One Less Heart

The neon lights spilled over the dance floor and my mini dress as I revolved around the city’s prominent night spot. I was one of many soaking in its volatility and entertaining as I observed the heartless wonders who deemed themselves God’s last purpose. The people that monopolized this club all had at least one thing in common; they all knew when they would die. If things were different maybe the decision to build this city and imprison its people would not have been contrived.

When I was young there was a cold and sober need to absolve a large crisis that swept this country. Poverty levels rose in a dramatic trend and many people were unemployed. Ones that suffered most were small children enduring the fruits of abandonment and sick elderly men and women malnourished and mostly forgotten. After the initial wave of food shortages, crowded shelters and crime manifestation, the urge for the wealthy to seek new livelihood hastened so they could live out their fanciful means away from the rampant scourge of the penniless country, now known as “America Past”. Once rich neighborhoods settled on few centralized states and became self-sufficient; travel expenses grew exponentially and a lot of instances my grandfather told me he witnessed travelers abandoning their vehicles roadside in order to make it to work.

A massive economic breakdown occurred before the government announced the overwhelming population increase would terminate the continuity of a peaceful and pleasant living unless contributing civilians placed a solid red hand on the solution and exterminate unfit and “non-customizable” humans. Taken at face value this was as grotesque a thought as spider moms ripping the heads off their mates to nourish their babies. Many rioted and took to the streets in rage carrying hand- crafted signs and bullhorns. Even hip retail shops sold drink sleeves boasting aggressive and clever phrases like “It’s Not Waste If It Has a Name”. Still the plight ensued and once orders for the human extermination rule was thoughtfully put into place, a lot of us began to realize our own value was going to be questioned and that led to more weeks of chaos. Cities glowed throughout the night, engulfed in flames were grocery stores, large banks, backyards, churches, homes and even city parks were all being emptied before turning to black and discarded memories from month long street fighting and confusion. The government in a stretched effort then started a project to build a brand-new city about a quarter the size of Colorado for all the seemingly disposable civilians. The promise was that of a new territory called Cormeum, busy with the hustle and bustle of shiny jobs, swank affordable housing, structured schools and an overall trusted environment meant to benefit the ones who struggled to rehabilitate from their life's misfortunes. What the government did not reveal at the start of this, was once elected into Cormeum, you would be given a time limit on living. Your natural expiration would be compromised by a prearranged death date no more than four months anticipation and there was no avenue of sugar coating once the administration began the process of eradication.

The entire town functioned by its own people using prison inmates and the homeless to fulfill community labor; everything from janitorial to agricultural work, but were rewarded with fully furnished private apartments and a sense of freedom. Cormeum was established with very little hierarchy. There was no really rich or moderately poor and the quality of living was exceptional because it was a self-sustaining city. Criminals, addicts, and ‘bums’, I assume, were the government's easiest scapegoat. Wealthy individuals with authority, now called, New Americans, perceived them as human excess that wasted life through their dishonesty and delinquency. Eventually other obsolete civilians of New America were recruited in to the city of Cormeum like sick, elderly people, or people in recovery and eventually unmarried and childless individuals living in strife. They were placed in beautiful, stylish abodes and given top care, fine foods, and exceptional living means without bills or worries, provided the knowledge of their fate in four months or less.

The happiest residents of Cormeum were its volunteers whom almost had a casino lifestyle. People like me, drafted themselves as volunteers for the solution after a campaign named “One Less Heart” program was promoted by other New American lawmakers to help add glamour to their city of annihilation. Oddly enough, the greatest revelation was the number and compliance of individuals who came forward to sign themselves to the city’s decree and to be executed in a matter of months. They stood in line to fill out applications while surrounded by posters comparable to the Uncle Sam figure from America Past, only a woman is featured holding a beating heart in the palms of her hands, a look of contempt on her face as if the fate of her existence being destroyed may prosper the wellbeing of all humanity. That, perhaps, was the selling point for my decision to join Cormeum and ensure my death.

I signed up as a “One Less Heart” volunteer the day after a knock came to my parents' front door. Standing like identical robots with rigid expressions in their silver suits, one with white hair and one with colored dreadlocks trailing the length of his spine. The buttons on their cuff links were customed to look like silver hearts that you would find on a locket. The irony of how such detail in something meant to resemble an object of sensibility, loyalty and admiration now obliterated by its new objective to remind us of their cruel solution to population control.

Before my parents could arrange a look of confusion, they were met with a few crisp pages from the “Agent Smith” looking characters. A personalized invitation and death certificate. Their voices were profound and unforgiving as they spoke.

“Mr. And Mrs. Jaynou Aames. It has come to our attention that though your work and contribution in both education and food export has served well in commonality; due to your fourth year of inactivity and disassociation from our crypto-assistance programs, the O.L.H. of New-America has deemed you un-customizable and no longer a fit to New America and its people. You have been added as residents to Cormeum by tomorrow at one, for the duration of one month and eleven days.” Then the two agents left as they came and in their place was the certificate of residency recruitment. As my mother collected the papers, she peppered them with her salty tears. As soon as I heard, I hurried to my parents with memories of them working endlessly to raise me and fulfill their careers interrupted as I entered the house.

My childhood home now reduced to boxes and faceless furniture masked by blankets and tarp while my mother and father stood assembled in the kitchen by our breakfast nook where I enjoyed countless hot quinoa rolls before school. My father whose face was always lit with bright diligence was now extinguished by defeat and my mother, somehow calm with her breezy smile, told me “Not to worry, for her greatest triumph was my creation and our hearts will meet once more”.

I stayed until the two men returned to collect their flesh and blood recruits before rage took over and I automated my vehicle to drive to the O.L.H. headquarters. I saw the poster behind the counter and thought of the cuff links that looked like heart shaped lockets and finalized my compliance with a biometrics stamp on their electronic affidavit. Years had gone by in that execution town being a city quagmire for heresy, hedonism and hero outcast society.

Now I, Olivia Beck Aames, was going to be one of them.

Most nights in the city, I wasted on crypto credits at health clubs and discotheques. Every night a city car picked me up and drove me past the baby blue buildings where retirees like my parents had spent their remaining weeks, to the luminous silver and lime green establishments that decorated the center plaza. Although these alleys were infested with all types of drugs, sex deviants and happy hour hot spots the town itself was gracefully carved and crafted with black shiny bricks and steel sleek construction; I called it; 'rendezvous avenue’ and frequented all of its joints as if it were my career. I submerged myself in its perilous lifestyle, everything from intoxicated and mixed love affairs to bingeing on expensive foods in my luxurious one-bedroom abode. I smoked clove cigarettes and gazed over the steel rails of the eleventh-floor balcony often trying to decide what to make of this so-called life.

At nine days left of loyalty to Cormeum, which in Latin translates to “heartless”, unlike my parents before me, I had no will to carry on a contribution even with the two degrees and sparkling prospects I left behind in New America. There were other volunteers with a burden to carry just like mine; they were young, beautiful and educated men and women out there that wanted to punish themselves and the world they left behind because of its cruelty. When I stared off the balcony, I saw the city in its entirety and I felt the budding anguish of days and minutes slipping like pages to a diary.

On the final day of my fatal lease agreement, I woke up without much memory from the night before anticipating the knock at my front door. I started collecting remnants from last night, strewn about my place and remembered dancing so feverishly on the dance floor that I broke a heel from my wooden shoe moments before aggressively making out with a green haired woman in a see-through dress. As I stumbled around my chic apartment, I discovered long green hair strands in my brush and an empty wine bottle on the bar top.

I stepped on a broken wine glass and discovered a clue that would conclude last night's excursions. I found a clove cig on the bar and as I lit the end, saw in front of me the vixen’s lifeless body on the hearth by the fireplace. We had shared more than intimacy and booze. I discovered her secret that brought her to Cormeum. It was something that I noticed last night. Along with her transparent dress she wore a necklace with a familiar trinket and although small was easily recognized for its heart shape. It was the button to a cuff link similar to the ones outfitted on the agents that worked for the O.L.H. She was in love with the colorful dreadlocked officer who in effort to capture and recruit a retired professor, was shot in his head by the professor’s son whose passion led him to the officer's demise. Both the professor and his son were eventually expedited to Cormeum for only two days inhabitance before they both chose a poisoned meal request and died just a week after my parents were given their fatal dissolvable tabs before bed. The officer had left his newly departed bride with a broken heart and unabridged melancholy, so she joined the roster and vowed to party on rendezvous avenue every day before receiving the request to be shot and killed by the same gun as her lover. So, upon this realization, I knew that her selfish repulsive role in my parents undoing, deserved a death unlike her beloved suitor and her ultimate desire would not be fulfilled; so during our wine chat I had sliced her throat releasing that malicious heart shape locket which bonded them eternally and used it to strangle her until the last breath escaped and she collapsed to the ground. As I stood there in some satisfaction, admiring the final work of my murderous catharsis, I heard a knock at my front door. To no surprise, on the other side, stood two men holding a certificate in silver suits with heart shaped cuff links.