text: Lifetime “Are you sure? You don’t seem very sure.” “Yeah. I’m sure.” “A few questions, then. How old are you?” “Twenty-five.” The young man squinted. “Twenty-five? You don’t look a day under fifty. May I see your identification?” The man took out a small, coin-shaped metal device with a red button on one side and a yellow button on the other. “I really look that old?” I glanced at his clean white suit and his gold link watch. “Ah, no wonder. You live above us, don’t ya? You one of them highlanders?” The man did not respond. “No wonder you look so young. I thought you knew that everyone down here looked forty years older than we actually were. You’re part of the problem - you get that, right?” He ignored me and handed me the coin device from under the glass pane. I placed my thumb on the yellow button and pushed. A sharp needle pierced my finger which siphoned a drop of blood into the device. The man took the coin and placed it into behind the counter to analyze my identification. “It’s the chemicals in the air. That’s why we look so old. You highlanders dump all your waste and trash down here. Most people on the surface don’t even make it to 90 while, at our expense, you all live forever. My dad expired at 51 from lung cancer. My mom was 60. Heart failure. I’m luckier, I’ll expire at the age of 79.” I looked at the highlander. “When do you expire? 500 years from now? 600?” “Would you like to transfer or sell?” the highlander asked, disregarding my complaints. I looked down at the “sell” section of the conversion rate paper the highlander gave me. One year for 100,000 dollars. My mouth dropped in amazement. In comparison, I made 120 dollars a year, which even I thought was a decent amount of money. Then I glanced under the “purchase” section, which was crossed out by red marks. “Why can’t I purchase? That’s why I came here.” “Ah, you didn’t know? You can’t purchase years in lowland machines, and you can’t sell in highland machines.” The man smirked mockingly. “It’s how we control supply. Time flows in one direction: upward.” “You highland folks are really something else, aren’t you? Just because you live all the way up in the clouds, you think you’re better than us folk down at the surface. You look down on us. You’re all so clean, so well kept, so young! You want to know how my sister died? A brick. One day, when I was playing outside with my sister, some highlander dropped a brick all the way down from the clouds. Bullseye. The brick smashed straight into her skull, 500 miles an hour. I couldn’t hear the punk, but I knew he was laughing from way up there. Cause’ that’s just how you folk are.” “I’m really sorry for your loss,” the highlander gave an exaggerated frown. “Transfer or sell?” “Both. Transfer and sell.” “Transfer rates are 5,000 each year.” “That’s fine.” “To whom would you like to transfer?” “My daughter, Eden.” I looked down at my daughter as I held her hand. She looked up at me, confused about the whole situation. “How many do you want to extract?” “All of them.” “We can’t take all of them - that’d be assisted suicide, obviously illegal. However, we could do your whole life minus a year. And, by your expiratory date, that is...” He did some calculations in his head, looking at a screen. “Fifty-three years.” “That’s fine.” “Identification for your daughter, please.” Like before, the highlander handed me the coin under the glass pane. I pushed the yellow side up against Eden’s finger and she gasped with a loud cry. I handed the device back to the man then he analyzed Eden’s identification. “Her expiratory date is in June? That’s in three months.” “Yeah. Doctor said surgery wouldn’t work for her disease. Transferring my time to her is her last and only chance.” A genuine look of sympathy flashed over the highlander’s face, before quickly returning to its usual smug attitude. “Alright, then. Finalize your details on this sheet and we can start the procedure momentarily. Remember to sign.” The man handed me another coin and a paper for my information. Years to be transferred: 25. Years to be sold: 28. With twenty five years to live and two million and a half dollars, she’d be able to pay for a trip up there, to the clouds. I’d rather have her live a short life up there than fifty three years down here. In the bottom right corner of the sheet was a box for my signature. I pressed down hard on the red side of the coin device with my thumb, which coated my finger with just the right amount of blood. I signed my thumbprint in the box and handed everything back. The clerk brought us to the operating room and laid us on our backs. He wrapped metal shackles around my arms and legs, constraining them to the table. “For your safety,” He said bluntly. He stuck me and Eden with various metal wires sprawling across the room. “Shouldn’t we be sedated for this?” “We’re all out,” he shrugged. “No worries, though. Your daughter won’t feel a thing.” The clerk’s face lit up as if he had came up with a brilliant idea. Smirking down at me, the clerk hastily positioned a mirror directly above me. I looked up at the mirror and I saw my own face staring back at me in terror. Before I could resist, he flicked the machine on. A sharp and constant pain coursed through my body. I tried to scream, but there was no sound. I saw my skin gradually become a rough leather and creases begin to race through my body. My hair grew rapidly, clumping up in one great knot. The giant ball of hair began to whiten and then finally fall off. As I rotted, I looked over to my daughter eyes shut through the comforting hum of the machine. I watched my daughter as my time continued to fade away. My transformation was finally complete. With much effort, I seated myself up. A sharp pain pierced my abdomen. “As you know,” the clerk informed, “You’re dying of kidney disease. You’ll expire in exactly 365 days.” The man continued. “If you’d like, I can pull up you and your daughter’s new expiratory dates.” He rechecked our identification. I had 53 less years to live and Eden had 25 more. “And my money?” I asked. “Subtracting the transfer cost, you receive,” he checked a paper. “2,675,000 dollars for 28 years. We already transferred it into your balance. Check your identification to see it.” I immediately bought an upgrade for Eden’s elevation score and transferred the rest of the money into her balance. Two million dollars for access all the way up to the clouds. I shook my head in disappointment. I had successfully turned my daughter into the very thing I had loathed for my entire life - I had successfully turned my daughter into a highlander. Was I a hypocrite? Was I wrong to blame them as a group? If my daughter could be a highlander, doesn’t that prove at least some of them may be good? Despite what he had done, I thanked the clerk on my way out. I don’t know why I did it. The dimly lit street lights were fireflies, flickering and buzzing as I slowly walked down the narrow tunnel of apartments. I looked up at the sky and saw nothing but the eternal darkness. When I was a boy, my father always told me stories about the sky. He told me there used to be a Sun - a giant, bright light in the sky that was so bright it hurt your eyes if you looked at it for too long. He told me the highlanders took the Sun away so they could have it all to themselves. I smiled. I smiled because I knew that the darker it was down here, the brighter the Sun would shine up there. The brighter the Sun would shine on my daughter. I continued on my way to an elevator which would carry my daughter up to the highlands. I was stopped by a guard upon arrival. “Stop. Let me see some identification.” I took the coin and brought it up to Eden’s finger. “No. Your identification.” “Only she is going up.” “Minors need to be accompanied by a legal adult - new rule. Too many kids up there with no parents clogging up their orphanages. The state won’t take kids without parents anymore. You should have came a week ago. Sorry.” “Fine, I’ll just give it to someone who’s going up.” The man shook his head. “You really think any highlander gives a damn about her? We hate the highlanders, and the highlanders hate us. That’s the way it is and that’s the way it always will be. A month ago, a woman came to us with the same idea as you. She asked every single highlander that crossed to take her child to an orphanage up there. And they wouldn’t even go out of their way to drop her off. If they’re too occupied to simply bring a child to an orphanage, what makes you think someone’s gonna take your child and feed it? Shelter it? Look, I hate the rule as much as you do, but I have to enforce it.” “Please,” I begged. “You hate them, right? It’s what you said. We’re on the same side! Just put her in the elevator and send her up. Please!” “What you just asked me to do is to break a law, punishable by life harvest. And I am not into repeating myself or the idea of having my life sucked away so some foul highlander can buy it from me. Now, I’m tired of talking, so I will have to ask you to either show some identification or get lost.” The guard grabbed his rifle. The other guards stared at me, all gripping their weapons. I reached into my coat pocket where I brought my pistol. I had nothing to lose, I was going to die in a year, anyway. I clenched my fist around the grip. And there was no way I was dying from kidney failure, that’s for sure. No one was going to stop my daughter from getting up there. Not society, not some new rule, and definitely not a few security guards trying to keep her down here. As fast as my feeble hands allowed, I pulled the pistol out and aimed it directly at the guard’s head. My arms shook. Ten guards stood up and trained their rifles at me. Lasers dotted my forehead. “Let her through!” I yelled desperately. “Let my daughter through or I’ll shoot you all!” The guard smiled. “Look old man, I get it. You want your daughter to have the best possible life. We all want our family to have perfect lives, trust me. I sympathize with you. That’s why I’m not having my men here spray bits and pieces of you all the way to the clouds. But, if you don’t drop your gun and place your hands behind your head, I’ll have no choice but to order them to do just that. And with her caretaker dead, I’ll have no choice but to take your daughter, plug her up, and transfer her life to me and my men.” “Stop,” a voice said from behind. “You lowlanders always have something to fight about, don’t you? It’s honestly tiring. I’m just trying to go home when I see you delinquents waving your guns everywhere like monkeys playing with sticks.” I looked behind. It was the man in the clean white suit and the shiny gold watch. The clerk. He looked at me and said, “I’ll take care of your daughter.” “Get out of the way, boy! You’re in the middle of crossfire!” The security guard yelled at the clerk. “No,” The clerk walked up to me, put my gun back in my pocket and grabbed the stroller. “You get out of my way. I’m going up to the highlands, and you’re blocking the path to the elevator. Now check me and this girl’s identification, or I’ll have your ID number for wasting my valuable time. Then, the state will find you and make you look like this old man over here.” He nodded towards me. The guard reluctantly checked their identifications and opened the door to the elevator. The clerk nodded towards me in approval as the elevator closed and ascended into the void. The guards trained their weapons on me once again, but they were nothing but blurs. Their shouts and orders became muffled, as if they were screaming underwater. As I stared above at the elevator, I could only focus on one thing. I thought about Eden’s new life with the Sun and clean air. Her new life without dim street lamps and without falling bricks. With her new opportunities, she could attain success - something impossible to achieve in this world. I thought about my parents who told me that the only thing they wanted was for me to be happy. They had accomplished their goal, and I had fulfilled my purpose. Looking up at the elevator as it rose above the clouds, I pulled the gun out of my pocket, placed the barrel to my head, closed my eyes, and pulled the trigger.