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THE FUTURE
It started like any day in 2300—I woke up in my pod and ate my bug breakfast—but my wife and I were in especially good spirits, because today was not like any other day. Today was the day my wife's new bull arrived.
He came by noon and man, was he something. Exactly the features we requested in our paperwork. At least 6'8", with a jacked Neo-African-American body, we couldn't have wished for anything better. He began banging my wife almost instantly, and it was so hot I began to drool.
They banged for hours in front of me. During breaks, brief as they were—our bull had almost unlimited stamina—my wife would come to me and whisper, "I think that time we really got somewhere. I can feel myself getting pregnant with his alpha genetics. If it didn't work this time it definitely shouldn't take too many more. Wow—this baby is going to be superior to you in every way. I am so excited. I love you."
Two more hours passed—but I had entered a state of numb, drooling satisfaction, and time had melted away—when there was a buzz at our pod door. Had someone in the pod next to us heard my wife and our new bull going at it? Had we forgotten our pod lunch? I looked at my nexus watch in panic and realized this might have been it. We may have never gone to the pod door to get our bug rations, a misdemeanor. I scrambled to my feet and to my dismay found two police officers standing outside my pod door.
"I'm sorry officers, I—" It was then I realized my pants were down at my ankles, exposing my spindly legs and puny private parts, and that behind me, in view (pods are of course only 100 square feet maximum) were my wife and bull making the beast with two backs. The bull took one glance at the officers before continuing his job.
I blushed and giggled. "Oh, man, officer, I'm sorry about all this." I noticed my bug food outside the door at their feet: two cockroaches, six grasshoppers, ten beetles. "I'm sorry I forgot my rations. It won't happen again, sir."
An officer slammed me against the wall. "Officer, officer, is this really necessary? Officer, my glasses!"
"Can we get a scan here," the officer said in a low voice. I heard an electronic beep as a cold metallic item was pressed into my skin.
"That's an affirmative on subject 55-O," said the second officer. "Let's scan his wife, seems like she's likely a genetic positive too."
"Officers, what's going on?" I stammered. They put me in handcuffs and sat me by the door as they pried my wife from her bull and scanned her as well. "We deserve to know what's going on!"
"A new law just passed, all white people have to go to the work camps effective immediately. Sorry, son. It looks like you and your wife are over 75%. That's far over the acceptable threshold."
My wife and I were taken in a cattle car with all the other white people far away into the countryside. I held her in my arms as she sobbed. I remember in our train car one man somehow had the wherewithal to play a violin. I remember listening to the sweet and sad melody as the dreary countryside slipped by in the windows, embodying a freedom I would never know.
My wife and I were separated upon entrance to the camp. That was the last time I saw her. The rest of my days were spent in the quarry, breaking up rocks. There was the constant threat that if I got too weak and was no longer able to work I would be thrown into the fire pit. The Jews and People of Color who ran the camp were merciless. There were a few days where I could no longer take it. I broke away from my work and fell to my knees in front of them. "You can't do this..." I would say. "Why...why do you do this...just because we're white?"
"Yes," they invariably said. Sometimes they said it with a gleeful smirk. Sometimes they said it without any emotion at all.
RUTHLESS, SLEEPLESS, UNSMILING
CONCENTRATION ON THE SELF
"I just deleted Twitter," the first friend said.
"Oh, nice man, I just started going to the gym," said the second friend.
"Oh really? Damn, I just started a new diet. Meat only," said the third friend.
"Haha, is that really healthier," asked the first friend, a pang of pure hatred throbbing through his heart. "Yeah it actually is, haha," the third friend said.
"No way it's healthier," said the second friend. "You're lying. You don't know what you're talking about. You're confused."
"I just joined a charity," said the fourth friend. "They run a soup kitchen across town but do a ton of fundraising work."
"Oh yeah? That's awesome, I just got a new job," said the fifth friend. "Pays waaay more than the last one. Do you wanna hear the number? I could say it."
Everyone remained silent.
"Oh wow, nice guys," said the sixth friend. "I just quit my job. The 9-5 just isn't fulfilling. I think I'm gonna leave the city. Like, get some land, live on a farm, you know. Live a humble life."
"That's all great, guys, but unfortunately I got some bad news..." the seventh friend said. "My, uh...my grandmother actually died this weekend."
"How old was she?" one replied.
"Seventy-two," the seventh friend said.
"Well, she lived a nice long life, at least. It's best to die of natural causes."
"She lived an average life," one friend thought, the friend concerned with diet and health. The doom of death washed over him. He was going to postpone his own as long as he could. "She could have lived much longer. Probably unhealthy as hell. I'm gonna live til 99, at least.."
"Damn, that's sad, something crazy just happened with me though: I'm a millionaire," the eighth friend said. "Yeah, remember when I was the poorest of all of us? Well, I just closed a deal for a comedy script I just wrote: two million dollars."
"Wow," the ninth friend said. "Well, you won't believe what happened to me. I got laid last night. Yup, with a really hot one, too. It was dynamite! We did everything you could imagine."
"That's crazy," a tenth friend said, addressing the friend who had started going to the gym. "It's great you're going to the gym and all, but I'm actually muscular already. Look."
He flexed a huge arm, and the friend he had addressed was forced to look. Everyone else averted their eyes or glanced over with vicious envy and hatred. The friend who had no choice but to look unconsciously widened his eyes, then gulped. "That's cool, man..."
"Damnnn," an eleventh friend said. "I just started going to church, fasting—I'm becoming really religious, actually."
"That's awesome, good for you man," the twelfth friend said. "I just got a new car. A Tesla. Now I can go anywhere."
"Awesome man," thirteen said. "I just bought my first house. It's about real estate. Once I get a few properties going..."
"I've been experimenting with psychedelic drugs, LSD, DMT, shrooms, pot," the fourteenth friend said. "It's teachin' me a ton..."
"That reminds me, had an awesome dinner last night...need to find out what the place was called, I forget...I tried this amazing new fish...tasted so good," said the fifteenth friend.
"I want my mommy," said the sixteenth friend.
They all turned to him slowly. Some averted their eyes, some snuck small, squinting glances over. These glances contained a subdued mixture of horror, pity, and rage. Some sighed, some smothered groans. Some then tried to assume their normal, good humored expressions.
After a couple seconds of silence, things seemed to return to normal. The seventeenth friend was about to begin speaking when the sixteenth repeated: "I want my mommy."
"What's that, dude?" said the second friend, the most confused, and the most angry. "I don't know if I caught that."
The sixteenth friend widened his eyes and mouthed the word "HELP." When this didn't work on the second friend, he looked around and tried it on a few others. He tried to spell it with his fingers. They were in a strange white room, no roof, no floor, no windows, no doors.
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