Akrasia

I have a decision to make... The toughest decision of my life.

But how is it that we can know the right choice… and still choose to do the wrong thing?

The answer is akrasia.

According to the tattered philosophy book, it’s a Greek word used by Socrates to describe a state of mind in which we act against our better judgment.

Akrasia then, would be a fitting name for these desolate Lowlands we call home.

Lands that were once replete with growth are now a barren hellscape.

By our own doing.

Against our better judgment.

And here I sit, an old aching man, living out my days in this decrepit ramshackle house, pondering by the flickering light from the dying cooking fire. It’s an obscene luxury to keep it burning so long into the evening as I contemplate evil deeds done for the greater good—

I gasp for lack of air and my hand darts out instinctively to undo a kink in my oxygen hose restoring the flow. The time-stained oxygen mask I’m breathing through barely gives me what I need.

Without it, I wouldn’t last an hour.

Sweat stings my eyes and I know my sweatband has reached full saturation. So I remove it to squeeze its contents into the nearby fluid reclamation canister.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Like the second hand ticking down on the clocks of old, signaling an approaching time for me to make my decision.

My mask sticks to my face as the sweltering heat of night offers little respite from the scorching fire of day. I pull the mask up and resettle it, briefly allowing the acrid burning smell of the air into my nose and lungs.

I hack and cough until I regain my composure.

This is life in the here and now, a constant struggle to find a comfortable level of suffering.

What a world to be born into.

And yet the miracle of newly born life in the next room over… against all odds.

Now, I need to decide what I’m going to do about it.

Who am I kidding?

I already made the decision.

I just need to find the strength to act.

I instantly feel the heavy weight of the heart-shaped locket that presses on my chest under my many-times-mended shirt.

The locket used to belong to my beloved Margie before we lost her to the blood rot. It was a long and painful struggle, and in the end, I hardly recognized her. But she had a heart of gold, and I cling to the memory of how she once was with my swollen knuckles and cracked nails.

While I finger the locket, I can’t help but think of Priscilla, who is both my daughter and the baby’s mother. Priscilla sleeps unnaturally in her bed thanks to the sedative I slipped into her porridge this evening.

The Midlanders call the porridge Gruel Fuel. It has everything the body needs to survive, one grueling bite at a time. They trade us Gruel Fuel, H20, and O2.

The trifecta of “life.”

We slave away and they trade for what should be ours by right.

I clench and shake my fists and let loose a speckle flecked hiss, “How could our ancestors do this to us?”

Why didn’t they heed the warnings from the history books? The warnings of the Earth warming, the air polluting, the water acidifying, the animals disappearing, the land drying, the trees catching fire, the crops dying.

Our ancestors knew this and yet they gave into akrasia, procrastination, getting drunk on the riches of consumption while the world burned.

Damn them for damning us!

But… We have to ask ourselves, would we do any different?

Would we give up our miserable slice of life to protect those in the future?

I let out a long, tired sigh.

That is answer enough.

I rise and begin to pace, stepping lightly on the quietly creaking floorboards.

Priscilla wouldn’t agree with what I am about to do. She’ll hate me for it forever, I suppose.

I think I caught the first glimpse of that hatred when her eyes fluttered as I barely got her to bed before the unconsciousness took over. I think she knew what I was going to do.

It’s survive or die out here after all.

She knows this rule well.

Just last week she and I saw Cyd the tinkerer begging in the dirt streets for an extra canister of O2. Just one to get him through the week. No one gave him one. If you can’t manage your supply now, you most likely won’t be able to do so in the future.

As punishment for our inaction, for our lack of charity, for our wretched existence, Cyd gave us the full spectacle of his death beneath yellow sky and dark cloud. He cursed us until his air ran out, his body collapsed in the road, his life ending in violent convulsions, and finally in unconscious twitches.

Before Cyd’s last twitch, his workshop was already being picked clean. Amidst all the clutter, I found a long-forgotten and misplaced half-empty canister of O2. Cyd didn’t know how to manage his supply and he died in the street for it, with the one thing he needed right under his nose.

I on the other hand know how to manage supply.

I know how to save the O2, and bury the O2, and ration the O2.

I make hard decisions based on data and probability when it comes to the O2.

And what is the probability that young Duncan in the next room over will survive?

Zero.

The Lowlands are only allotted a certain number of newborns per year to match the supply of 02, and there is a waitlist a decade long…

Priscilla wasn’t on it.

How would Duncan survive in this world without a father?

I asked Priscilla which of her men it was when I first saw her belly rising. Her curses still ring in my head, as does the echo of the door slamming. From the ferocity I elicited, she must have known who—I’m sure he wanted nothing to do with them.

Abdicated responsibility…

Humanity’s hallmark.

My head begins to droop as I feel the first effects of the sedative I gave myself just a short while ago.

Enough stalling!

It’s do or die time.

I make my way stealthily and yet clumsily to the next room over, to the makeshift crib, expecting baby Duncan to be asleep.

He is not.

His crystal blue eyes are wide, clear, and full of life as he peers at me from above his oxygen mask. I know there’s an innocent smile underneath that mask.

I wipe away the tears that haven’t found their way to my face since… Since Margie passed.

What would Margie say now if she could see me in little Duncan’s room, one hand on the door handle, ready to bolt, and the other on Duncan’s O2 canister, ready to turn it off?

An icicle of cold pain shoots through my chest… The locket!

I reach for it, opening it to see a hand-drawn picture of Priscilla on the left and Margie on the right.

I can feel my dearly departed’s icy anger and disappointment, the same as it was when she was alive.

But you’re not alive! I almost shout but manage to keep my thought to myself.

But I’m still alive.

Priscilla is still alive.

Survival is all that matters!

I pause suddenly not so sure of myself. This is the right thing to do, isn’t it?

I ignore the answer Margie gives, the same answer I hear from the depths of my soul.

The math doesn’t work out.

We have enough O2 to last the three of us until next Thursday.

Two days short of the next supply, and even then, it wouldn’t be enough to get through the next week.

I won’t procrastinate.

I must do what is best for us now.

Let the long run be damned!

I stumble as the sedative I gave myself starts to kick in hard.

I don’t want to be awake to hear the sounds of Duncan’s struggle.

I hope there aren’t any.

I hope…

Suddenly, tired of these mind games, I shut the locket, stand tall, and set my face in a grimace of determination.

“Goodbye, you sweet boy,” I say as I twist the handle on the canister hard to right almost collapsing in a tranquilized stupor as I do so.

I stumble from the room and sleep the rest of the night away.

A deep and unnatural sleep.

And I dream. I dream of blue skies and turquoise oceans, green grass, and cool clean air. This must be what it was like just hundreds of years ago… But the dream turns to nightmare when everywhere I look, a pair of crystal blue eyes stare back at me.

I shiver to my core—

And wake.

It’s morning and I can hear the sounds of Priscilla stirring. Her groans become screams as she realizes what I did to her the night before. She would have given her life for his, and that would have been a waste.

A waste even in these wastelands.

I rise quickly, shaking off the pall, and meet her midway in the hallway.

“No!” she screams, trying to push past me. “You bastard! I know what you did!”

I grab her up, stopping her progress. “Shh, shh, shh. I had to do what needed to be done.”

“No! God, no!”

Priscilla and I sink to the ground, my stomach wrenches at hearing the despairing cries of a mother’s broken heart.

We weep.

I curse the Lowlands, the Midlanders, and the Highlanders. I curse the Earth and heaven and God. And most of all I curse our ancestors for what they did to us.

Our breathing grows quieter as we huddle on the floor, lost and broken.

And then, we hear it.

Soft, playful laughter.

What is this?

A trick of the mind?

An echo in the eardrum?

Am I in hell?

Is this my everlasting torture?

And there, again, a little louder.

Priscilla is on her feet and through the hallway faster than I can think.

I rise much slower, not sure of the soundness of my mind.

Not sure whether this is a waking moment while dreaming or a dreaming moment while awake.

As I turn the corner, my eyes see the most amazing, miraculous site.

Baby Duncan is clasping his mother’s neck, laughing through his oxygen mask.

Laughing and very much alive.

His crystal blue eyes are staring deep into my dark twisted soul, buckling my knees.

I run to the canister and freeze as I see that the valve isn’t completely shut off.

I shut off the valve, didn't I?

I know I did.

I must not have… It must have been the sedative—

Suddenly I feel the heart-shaped locket, searing white-hot, burning against my chest… no, it’s not the locket, it’s my—

I fall to my knees, clutching my heart and curling into a ball in unthinkable anguish, squeezing my eyes shut to block out the pain and the guilt as my mind races.

A slight smile makes its way to my lips as I begin to fade, knowing now that Priscilla and Duncan will have enough O2 to have a chance at survival on their own.

I can hardly think anymore.

Everything goes dark and I know these questions will echo with me through eternity:

How is it that we can know the right choice, and still choose to do the wrong thing?

And will we ever decide to do what’s right…

Before it’s too late?