Nightmare in Utopia

I’m a man, at least that’s what they’d tell me if I asked…I don’t intend to ask. You can’t argue with science, you can’t argue with the law. No really, you can’t, it’s a crime. Not too long ago I thought the world had come so far, but that’s the problem with circles isn’t it? You have to stop halfway around, once you reach halfway, any movement in either direction only takes you backward, even if you move forward in the circle, you’re approaching your starting point. Well, the world reached halfway, and kept going, and now here we are. Living in the shadows, hiding from patrols, sick often with no way to get medical attention beyond expensive pills that do little good for sale in dark alleys. It’s a tough life being a Nonpod, I suppose for the Podders, life is good. Living in the sun, no disease, no injuries, no death. A utopian paradise for those above.

Perhaps you wonder how we got here? How did we go from an advanced enlightened world to the dichotomy that exists today? From waving flags in the streets to hiding from patrols? Well, I’ll spare you the details of my surgeries, and I’ll spare you the troubled stories of my unhappy youth. It started with the Pods, they seemed like such a good idea at the time, but no one really thought it through. Why wouldn’t you want to end sickness and death if you could? Of course they went through with it. Now there’s a Pod in most respectable homes, and some you can pay to use as you need it for those less financially successful. As advanced as the technology is, the concept is amazingly simple. Whatever is wrong with you, broken arm, Ebola, missing teeth, obesity, old age, doesn’t matter, you enter a pod, press start, and 20 minutes later you’re good as new. They cannot fix genetic disorders, because they work by reading your DNA and restoring you to factory settings, you might say. Perhaps you begin to see the problem? I have spent a troubling amount of money, time, and effort in transforming my physical identity to match who I am. One Pod session would undo all of that. The parts of me that have been rearranged would be restored to their original form. Hormone levels? Restored. Facial hair? Restored. I would look like the fellow on the box of pancake mix, when currently I look like the lady baking them in the ad. So, I hide.

Why patrols? You might ask. Well, once the Pods were proven effective and began to become popular, laws were passed and changed. It began in this country, but the rest of the world followed suit remarkably quickly. If you are not a Podder, you are considered a risk to society. You cannot be employed, cannot participate in politics, cannot operate any type of vehicle, cannot marry, cannot have children (though in my case that’s no longer a consideration), cannot get housing, basically you can’t do anything. Just hide with others in hiding and try to survive in whatever way you can. But how can anyone be a risk to a society where any infirmity is fixable? Because the Pods cannot bring people back to life. If a person has been dead for more than five minutes, a Pod will have no effect. If you’ve not been restored, you could potentially have any sort of condition just waiting to become apparent. You could have a medical condition while driving, and cause the death of others, you could have a condition at work and endanger your coworkers. You could pass out suddenly at home while cooking and be a risk to your landlord and neighborhood. Nope, can’t let Nonpods do anything that could risk the lives of others. Which turns out to be everything. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it, the hiding. Maybe I should give up and become the pancake guy. Then I could get a job, and a home, freedom and immortality. On cold nights when I didn’t get enough food for the day, these thoughts gnaw at me. But I’ve not given in yet. I was in my early 30s when the Pods were first invented, that was ten years ago. Some of us were barely teenagers. I see frightened, hungry people in the streets, 25? Maybe younger, and I feel like they need me. Now maybe that’s just in my mind, a desperate yearning for my life to have purpose and meaning, but even so, it keeps me going. There doesn’t seem to be any changing what the world has become. Since we are Nonpods, we will in time succumb to various diseases, accidents and old age. Eventually we will not exist, and their perfect utopia can continue on unblemished. It’s merely a waiting game for them, and being immortal, they’ve got the time. There will be no more of us.

Reproducing has become highly restricted, even among the Podders. Since the population will no longer be dying at the normal rate, births could not be allowed to continue at the normal rate. Every city has a waiting list of couples wanting to reproduce, and a certain number of people have to die, in order for one to be allowed to be born. They are not trying to keep the population at equilibrium, they are trying to greatly reduce it. The fewer people in the world, the more resources available to those people. If you have any genetic markers for the risk of producing a child with a genetic disorder, you are permanently banned from breeding. There are no longer surgeries such as mine available, there are no surgeries at all. There are no pharmacies, no doctors, no healthcare, only the Pods. For the remainder of history, all people will be forever trapped in the bodies they are born in and forced to live forever (unless they make the drastic choice to end their life). No, we are the last of the Nonpods.

I used to consider myself a pretty moral person. I didn’t steal, tried to be kind, you know average or slightly better morality. Now I don’t care. I do what I must to survive. If a Podder leaves their groceries on a table to go take a phone call? Well, looks like I get to eat tonight. I think you get the idea. I’ve not become a bad person; I’ve stopped being a person. I feel like I’m an animal, just surviving. I don’t have friends, I don’t have a romantic partner, heck I barely have a pet. Timothy may not look like much, but he’s mine. Just an alley rat that I befriended, or rather he befriended me. At the same time, every night, he comes to see me. I give him a rat sized portion of whatever food I managed to get during the day, and in the humble comfort of my dirty blanket, he curls up in my arms. I don’t care if it sounds stupid, he means the absolute world to me.

Now, I certainly don’t have it great, but I’m aware enough to know I’ve got it better than a lot of folks down here. I look like a woman (mostly), I even sound like a woman (unless I’m startled or angry). I can blend in with the Podders, walk in the daylight. Through cafés and little shops. Picking up half eaten sandwiches, sometimes nicking snack bars or bags of chips from a rack without being noticed. Many down here cannot. Even when I got my surgeries, they were expensive, and hard to get. So many either weren’t ready or couldn’t afford them. There are a great many people down here who would not pass in the broad streets of the upper world. They stay down here perpetually, with no real hope of ever seeing the sun again. How do they survive? Well, they have their ways, and I don’t ask a lot of questions. We’re all just doing what we must to get from one day to the next. But many have unfortunately lost any sense of morality they once had. They often have items to trade, again, I don’t know how. But they offer clothing, blankets, books, jewelry and the like. My currency is food. On days when I can get more food than I need for myself, I trade for things. It’s how I got my blanket, and the fancy clothes I’m often seen wearing among the Podders. It’s how I got this necklace I wistfully treasure. Not much, probably meant for a child in truth. Just a metal chain with a little enamel rainbow. A symbol that once meant hope. But the only rainbows in underground alleys are oil shimmers, and that’s not really uplifting. I wear it as a reminder of what the world used to be, and probably never will be again.

Do we have a plan? For what? To fix this? I don’t think it can be fixed. Sometimes a few of us manage to get a bottle of something and we drink and talk big ideas, but I don’t honestly think anything will come of it. Some have tried to sabotage Pods, but there’s hundreds of millions of Pods, taking out five or ten has little effect on the whole. Some have tried to take out the leaders of governments, but weapons and opportunities are extremely hard to come by. Some have turned to their faith, but that didn’t prevent this, I don’t see why it would stop it now. No, we are the last of the Nonpods and once we are gone the world will continue on quite happily without us. My name is Janet, and if you’re reading this, then at least I got to tell someone. We existed, we were people, the world was different once and, in my opinion, far more beautiful. My name is Janet, and I’m a woman, I don’t care what anyone says. I doubt you can find me in the records as most records of us have already been destroyed. But I existed, and I’d like to think I mattered to more than just Timothy. Please remember us.