by Chris Ramos
“No telemail today.” Cole carefully watched her reaction at his next statement. “Nothing to tell me Happy Birthday.”
Aunt Hester looked up slowly, her eyes meeting his, briefly widening, and returning to normal quickly. It was there: the reaction he wanted.
“Who wished you a Happy Birthday?”
“Nobody wished me, I just heard it. Never mind. It’s nothing,” Cole lied and ducked out of the kitchen, eager to end this conversation. He already had the answer from his aunt’s expression.
“You heard it today? Someone said it today to you?” Aunt Hester called to him.
“Yeah, I just heard it from some girl, some crazy girl with wild eyes.” Cole bounded up the bottom step and ran up to the second floor, two steps at a time.
“Just never mind, I’ll never see her again,” he called down from upstairs.
Aunt Hester was left standing and thinking about an old song her dad used to sing to her, whispering as she fell asleep. Something they were forbidden to teach in school.
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday, my sweetheart,
Happy Birthday to you.
It was early. Emma walked quietly along the edge of the street, with her head hanging low, hands in the pockets of her hooded jacket. If anyone was watching her, it would appear she was out for a morning stroll, taking her time to stop and watch a squirrel as it ran across the road, skittering around the wheels of a fleetliner, narrowly avoiding another squirrel, only to run up the same tree it dived down from.
While she was watching the little animals or smiling at a bird pecking the soft ground, Emma was completely aware of her surroundings, listening carefully for any approaching steps, vehicles out of place or, especially, anyone looking out their windows. Emma rarely trusted anyone, and she had good reason.
Emma made her way back down the street, passing the same houses she had just walked in front of. Confident that nobody was around but still not taking any chances, she walked in between two properties, reached into her pocket and pressed a small button sewn into the inside of her coat. She knew the button would alert the house in front of her. Three more presses of the button in quick succession alerted them to the north window of the home.
Emma stooped below the side window frame, pretending to look at the flowers planted along the house’s edge. She spoke without looking up.
“What time does the sun set tomorrow?” Emma asked, waiting for the correct response to let her know one of her men was listening.
“The sun sets after it rises,” came the correct response.
Emma liked this riddle. It was in reference to the sun setting across the world. When the sun rose in the east, it set in the west. Emma also thought this was a poignant question, while the majority of the population were so focused on themselves, they thought the sun rose and set only in relation to themselves.
Because he was able to answer correctly, Emma was comfortable divulging her report.
“Everything is as we discussed. He is our inside man. I’ll be gaining the knowledge we need in short order,” Emma said.
“Does he suspect?” the voice responded.
“Never,” Emma replied a little too quickly. It was a good question, and rightly asked. But was that her ego speaking? After years of assignments, she was confident in her ability to hide her emotions.
The downtown square was bustling this bright spring day. Cole was waiting for Emma. She told him to meet her across the street from B’s Bouquets at 16:30. So, here he was, on time. Emma was late, as usual.
Cole was drawn to the flowers and was debating whether he should walk over and purchase a selection for Emma.
They had progressed quickly in their friendship over the last few weeks. Emma had met him outside of Division Four almost every day, and then they walked to Aunt Hester’s home. Cole asked her to come inside and meet his aunt, but Emma always declined. Although they grew up in separate cities, they found that they had many of the same dislikes, which, in a way, made them closer.
He started walking across the street to the florist, but changed his mind and came back to his waiting spot. He still didn’t know what his true feelings were for her. She was beautiful in her own way, interesting to be around, and seemed to be getting along with him just fine. While there was a need to register with LifeSpan on any permanent engagement, there was no protocol for dating, if they tried to take that route. He just didn’t think Emma would like him in that fashion.
Cole glanced at his watch again, for the umpteenth time, and peered up and down the block. Even compared to her habitual lateness, she was very tardy. Maybe she changed her mind. Another ten minutes slipped by, allowing Cole to attempt to cross the street once again to purchase flowers, and once again changing his mind for fear of being embarrassed by his boldness. She probably had more important things to do. But Cole had been looking forward to their meeting all day.
“Psst. Hey, Cole, down here,” a familiar whisper rang out.
Cole turned and saw Emma leaning against the interior wall of the alleyway behind him. Her body was set at such an extreme angle, it looked more like she was holding the building up instead of the other way around. Her arms and legs were crossed, a half smile on her petite face.
“What are you doing back there? Why are you by the refuse chutes?” He was unsure of actually going into the alley. After all, people didn’t regularly find their way into alleys, especially if they didn’t want their clothes dirty. There weren’t many places in town that were dirty; LifeSpan kept a pretty clean house. More than enough maintenance bots were roving around. As if to prove his point, a tiny, wheeled sweeper bot nearly clipped him in the heel as it continued along the building’s edge. Sweeper bots were only about the size of a dinner plate, with a domed surface and the LifeSpan logo stamped into the middle of the chrome peak. Cole knew it would have stopped and waited for him before continuing on, but he always seemed to trip over the roving bots.
“Are you saying I’m garbage?” Emma teased.
Cole did not pick up on her lighthearted tease. “No, what would I say that for? I’m sure you were in the garbage for a reason. I mean, why would you . . . ,” he stammered. “I wasn’t calling you garbage, you just happen to be with garbage, well, you know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t,” Emma smirked. “In fact, I kind of like it in here. It’s private. Like another world within our world, away from the rules. More primitive.” Emma looked off, as if imagining a different place, far away. She snapped her eyes over to Cole, and left her dream to fade away. “I’ll let it go for now. I suppose I’ll come out of the garbage and join you on the clean side like everyone else. Got to be like everyone else, right, Cole? Y’know, I was watching you while you waited for me.”
“Well, I was looking for you down the block, but you were late.” He looked at his wristwatch and held it up for her to see, as if to further prove his point. “Can’t you tell time? Where’s your watch?”
Emma reached into her pocket and produced a pocket watch. The cover was dull and worn. At one time it appeared to have a silver finish, but the coating was tarnished. The timepiece was decorated with a relief of planes, boats and a large bird swooping to the foreground, a fish in its beak.
Cole had never seen anything like it before, and was amazed by the old-fashioned timepiece. Just about everything nowadays was newer, constantly updated. Very rarely did you find anything that was more than five years old, let alone as old as this timepiece.
Emma popped open the cover to reveal a single clock face, with the hour and minute hands slowly making their way around the circle. Small red gems were placed at the hour markers. Behind the scratched glass, the clock face was perfect, a flawless white background with very distinct lettering. It seemed out of place to Cole in the tarnished and dented watch covering.
“Did you think I wasn’t coming? Were you going to go home, just say the frag with me? Going to do better things?” E
mma asked.
“I have things to do. I’m a busy man.” Cole laid on the sarcasm pretty thickly.
“Oh, really, like what?”
“Actually the thought never crossed my mind,” Cole teased.
“Then why did you attempt to cross the street twice?”
Cole didn’t realize she was standing there all that time. Did he give something away? Did she suspect he was going to buy her flowers?
Emma pressed, “How long would you have waited for me?”
“For anyone else, I would have left after two minutes. For you, I would wait a very long time just to see you again,” Cole mumbled, slightly embarrassed at the wording and what it implied.
Emma seemed very happy with his response and skipped a little closer, smiling, still holding her old timepiece.
“Can I see that?” When she handed the item to him, he was surprised at the heft of the pocket watch, easily twice the weight of his own.
“What is the dial on the outside of your pocket watch?”
“Well, that’s so you can wind it. This is my family heirloom timepiece, long before LifeSpan issued their own. I think it belonged to my great-great-great-grandpa. The boats are on there because he was a fisherman, right on the ocean, with nothing to worry about, just catching fish every day, eating what he caught, selling what he didn’t eat. My mother used to tell me all sorts of stories about everyone in my family. That was when there were no expirations, and people cared about genealogy. What do you know about your grandparents?”
“Nothing on my mother’s side,” Cole lied. He didn’t feel like getting into the journal. After all these years, he still read passages from the carefully hidden diary. His mother wrote very briefly about her parents, and it wasn’t too favorable. Thinking of her diary brought him back to the pocket watch in his hand. His mother was always writing about her time winding the clock on the fireplace. The same clock he found the journal in. That was probably one of these family heirlooms. For a moment he was sorry he left it behind. But it reminded him of his mother too much and he wasn’t about to wind it everyday.
“Well, you need to wind it or something. It’s three minutes behind.”
“Behind what?” Emma asked.
“The LifeSpan time, the global time.” He fished into his pocket and once again brought out his LifeSpan timepiece. “Where is yours?”
Emma started walking away, “I left it at home.”
Cole had never heard of anyone being without their timepiece. There was no requirement to carry it, but it was a significant part of an individual’s identity. It was issued by LifeSpan, to count down remaining time.
Tracking expiration dates was the measure by which everyone lived.
“Well, how do you know what time it really is? The exact time, in sync with everyone else.”
“That’s the great thing about time. It moves differently for everyone, if you let it,” Emma said.
They walked along in silence for some time afterward. Cole was digesting her enlightening statement. They reached the end of the block and watched the maintenance bots drive into a small dock, releasing their payloads to be sucked away and recycled. Everything that fell on the sidewalk was recycled. The fallen leaves, food wrappers, dropped items, sand, dust.
“Alright, Cole, see you later,” Emma said as she began digging in her bag.
Cole glanced over at Emma as she took his picture.
Cole was surprised. “What was that?”
“It’s a camera,” Emma said as she looked up from the screen, “to take a picture of someone or something. It saves an image of your surroundings,” she finished sarcastically.
“I know what it is. I was wondering why you would want an image of someone,” he said. He walked over and held his hand out to see this camera. It was lightweight with a large glass dome protruding from one side. Made out of metal, it was worn, dented, and looked like it could barely hold together, let alone capture anything.
”Well, that’s a silly question. Mainly to remember them I suppose, to keep, like you would a necklace or ring.”
“Why would you want to remember anyone if they are standing here, talking to you? You can’t remember me talking to you?”
“No, Cole.” Emma was getting frustrated with his lack of nostalgia. “It helps me remember someone when I can’t see them or talk to them anymore.”
“You mean after they expire?” Cole attempted to clarify.
“Sure, after they die. That seems to be taking it to the extreme. How about when you go home, or someone wants to know who I’ve been hanging out with? Not everyone has a number. Everything isn’t scanned. You need to open your mind to feelings we all share.”
Cole stood there for some time. His brow furrowed with thought. He finally walked away, mumbling under his breath, “I don’t know why you would want to remember anyone after they expire.”
Emma jogged lightly to catch up.
“Cole, where do you think we go after we die?”
“Well, I suppose whoever takes the body—”
“That’s not what I meant. I mean, what happens to our core. The essence of our personality, our inside being that makes us all different and unique.”
“Emma.” Cole looked away, thinking of a response. She always caught him in these discussions. He thought she had a game to see how fast he could be caught off guard every day.
“You always find something to make me think, don’t ya?” Cole looked up, deep in thought.
“Don’t think about what I want to hear, just say the first thing that comes to your mind.”
“Hmmm, well, I would have to say . . .” He knew she was looking for something intensely emotional from him.
“Say what are you thinking! Just go!” Emma poked him.
Just when he wanted to be profound, he replied, “I guess I never really thought about that. I always figured it was LifeSpan’s job, not mine.”
“That’s the problem with you. Everything is someone else’s responsibility. Even free thought is better left for someone else.” Emma held her hand out, the other sternly perched on her hip. Cole placed the camera in her waiting hand and she abruptly turned and walked towards the Central City Market. She was walking very fast.
Oh man, she is fuming, Cole thought.
He always felt like an uneducated lump when talking with her.
I’ve never met anyone like her, that’s for sure. Cole knew he never would again.
“Hey, wait up!” he called and ran to catch her.
The Central City Market was filled with many different types of vendors attempting to sell their crafts, competing with new technology being introduced to the public. It was an odd combination of old-fashioned meets modern innovation.
Emma stopped at a stand filled with different pieces of jewelry. Cole finally reached her side and saw her excitement as she was looking through a particular set of necklaces. Red and purple wires were tightly wrapped around natural stones and tied in a crossing pattern across the necklace.
Nobody else was at the stand, and the owner sat in the back, hardly caring who looked at her trinkets. Indeed, the owner looked slightly surprised by Emma’s interest in her crafts.
“Cole, look at the intricacy of the wrapping, the careful handling of the stones. Look at the holes drilled into each rock. It’s so different from one to the next.”
Cole was used to the more popular designs available in the city, those produced by machines, expertly assembled, with crystals grown exactly symmetrical to the next.
Most jewelry and clothing were entirely created by machines. Huge factories were another testament to the efficiency of LifeSpan engineering. There was never a stitch out of place, never a color error, and most certainly, nothing like the mess of a necklace Emma was holding in front of him. It was no wonder there wasn’t anybody else looking at this lady’s jewelry; it was a disaster. The stones were very different in size and shape from one another, and the wire-wrapping held no symmetry.
“
Did you make this by yourself?” Cole asked the owner.
“Yes, sir, I did. Every part of it is hand-crafted. I even found the stones and polished them,” the artisan replied sheepishly.
“Well, that was time consuming.” Cole thought it was common knowledge that people were supposed to be time efficient. Why would anyone want to sit around and wrap stones? He thought Emma would agree with him, and as he turned to her, she was staring at him quite disapprovingly.
“Well, I think it’s beautiful. Do not listen to my friend here. He is a stubborn mule.” And she turned to storm away.
“Do you really like it?” The woman stood up and caught their eye. She had moved away from her seat and forward into the sunlight. She was older than Cole had seen in a long time. Surely by now her expiration was right around the corner. What did she have left to contribute to society? These baubles?
“If you really do like this piece, I can give you a deal on it. Half price. You are the only one who has complimented my work. It would mean so much to me if you could have it.”
The lady in the stand reached under the counter and produced a flat disc of frosted glass. These finance regulators were a part of everyday life. If someone would like to purchase anything throughout the city and even beyond, it would be through a finance regulator. Emma shied away from the disc, and suddenly became very disinterested in the necklace.
“I would love it, really I would, but we have to go now. C’mon Cole, I didn’t realize how late it was.” She turned back to the shop owner, who now seemed like it was her fault, pushing too hard for a sale. “You really do have a great gift when it comes to crafting. Do not ever give it up.”
Cole was confused about what had transpired, but likened it to the unusual nature that was becoming part of everyday life with Emma at his side.
“We’ll take it,” he said.
“No, that’s alright, Cole. Really, I don’t need it.”
“Fine, then I’ll take it. You can charge me full price.” He turned to the frosted disc and placed his right hand on the disc, fingers extended, palm flat. It lit for only a second. He removed his hand and with his left hand tapped the surface of the disc in a sequence only he would know. Index finger, thumb, ring, index again, pinkie and thumb. Having entered his personal code, the transaction was completed and he picked up the necklace and held it up to Emma, ready to hang it around her neck.
