Death Wish

by Lindsey Menges

  She must have seen them at one point in the locker room, and I feel a surge of gratitude for this Godmother who never asked me about them.

  “I had to complete the Wish of someone who hurt me too.”

  She whimpers, either in sympathy or at the reminder of her current pain. I take her hand off of my shoulder, and cup her two hands in between mine.

  “Jenny, I can’t tell you how long it will take, or what you’ll have to do, but I can make you a promise. Would it be alright if I made you a promise, Jenny?”

  She nods again, with more strength. Her expression says that she is finding hope in someone who had to go through what she went through. I squeeze her cupped hands and whisper my promise to her.

  “Jenny, you will be okay. You will make it through this.”

  Another sob, another gasp for air, but Jenny finally speaks.

  “You… You promise?”

  When she opens her mouth I see bloody stumps where some of her teeth used to be, and I hold back any sign of shock.

  “I promise,” I reply.

  She closes her eyes, resting her head back in Albert’s lap, and right before she sinks into the sleep she so sorely needs, Jenny whispers Thank you.

  Albert looks up at me as I stand. He also has tears in his eyes. But instead of the tears of pain for his partner that I saw when I came in, they are tears of pure gratitude.

  “Thank you. Thank you, Eliza. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome,” I reply, my voice still low so that I won’t wake Jenny. “And please, if either of you need anything, I’m right down the hall.”

  Albert nods, says another Thank you, and looks back down. He begins running his fingers through Jenny’s hair in a gentle, protective gesture.

  I turn around and am genuinely surprised to see that Robin hasn’t moved from the desk. Part of me was expecting her to have vanished in the distraction. I jerk my head to the door and she nods, following me to the hallway. But before we step out the door, Robin reaches forward and tentatively places a hand on my shoulder. I turn to look at her.

  “No one really wants to die,” Robin whispers by my side. “But we can’t continue like this. People may be immortal, but that doesn’t mean that humanity isn’t slowly rotting away.”

  Her words couldn’t have come at a more effective time. For the first time in my years as a Godmother, I feel nothing but doubt.

  With my recent concerns about the way our world works, Robin’s new ideas swirling in my head, the scars on my back burning, and seeing Jenny rest her battered and bloody body… I’m starting to question if what we’re doing is really what’s best for everyone.

  Wish 15

  Robin and I quietly slip out of the office. The last thing I see is Albert tentatively placing a hand on Jenny’s shoulder. She jumps, and as I close the door I know that it will be some time before she’s comfortable with physical touch again.

  I sigh and lean forward, my forehead gently pressing against the wall. I can feel Robin standing beside me. I mutter, “Aren’t you going to run away?”

  She’s silent. I turn my head to find a conflicted expression on her face—a mixture of sadness and anger.

  “I really, really want to,” she replies, raising her hand to brush a strand of hair from her face, “but I know that you’d catch me again. I’ve coughed up enough blood today, don’t feel like adding more to it.” She turns and spits on the floor, a bright red viscous liquid against the pale tan of the carpet. She must have cut her mouth again somehow if she’s still spitting blood, because the blow from my knee earlier would have healed by now. I turn my gaze down the hallway, away from her face.

  “I would say sorry—” I murmur, reaching in to my pocket to hand her a tissue. I look and find her hesitating, but then she takes it and holds it up to her mouth. “—but I wasn’t the one messing around with Life Chip schematics.”

  She narrows her eyes at me, and spits out a final red glob before putting the napkin to her mouth again.

  “So,” she mutters, “where were we? You were going to turn me over to the Primary, but we got interrupted by that Godmother’s physical and emotional trauma from a goddamned Wish.”

  It’s my turn to shoot her an angry look. I rip the napkin out of her grasp. She flinches.

  “We were heading to the Primary,” I spit out, throwing the bloody material onto the spotless floor, “but right now you’re pissing me off. Besides, I have some questions that need answering.”

  I grab her shoulder, turn her around, and push her forward.

  “Come on. We’re getting coffee.”

  *

  Twenty minutes and one cheery barista later, I’m sliding into my chair at The Roasted Roost with two ceramic mugs of coffee in my hands. I set one on the table in front of Robin, and she looks first at it then at me with a wary glance. I roll my eyes.

  “Oh please,” I scoff. “Why would I do anything to your coffee when I have my gun? Drink, it’s good. Harrison and I come here all the time after we finish our Wish assignments.”

  She looks at the coffee again, slowly reaches out, and finally lifts it to her lips. She grimaces, putting it back down.

  “Ugh, black.”

  The edge of my mouth twitches, and I lean to the edge of the table to hand her the sugar container.

  “Do you want cream too?”

  She nods, and I motion to the barista behind the counter up front. She smiles, and in a moment sets a jar of cream at our table.

  “Thanks, Kelly,” I say. The employee nods with another friendly grin before heading back to her station.

  “Harrison always takes cream with his coffee. Kelly knows my signal for it,” I explain to Robin.

  She ignores me and pours a stream of the white liquid into her mug before taking another sip. She sets it back down on the table and locks eyes with me.

  “Okay, seriously, what is the deal? I thought I was heading to the Primary’s office to be interrogated, but instead we’re getting coffee at your little love nest café? What the hell are you going to do to me?”

  She looks frustrated, but I also see a hint of hope since I haven’t turned her in yet.

  I trace the rim of my mug with my finger, looking at my reflection in the dark brown liquid. The silver waves of my hair are disheveled from my fight with Robin, and my eyes and cheeks are slightly swollen from how much effort I put into not crying while I comforted Jenny.

  I look tired. I look angry. But more than anything I look confused. Still staring down at the mug, I explain.

  “Look, I was so upset when I found you in the Life Chip office. I mean, not only were your actions resulting in people being unable to prepare for their death, but you basically spit in the face of our entire world.”

  Robin makes a noise of protest, but I hold my hand up and meet her gaze. My expression must scare her, because she closes her mouth immediately and leans back against her chair, waiting for me to continue.

  “One of the biggest points of the Life Chips and the Fairy Godparent Organization is to ensure that people are in control of every aspect of their lives. That their bodies are truly theirs to own, and that no external forces could rob them of their life. No painful disease, no horrifying murders… Just life. And that, when they are ready to die, they’ll get to decide how it happens. There is no needless pain, just their final, ultimate Wish. To die how they want to, and leave this world with a smile on their face.

  “But when you start deciding when people will die… God, Robin, don’t you see? You’re taking away their final happiness, and you’re replacing it with fear. Terrifying people because they don’t know what’s around the corner. They can try to live their lives as they want, but ultimately they can never know what will happen. You’re taking away control, Robin.”

  I take another breath, glancing out the window next to our booth at the world outside. It’s late at night, so the streets aren’t very crowded, but there is still a stream of people passing by on the sidewalk outside. I
wonder idly if any of them have submitted Wishes, and if I will be the one to complete them. I turn back to Robin.

  “So obviously, I was angry. To be honest, part of me still is. But then when I was comforting Jenny, two things happened: I saw how much pain she was in, and it broke my heart that she had to endure that to give someone happiness. I had to deal with a Wish like that years ago, but seeing her pain made me feel a sorrow I didn’t feel when I went through it…”

  I trail off, and look down at my slowly cooling coffee again. The seconds tick by in silence. Robin says something but I don’t hear it.

  “What?” I look back up at her.

  “You said two things happened. What was the second thing?” Her hands are cupped around the mug in front of her.

  “You,” I answer. “You didn’t run. I had practically forgotten you existed when I was comforting her, but when I finally looked up you were still there. And you looked so sad, but there was also this… determination. So that made me think that, at the very least, you believe you have a very good reason for doing what you’re doing. So talk.”

  Her eyes widen in surprise—clearly she wasn’t expecting that as my response.

  “Wait, what?”

  “Talk,” I repeat, spreading my hands in front of me in an inviting gesture. “Tell me why you’re doing what you’re doing. Why are you messing with the Chips? You said that humanity is rotting in spite of our basic immortality. Well, I’m willing to hear what you have to say. Tell me why we need to die to fix the rot.”

  *

  Robin sits there for a long time. The minutes tick by, and I’m about to ask her again when she finally clears her throat.

  “Do you remember, back when we first met, when we were doing our first training session in the gym?”

  I nod. She continues, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. I think she does that when she’s nervous.

  “Well, you asked me about my family, and I told you that my dad had died a few years ago. What I didn’t tell you is what it did to the rest of us.”

  She takes a deep breath before continuing.

  “He hadn’t told any of us that he’d submitted a Death Wish. We didn’t know what had happened until someone from the Organization came to our front door with a document informing us that he had ‘passed on from this world’.”

  She says that phrase with air quotes and anger colors her words. She drops her hands and takes a sip of her coffee, avoiding my gaze. She’s silent again, and when she finally looks back at me her eyes are glistening with unshed tears.

  “Just… Just thank God that my sister and I were old enough to take care of ourselves, because my mom vanished after that. She didn’t leave us or anything, but all of the light and love seemed to fly out of her when she answered the door that day. She didn’t speak for weeks, and the only noise she ever made was the sobbing. Of course my sister and I were heartbroken too, but Mom definitely took it the hardest.

  “So that’s when I started hating the Godparents. No, actually, that’s when I started hating the entire system. That something so final and heart-wrenching had been reduced to a simple bureaucratic process. I knew that the Fairy Godparents were just doing their job, but I hated that they had indirectly torn our lives apart and it was nothing more than an everyday assignment for them. And when I started working at the Organization to find Life Chip information, I found another reason that had never crossed my mind until I witnessed it: we aren’t meant to live this long. Our minds can’t handle it.”

  I wasn’t expecting her to say that. In my surprise I choke on my coffee. I quirk my eyebrow in confusion while I cough.

  “I’m sorry? What do you mean ‘our minds can’t handle it’?”

  She looks at me, and while the tears have disappeared there is still a deep, obvious sadness on her face.

  “I mean that people go wrong when they live this long.”

  She gestures toward the window at the few pedestrians milling around outside.

  “A few decades, that’s fine. Heck, even the first couple of centuries don’t seem to be too bad. But I think that once you’ve lived for hundreds of years, you lose all interest in what life has offered you so far. So you start bending the rules society has placed on us, just to give yourself something to break the boredom. And no matter what, I’ve seen everyone decide to change those rules by hurting others in the cruelest ways imaginable.”

  A wave of cold tickles the base of my spine while she speaks. I think that she’s talking about the pain Wishes, and my suspicions are confirmed when she continues.

  “So what are they to do? Most of them won’t hurt others, because they’ll be punished by the law. But what are they allowed to do? In what situation can they end their boredom, ask for whatever they want, and not be denied anything so long as it doesn’t result in the death of another person?”

  My voice cracks halfway through my answer.

  “A Death Wish…”

  She nods.

  “That’s right: a Death Wish. After all, it is the final kindness of this incredible world we’ve created: to be granted your final wish, no matter how strange or extravagant it may be.”

  She has a disgusted smirk on her face, and I can practically feel waves of contempt for our society rolling off of her.

  “But the final stimulation they are looking for has to be big… And it’s the Godparents who have to pay the price.”

  I look away now, staring out the window at the moonlit streets on the other side of the glass. Images of horrifying violence flow through my mind as Robin keeps talking, her voice increasing in urgency.

  “A few weeks after I started, I found out that there used to be a Godfather at our office named Richard.”

  I look back at her. Her eyes are haunted. I’m sure mine are too. Everyone knows about Richard. I never knew him personally, but his story gave me more than a few nights of sleeplessness. I close my eyes briefly, willing her to not continue.

  She continues.

  “Richard had to complete the Wish of one of those… sadists…”

  She spits out the word like it leaves a foul taste in her mouth.

  “No one knows exactly what the Wish was, but there is one thing everyone knows: that the client ripped out Richard’s left eye from its socket.”

  I take a deep breath, still looking out the window but not seeing the street. Instead, I’m seeing a memory I’ve worked so hard to forget: a thirty-year old man with thin strawberry-blonde hair, wide shoulders, and a black eyepatch shaking and sobbing as he hands over a “Fairy resignation”: his own, personal Death Wish.

  Richard’s Wish was Harrison’s first solo assignment, and he still hates even mentioning it. A Godparent’s first solo Wish can be brutal for anyone, but to complete it for a fellow Godparent is almost unbearable.

  “And do you know why that client wanted that part of the Wish, specifically?”

  I finally turn from the window and look at Robin. Her face is contorted in hatred and revulsion.

  “Because he wanted to know what it would feel like. He wanted to experience ripping out someone’s eye and squishing it between his fingers for himself.”

  She mimics the action in a grotesque pantomime, slowing curling her fingers down until they make a fist.

  “And because of that horrifying, disgusting, selfish action, Richard put in a request to be killed a few days later.”

  Robin stares down at her uplifted fist for a moment, then lets it fall to the table with a sigh. She locks her emerald green eyes onto my sky blue ones.

  “People can’t live this long Eliza,” she says, a note of what sounds like pleading in her voice. “It isn’t right, and it isn’t fair to the people who have to satisfy their sadistic desires.”

  She stares at me with such intensity that I almost need to look away.

  “You want to know why I did what I did? It’s because I want to eliminate the pain of the Jennys and Richards of this world. Pain that does nothing. Pain that only resul
ts in agony and death. And the only way to truly remove the threat of that pain is to bring back natural death to our world.”

  Part Two: The Revolutionaries

  “It is only through the mercy of death that we can truly live.”

  -Motto of the Revolutionaries

  Wish 16

  I step outside the coffee shop and a cool breeze flows over me. Turning around, I glance back inside the small cafe. Robin still sits at our table, occasionally sipping her coffee while glancing around the room anxiously. I take a deep breath and hold up my pendent to call Harrison.

  “Hey, Harrison, are you there?”

  A few seconds pass by. Just as I’m starting to worry that he won’t respond, he does.

  “Hey, Elly!” He sounds slightly out of breath. “What’s up? Sorry, I was cleaning my room and had stuff in my hands. I had to put it away before I could answer.”

  “Oh, no worries,” I say, making every effort to keep my voice even and light. I have more things to question Robin about, and I want to get all the information I can before bringing Harrison into this.

  “So what’s up? You’re taking a while to come over. Is everything okay?”

  I close my eyes. All I want to do is go to Harrison’s, have a fun night with him, and forget that any of this happened. But just closing my eyes won’t make what’s happened go away.

  “Yeah, everything’s fine,” I answer, glancing back in the café. Robin is still sitting inside. She looks up at me. I nod my head to her and she nods back before looking back at her drink. Kelly walks over and I see her ask Robin a question. Robin shakes her head at whatever she was asked, and the barista nods before walking back to the bar.

  “But I’ve got some bad news,” I continue, turning back to the street. A car zooms by, the gentle hum of its hover motor the only sound it makes. “I don’t think I’ll be able to come over tonight.”

  “Oh man,” Harrison pouts, a sad whine in his voice. “But I’m all dressed up, and now you’re telling me I have nowhere to go?”

  I laugh softly at his use of the Old World phrase.