Photo by Sarah Skinner
Lori waited outside the HR office of Symtek Call Center. Her fingers turned pale as she squeezed the portfolio. She adjusted the sleeves of her ill-fitting suit jacket and regretted keeping the massive shoulder pads. What am I thinking? she snapped at herself. She could never alter her grandmother's jacket. Was she wearing the heirloom for good luck or because it was the only professional attire she owned? Two things could be true.
Several other sweaty applicants filled up the chairs in the cramped waiting room. She wished more than anything to finish her interview and escape but dreaded the idea of being next. She also dreaded the idea of becoming a call assistant. There was dread in every direction.
This happened every time. With this being the sixth interview, she thought she would feel comfortable doing this, but six rejections only put more pressure on this one. She had been told it would be easy to land a job doing basic mindless work, but despite her widespread applications, it had not been “easy.”
The door opened. Another interviewee marched out of the office with a smug grin on his face. The balding man behind him, adorned in a blue shirt and jeans, propped open the HR office door as the applicant left. He tapped his clipboard with his pen. “Lori Baker?” he read.
Lori shot out of her chair and almost dropped her portfolio. She followed him into the office full of stale air.
Once she sat down, Lori opened her portfolio and removed a resume. “I have a copy of my resume if you need one.”
Without looking up, Toby Hoover—as his nametag dictated—waved his hand in the air. “I got one.”
Sweating, Lori shoved the paper into the portfolio, accidentally crumpling it up.
He slumped into his chair while frowning at his clipboard. “I see a lot of fast food here,” he mumbled.
“I’ve had to move a lot for school,” Lori recited. “As a cashier, I gained a lot of customer service experience.”
“It says here that you graduated three years ago.”
Lori forced a chuckle. “Yes, I took a break from school and work after I graduated.” Was it an intentional break? No, not really.
“Hmph…” he grumbled. “I see your death date here listed as ‘not applicable.’ Did you mean to write ‘five plus’?”
“No, I don’t have a death date certificate.”
“Do you really expect someone to hire you if they don’t know how long you can reliably commit to their company?”
Lori took a deep breath. Sure, other interviewers asked about the missing death date, but they had not been so direct. “I am a Necroignorancer. We live not knowing how we die,” Lori recited.
Toby shrugged. “I didn’t say how you die; I said when you die. You don’t have to know how. That’s optional on the new machines.”
Her blood was bubbling, and not because of the hot, stifling air. “Not knowing my death date is an integral part of my culture,” Lori said with confidence. “You cannot discriminate against me for not having my death date listed.”
Toby rolled his eyes. “Sure, sure. Next question: What qualities do you value…”
She understood Toby had to finish the interview so the company couldn’t be sued for religious discrimination. It was 2021, after all. Lori couldn’t afford it, anyway.
For the rest of the interview, Lori sat with a stiff spine and answered the rest of the mandated questions through gritted teeth.
On the way home, Lori sat on the bus, arms crossed, stewing over the experience.
Why was everyone so obsessed with knowing their death date? Why did no one like to live with hope anymore? The machines only gave a death date within five years, so there was some mystery. Most of her high school friends had gotten their death date certificates. Some were fine… others were not. If your death date was on that slip, say goodbye to any hope of a career or solid job. Only the city would hire near-deathers. They had designated positions in the sewage and waste department for those people… Or you might pick up garbage in the parks. Some mining companies only hired near-deathers. Lori couldn’t afford her modest apartment with those salaries… Though she couldn’t afford it with no salary either.
The bus screeched to a halt outside her apartment building, but despite the convenient stop, crossing the four-way intersection was a perilous journey. After five cars refused to stop at the crosswalk, Lori sprinted across. Despite there being flashing lights for the pedestrians, cars still zipped through the intersection toward her, only to come to a harsh halt in the middle, causing a crescendo of honks and shouting.
Her heart raced every time the tires squealed to stop just in front of her. The fear of getting hit shook her out of her rage.
When she finally reached her studio apartment, she marched to the window and peered down at the intersection. On the corner opposite, it waited. Despite their life-altering results, the death-calculating machines sat innocently outside every post office. The kiosk looked harmless enough. Like a digital lottery machine, the “Fate-Mate” had a large screen and a stool chained to it. Upon the recession, the city had installed twenty-four-hour Fate-Mates city-wide so that there were no barriers for the unemployed.
She tore herself away from the window and collapsed on her bed. No, she told herself. It wasn’t over yet. Someone would hire her. Someone forward-thinking and open-minded. She just had to look for the right company. Everything was going to be okay.
#
A week later, Lori waved goodbye to her friend as they dropped her off. “I’ll Venmo you later for the drinks,” Lori assured, shooting finger guns at them through the open car window. She intended to pay her friend back, but “later” might be a tad longer than anyone wanted.
“Let’s do this again!” her friend insisted but was cut off by angry honking. There were no parking spaces next to the narrow, broken sidewalk, so her friend was in the lane holding up traffic. Many swerved around the stopped car, almost hitting traffic coming in the opposite direction.
Her friend haphazardly rejoined traffic. Though four-ways had rules, no driver seemed to know them at that intersection. As she turned toward her building, Lori was relieved she didn’t have a car, though not having a reliable mode of transportation did not fare well for her applications.
When she stepped through her apartment doorway, she kicked an envelope lying on her doormat. The big stamped letters in red “NOTICE” did not fill Lori with hope. Before she picked it up, she took a deep breath.
Calmly, she placed the letter back in the envelope and set it on the floor. She slumped onto her bed. This was it. There was no more of her inheritance to keep her afloat.
Lori had promised herself that if she used her grandmother’s money, that she would adhere to the old woman’s conviction: Live every day as if it’s your last.
But there was no money left, so what conviction was there?
Lori buried her face in her pillow and shut out that thought.
In the morning, Lori worked over her wobbly ironing board at the window. She overlooked the madness below. No one ever stopped at the intersection anymore. They only stopped when someone was about to hit another car. The screech of the tires was deafening but harmonious with the honking.
Lori supposed the terrible driving was another side effect of the death machines. If people knew their death, why drive carefully? Were they concerned about killing others or getting injured? Apparently not. With the technology, one would think the government could find the murderers, but the death machines never give who, only when and how. Murdered. Hit and run. To the Justice Department’s dismay, the machines couldn’t say who.
When a burning smell hit her nostrils, Lori’s attention snapped back to what she was doing. She flicked off the iron and uncovered her half-crinkled resume that now featured a large browned iron-shaped splotch.
After tossing the resume in the bin, Lori pulled on a sweater and grabbed her keys. Time to take fate into your own hands, I guess, she thought.
In her loafers and sweats, she dragged herself to the machine on the corner and slumped onto the little graffitied stool in front of it. The post office was busy that Saturday morning, though she was not the only one in pajamas.
Above the screen, peeling letters said, “Fate-Mate: Know your date!” She rolled her eyes at the message and tried to tune out the honking and screeching behind her as she began the instructions on the screen.
The first instruction, of course, was to insert payment. She inserted the waiver given to her by the unemployment help center. They had given her the waiver and refused to help any further until she had used it.
She scanned her ID. “Welcome, Lori Baker,” it displayed on the screen.
Next, a small package tumbled into the dispenser below. It was a single-use needle set. The lancing device stung a lot more than the screen promised, but she retrieved a blood sample. She would have put a bandaid on her arm, but the kit's provided one ripped apart when she picked it up.
The last instruction was to insert the sample in the upper-right slot.
She hesitated and pondered about the people who had their results. She speculated on the conspiracies on the internet that said the government was using the death-calculation machines to steal and record everyone’s blood…
Lori blinked and refocused. If this is what I have to do, she told herself, then I’ll live with it.
#
She inserted the sample into the machine.
Two options appeared. “Minimal Result” and “Full Result”. She selected “Minimal”.
The screen on the machine switched to a picture of a circular loading bar. Lori waited. She kicked her feet. She checked her wristwatch. 9:15.
Lori waited, holding her breath. Her friend had said that it calculated their death in less than thirty seconds. Why was it taking so long?
She checked the time again. 9:20 a.m.
Sighing, she crossed her arms. She would give it five more minutes before leaving.
Five minutes passed. Lori slumped out of the little stool and stretched. The screen flashed and printed out a waxy paper. Lori ripped it off the machine. The waxy picture had her name and a terrible copy of her id picture and a date below it. It wasn’t her birthdate. The date not only said the day, but the hour, minute, and second.
The date on the receipt was September 19, 2021.
She held up her wristwatch again. It read “9-19-21”.
Lori was more confused than anything else as she sat on that street corner. There must be some mistake.
She read the time that the death date stated: “09:25”… exactly what was on her watch.
Lori checked the last number on the death date, the seconds. The second was fifty-three.
She looked back at the watch. Forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven…
Suddenly, Lori was deafened by the sound of crunching metal behind her. She turned and saw the disfigured nose of an SUV as it mounted the sidewalk, pummeling toward her.
Frozen in her stance as she stared down the headlights, she had one final thought: You have got to be kidding—
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