My home. My memories. My dignity.
The words echoed in her mind, but she didn’t say them out loud. Instead, she stared at her daughter and wondered when those small wrinkles had appeared around her little girl’s forest-green eyes.
“Mom? Mom!”
Maija forced a smile and nodded toward the tablet. “I’ll think about it, hon. Now give me that damn thing so I can check the weather. I want to take Ässä out for his walk without getting soaked.”
As if responding to her words, the small terrier barked once. Ässä had probably been waiting by his leash near the front door.
***
Now the pill bottle rattles in her hands. The seal is gone, though Maija hasn’t yet taken a single pill out. Maybe she never will.
It’d be easier to go with the flow.
Move with the masses.
Follow orders and join that new Happiness-Program.
Live inside a carefully designed safe box, one that’ll soon be fenced in with a stone wall two meters tall.
Her brain sends a signal to her hand, telling it to put the pill bottle back on the bathroom shelf. But much like her technology-hating mind—her hand refuses to obey.
***
Maija hears a lot about the current state of humanity at the city hospital where she works. It’s all they really talk about, the nurses and doctors and IT-people, while sipping their stale coffee drinks in the third-floor break room. The burning topic every day: how there are more people downstairs at the hospital morgue than there are upstairs getting treatment.
“Did you hear, Maija? The population of the U.S. is down eighty percent. First all the mass shootings, and then so many people starving. They’re talking about a race war in Europe and about a possible plague in the United Kingdom. Does it get any crazier than this?”
Maija toys with the string of the teabag resting against her mug. After dipping the teabag into hot water, she blows into the cup. A conversation about the violent world is the last thing she wants, but the man talking to her is the chief surgeon. He has never been anything but kind and courteous toward her. Forgiving his inability to read her state of mind comes easily to Maija.
She lifts the mug to her lips, then quickly puts it back down. This hot, the tea would surely burn her mouth. Instead of sipping her tea, she sighs and decides to engage in the conversation. “Not that much better here either.”
“How do you mean?”
The teabag dances in the water. “There are not many Finns left either. I think ninety percent of the population can fit inside the city limits now. And with all the stores and services outside of Helsinki shut down, anyone left in the suburbs will soon have no choice but to move here with everyone else.”
“That isn’t news; I already know all that. What I don’t understand is how you can compare our situation in the East with the situation in the West.”
She brings the mug back to her lips and carefully takes a tiny sip. The liquid burns her lips, then her throat, but she takes another sip anyway. “People killing themselves is not any better than people killing each other. The Great Affliction is happening everywhere. Just because we have fewer shootings and no wildfires doesn’t mean these deaths wouldn’t affect us just the same.”
“Maybe so, but suicide candidates are easier to treat than self-styled commandos, running around waving guns at everybody. With the chipping and the Happiness-Program we might be the first nation to recover from this…”
His words fade away as Maija stares at the drowned teabag. She pulls the string to bring the bag back up for a quick breath of air, then watches it slowly sink back to the bottom of the mug.
“Anyway, I’d better get to it. They need extra hands at the morgue today. Might as well make myself useful. When’s your chipping again? I didn’t see your name on the schedule…”
Eyes locked on her steaming tea, Maija shrugs before answering his question. “I haven’t decided if I want the damn thing.”
Her colleague stops in the doorway and turns around. “But Maija, you do want to keep your job, don’t you?”
She turns to stare at him. Her expression is question enough.
“The chipping is not something for you to think about. Didn’t you see latest memo? As of today, it’s a mandatory procedure.”
***
The cap on the pill bottle comes off with a pop. White pills shaped like tiny American footballs lie at the bottom of the container. With her index finger and thumb, she fishes one of them out the bottle and holds it up to the bathroom light.
So small, so innocent. Escape in a bottle.
Today, she’s expected to clock in and walk straight into the hospital’s surgery wing. Some of her colleagues will be there as well, getting ready for their brain implants and the better tomorrow it’s supposed to bring them all.
***
Yesterday, Laura Solomon, head of the chipping program, had finally cornered her at the lab, carrying a tablet with a form asking for her medical information. Maija was the only one who hadn’t yet signed up for chipping.
Laura had placed the tablet in front of Maija on her desk. “You’ll feel absolutely nothing, dear. It’s like a quick nap, that’s all. You’ll get to go home later the same day and come to work the next day, just as if nothing happened. Except that you’ll be safe. And fully ready for the Happiness-Program, once it kicks into full swing.”
Doctor Solomon gave her the creeps. Always had. Maybe it had something to do with her habit of calling everyone “dear” or “sweetheart,” when those people were the same age or older than her. Ever since Solomon’s mother, Mrs. Salonen, had stepped back from her role in the company, her daughter seemed to be trying to adopt her leadership style, however awkwardly, even while taking the company in a new direction.
“With the augmented reality, wellness channels, and vegan diet, you’ll
