savings and the money from the house,” my daughter announced. “They are keeping an extra watch on me, although I would never leave you, mom. Even when we have no money and you are sent to the Hospice, I will stay with you.”

“I know, Tom was not loyal,” I chimed in. “And to take the children.”

This afternoon, as my daughter was leaving I yearned to reach out for a final hug, but that might have raised suspicions. She brushed a bit of lint off of my cheek and planted her usual cursory kiss on my forehead.

“My hands are cold,” I said, and she rubbed them.

A Minder hurried in, “Do you need special heated gloves?”

“No, I just like the human touch,” I admitted.

“What a sentimentalist you are,” the Minder laughed. “You know Roberta Robot does that much better.”

As she hurried out to get Roberta, I felt my daughter slip a necklace over my head.

“I brought in your favourite necklace, “ she whispered. “The chain with the gold coin.”

It was a secret signal. The coin on the necklace was to pay the ferryman to cross the river Styx: a myth, which our family somehow found comforting.

The Minder burst through the door, “Gold needs to be reported,” she said.

“It’s only costume jewelry my mother bought when she was young and poor,” my daughter chuckled.

“You were poor?” the Minder asked in surprise.

“Oh yes, we worked hard for years to make our fortune,” I said. (Which at the rate it is being spent, will soon all be gone, I thought bitterly.)

When one is left for so long unable to do anything but think, you wonder what you might have done differently. I had always opposed the Gun Lobby and was sure if it were defeated, things would be better. I was wrong.

The gun lobby was defeated only to be replaced by an even more powerful lobby: a conglomerate of the pharmaceutical industry, suppliers of medical equipment and the specialist doctors. Together they lobbied the government to enact laws that prolonged life. Now whatever your wishes as long as you or you family or friends have money you will be kept alive until the last penny is spent. Then you are shuffled off to the Hospice, leaving family and friends in abject poverty.

I volunteered at the Hospice once in order to visit a dying friend. We pretended we didn’t know one another to prevent them whipping her back to the Hospital and charging me for her care.

I knew it was my last visit; she was only hanging by a silken thread to life. When I got outside I longed to run back and give her a final hug—and at the Hospice you are encouraged to touch—but I knew if I did she would know it was the end.

Today when my daughter left, I asked the Minder if I could watch on the monitor as she walked through the garden.

“It can’t do any harm,” the Minder said pointing the monitor towards the garden.

In a few minutes I saw my daughter walking slowly along the path. She would know that the guards were watching so would do nothing to jeopardize her escape from the country and my escape from life.

She stopped at a pile of branches and dead flowers left by the gardeners. When she stooped to pick up what looked like a rose, I asked the Minder to zoom in.

I watched as my daughter caressed the fading pink flower. She touched it to her lips and made a kissing gesture just as she did as a child when we parted. The kiss flew through the air, into my room, and landed tenderly on my pale cheek.

~ Melodie Corrigall

Printed in Continue the Voice April 25, 2021. https://issuu.com/continuethevoicezine/docs/7 – page 64