Post Choice Society...

fiction

Being here wasn't her choice. When she reflected on her life that seemed to be a repeating theme. Getting caught in actions, jobs, relationships, that didn't seem to have been her choice. They just happened.

She was part of the generation that was sandwiched in-between the self esteem is everything generation after hers and the there are so many of them they tilted the gravitational pull of the world toward them generation before hers.

It became a hallmark of her peers to claim they were forgotten. They talked about how forgotten they were so often nobody could ever forget them. She chalked it up to the age old, "You're not firing me, I'm quitting!" mentality. If I reject you first you cannot reject me at all. And they bought into it so hard that when given the chance to raise their kids in the same feral, forgotten way that made them so nostalgic now, they instead opted for everyone gets a trophy, grades don't count, and let's spell your name with a Y instead of an E to show how unique and special you are.

So life happened and she floated along. It was expected that she act a certain way, go to a certain school, be married by a certain age, have a certain number of children. And she did it all. If you had asked her at any point she would have, of course, told you it was all her choice, but now? Now that she had time to think about little else than how she got here? Now she wasn't really sure she had had much of a choice after all.

Sure, there were people who had done it differently but they were the rebels. The ones who saw the path as the treadmill it was and decided to jump off. The rest of them thought they were walking in that direction voluntarily. Never seeing the ropes and walls alongside keeping them there. Family. Religion. Tradition. All of it pointing her down that path.

College degree. Two years of work. Marriage. Two more years of work. Two kids in four years. So much more work but realizing that she was not getting anywhere in her career so maybe she should just support her husband, stay home with the kids and sell Pampered Chef. Eighteen years of that and then both of the kids were off to college and she was working as a cashier at the local food co-op just to stave off the unending boredom. Ten years of that flew by and then the heart attack. Not hers, his. Too soon.

She had kept the cashiering job for awhile but the life insurance had been enough that she didn't really need to work anymore. So she stopped. She started volunteering. It was what financially comfortable widows did. So of course it was what she did.

Then the collapse. Not hers, the world.

There had been draft lotteries for the few spaces available on the shuttles. The very few spaces after the majority of them had been sold and traded among the very wealthy. She had watched one night, with the rest of the country, as the balls were drawn from an old Powerball spinner. She had doubled, triple, quadruple checked her number. Her very own spot on Shuttle 429 leaving Earth in six weeks.

She had read numerous articles about how it was unfair that people her age were even in the lottery. Afterall what benefit would she be? She couldn't reproduce anymore. But the thinking had been that a balance of ages was needed. There could be no society without its elders. She knew it was because there were too many very wealthy and influential people well past breeding age and that her position was nothing more than a "See? We let old poors in too!"

She would have given her space up to either of her children but couldn't. They also said they wouldn't take it even if she could have because they wouldn't want to leave their spouses and their own children. And besides, it might all be fine. A little of her generational you can't leave me if I don't want to go attitude rubbing off she guessed. But they wanted her to go. To ensure that at least one of them made it, if it was that bad. She suspected it was their way of ensuring they wouldn't have to take care of her in her old age. It was their way setting grandma adrift on an iceberg.

So here she was. Alone. In space. Or maybe not alone, but with a few hundred people she didn't know. All of whom kept saying how lucky there were to be there.

It hadn't been her choice. Nothing ever seemed to be. Why would this be any different? But at least this time she didn't have any idea where the treadmill was leading her or what they would find when they got there. That would have to be enough to satisfy her.

She really didn't have any other choice.