This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! by Evison Jonathan

Author:Evison, Jonathan [Evison, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary, Adult
ISBN: 9781616202613
Amazon: 1616202610
Goodreads: 24001092
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2015-09-08T07:00:00+00:00

August 20, 2015

(BERNARD, DECEASED, DAY 282)

CTO Charmichael looks exhausted slumped behind his sturdy desk, his forgettable shirt rumpled, his thinning hair a little unkempt. The stack of files on his desk is perilously close to toppling.

“It appears, Candidate Chance—and again, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here—that you’ve been laboring under a slight misapprehension recently regarding Section One.”

“Sir?”

“Specifically, with regard to the consequences of non-compliance, as clearly—dare I say, eloquently—outlined in Clause 1.4.”

“Yessir. After our last conversation, I checked on that, sir.”

“And?”

“You were right. Nothing will happen.”

“Precisely, Candidate Chance. Nothing will happen. As in, nothing.”

“With all due respect, that’s not much of a consequence, sir.”

“Oh no? Well, I beg to differ, Candidate Chance. Let us consider. Having been granted nearly a century to design and fulfill yourself, to have children, a wife, a lover, several careers, to have served your country, your community, your family, to have eaten and loved and slept and worried, ahem, in short, to have bumbled and mucked about ‘down there,’ as you refer to it, for nine decades, have you any idea of what nothing looks like? What it sounds like? What it feels like?”

“Uh, like nothing, sir?”

“That’s it precisely. Of course, ‘look’ and ‘feel’ are misnomers, technically speaking. It’s actually quite difficult to put into context. A few Greeks tried. But that was a while back, and they didn’t get much beyond shadows and caves. I think we can agree that’s not very far. Allow me to enlighten you: to experience nothing is to not exist, Candidate Chance. To never have existed. To never exist again. Period. To experience nothing is to be stripped of your every sense but one.”

“Which one?”

“The sense of nothingness.”

“So that’s the punishment?”

“We prefer not to frame it punitively. We look at nothing as a choice. Just as we look at everlasting life as a choice.”

“But sir, I can make a difference. I can be a comfort to her. At the very least, I can keep apologizing. Maybe she’ll give in eventually.”

“That may be the case. But it hardly matters in the big picture. And consider the risk, Candidate Chance. You’re not just risking everything here—you are risking anything at all. Do you understand that?”

“Yessir, I understand.”

“I hope you do, Chance. I’m rooting for you, I really am. We all are. I hope you won’t do anything rash. Go with the program, son. Reap the benefits. You’ve been given an excellent opportunity for transition here. Don’t squander this one by getting mired in the past.”

“Yessir, I’ll try not to.”

“You’d best not, Candidate. Or you’ll have nothing to pay.”

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