i
It all started when they made suicide legal.
I guess it really started before that, when that group of university scientists in Singapore set up Stephenson Lenses in the local emergency rooms. Even though it was what they intended, they were as surprised as anyone by their results: images of unexplained energy leaving the dying. Of course the scientists were largely ignored until an American TV magazine picked up the story; then they were laughed at. The AP caught wind of it, and they were heckled and shouted down at every news conference. But they were the crack in the dam.
The next year, a startup in Michigan was able to "fingerprint the unique psychic energy" of a person, even when that person was still alive. The startup's founder called this individual pattern an echoshape and thought he could market his tech to biometrics firms, but everyone else still called it a soul and didn't want it mapped, thanks but no thanks. The startup foundered, and their merchandise scattered on eBay. A couple of venture cinematographers got their hands on an echoshaper, took it to their local hospital, and filmed dozens of spirits leaving the dead and crossing right over into the maternity ward. Public Access saw it, Pay TV saw it, and then everyone saw it - souls and reincarnation in one neat package.
There was some uproar after that. Outcries came from some churches, 'I told you so's from others. Science was a devil, or it was the savior. This was just a test from God, or it maybe it was a sign from God, or it didn't have anything to do with God.
But the uproar died, as it always will. Given a few years, people have a way of assimilating almost anything. A market grew up around reincarnation. Yoga rose in popularity. Past-life regression is now written into the exit requirements of most colleges. The abortion issue changed. Those who could afford it paid more attention to where they died. The debate over inheritance law decided most of the races in the next election cycle. And that in turn had a big impact on the economy - between the markets and the war, things were shaky for a while, at least until the Supreme Court and a Special Council from the UN ruled within weeks of each other that the legal entity was defined by the body, not the soul. I guess that let Hitler's ghost off the hook. It let a lot of people off the hook.
Like anti-sodomy laws twenty years earlier, anti-suicide legislation was stricken from the ledgers of most municipalities. Some progressive European nations created specific provisions for suicide. The banks and credit card companies hated it. Draw up your will in the right way, and it was better than declaring bankruptcy. It turned out to be a pretty good deal for the insurance companies, though. They were able to raise the premium for accidental death (which became a much scarier prospect), and natural deaths all but disappeared. None of them list suicide in their coverage any more.
You're probably wondering why legalizing suicide made any difference. It's not like the suicides of the past particularly cared whether or not they were breaking the law. But the fact of the matter is this: if something is legal - drinking, shooting up, head trips, prostitution, whatever - there will be someone there ready to help you do it however you want, for a modest fee. That's not the difference, of course; the difference is in the advertising. Now they can set up a storefront with a flashing sign that you see every morning when you drive to work. Now they can franchise. Now there's venture capital. And the suicide business – it was big. You might not believe how much an old man would pay to die painlessly, quickly, in a familiar neighborhood, when his will-to-self was drawn as tightly as he liked, and avoid the risk of knocking off from some sudden painful heart attack on the wrong side of town where he might be reborn, unidentified, without his wealth, to a 15-year-old homeless addict.
I hear there's a long waiting list for the suicide clinics in Beverly Hills and Manhattan - I guess there's some kind of traffic jam in the afterlife.
ii
There is always this type of person who tries to beat the system. For whatever reason, they get it into their head that the system - the "Man", the government, the universe - is a leech on their well-being. They are resentful, sarcastic folk who look for the shortcuts in life and smugly exploit them. The problem is, they never really try to escape the system; they just end up turning it on its head. They leech off it until they're caught, or until they self-destruct.
I guess I'm like that, though I'm not proud of it. The system: it sucks, but it's what we've got. You can't beat it forever. You always pay for your sins, in one lifetime or the next.
That's what I thought, anyway. That's what I thought when I was young and in college, an idealist ready to take on the world and make it better for everyone. Science and learning would save us all – it would save our souls. But I learned better.
The classes were part of it. You study enough history, philosophy, and religion, talk to people totally different from yourself, maybe smoke a little, maybe drink a little, and your mind opens right up like a puzzle box. That's why colleges are full of hippies. But the regressions clinched it for me. I don't know if it's the same for everyone, but I didn't remember many specifics from my past lives - events or things or places; I remembered feelings. I remembered frustration. I remembered feeling tired. I remembered planning to change the world a hundred times in a hundred different ways, and it was always too hard. Just too damn hard. Thwarted by sickness, thwarted by accidents, thwarted by some goddamned short-sighted greedy bastard. The system protects itself, is what it is.
I dropped out of college in the middle of my last semester. After all, what was the point? I had a secret, guilty thrill when I got my grades, and I'd passed two of my classes without taking the finals.
iii
When you're smart, it's easy to get by. You just have to manage your expectations. A low-wage job, a cheap apartment, cheap clothes - you remind yourself that you don't really need that 20% more everyone seems to want. So I did that for awhile - paid off the college loan, even. But I felt old. I felt done. All of my ambitions were sapped away by too many memories. I remembered being ready for death before, and that's how I felt now. Death became a bit of an obsession for me.
But what's the point of dying if you're doomed to come right back? Why speed the inevitable rebirth into dissatisfaction? No, what I needed was a way to get out altogether. And I don't mean escaping into enlightened bliss. I wasn't into the Buddhist thing. I guess some group of scientists somewhere is probably working on a study of Buddhists to see if they manage to evade reincarnation. But all of that self-denial and meditation requires a lot of work and dedication, and I didn't have the motivation. No, by that point I was looking for those shortcuts – the ways around the system. There's nothing beside the system, but nothing sounded just fine to me.
iv
When she came to pick me up, I wasn't depressed. I'd been feeling down now and again, but you have to understand - overall I wasn't depressed, I was just done. I was looking forward to death, actually. I'd taken care of my family and friends, what few I had left, and cleared up the rest of my business - closing lines of credit, canceling insurance - you know. I was a free man, and from the perspective of most of the civilized world, I was already dead.
She pulled up to the curb in a sleek black American classic with darkly tinted windows. It was big and oozed wealth and class from every mirror-polished angle. I watched her park through my apartment window, and for just a moment I wondered if I'd made the right choice.
As she got out on the far side of the car and stood, I could see that she was tall, and more fleshy and curvy than modelesque. She was dressed as a naughty schoolgirl. I think I smirked. They must have picked that from my psyche profile. Her black, curling hair was tied back in pigtails, and her pale face wasn't caked with make-up (I could see freckles), except for some lip gloss and thick eye-liner. She wore a sheer white blouse, unbuttoned but tied in a knot and scooped open to show ample breasts squeezed into a red satin bra. The costume was completed by a pleated gray skirt, and as she came around the front of the car - a very naughty schoolgirl! - I saw that she was wearing thigh-high PVC boots over black stockings. The skirt was so short, I caught a flash of her matching red satin panties when she stepped up onto the curb.
Heels confidently clopping and with one arm draped over her large purse, she strode up the walk to the complex. She was chewing gum - that's what had given me that second thought - but her gait reassured me. It was purposeful - single-minded, yet also casual; she swayed her hips like she was on a runway, but she didn't appear conscious of it. She was conscious of me: She had spotted me at the window and was smirking right back at me as she approached my door. She raised her arm and waggled her fingers at me in hello.
She was polished, I decided, and I liked that about her. It wasn't the polish of a thin veneer - she had sharpened and refined her true personality, skin to bone. Her confidence was natural and not misplaced. Again I had that pang - call it a third thought – and I hesitated. That casual sincerity, that authenticity she exuded resonated in me. It was a quality I'd been searching for, in myself and others. Maybe... maybe I could nurture that in myself, and find some satisfaction. But, no... No, I'd tried that before. Hundreds of times. The hesitation faded. It was too late for me. This me, who I was now, it was who I really was. So, this thing - this plan - it was the most authentic thing I could do.
"Hello...?" Her voice came through the door. She had already rung my doorbell, and now she was leaning over from the porch, looking in the window at me. She raised her waving hand to shade the glass, and again she smirked at me. Her nails were manicured and painted black, sleek and shiny like her car.
I shook hazy thoughts from my head and unlocked the door for her.
She smiled as the door opened for her. "Having second thoughts?" Her voice was smooth, and just a little honeyed.
"No..." I shook my head absently. "I mean, yes, but ... no."
She laughed. "You don't have to explain. It's a big decision. There can be a lot to think over. We understand. You can always change your mind, whenever you'd like, up to the very end." She stepped through the doorway, past me and into the room, and I let the door shut behind her. She stopped a few feet in, and I remained by the door, looking up at her. In her boots she was taller than me. It was only an inch, but I felt like she was towering over me. Her presence dominated my small apartment. "Of course, the longer you wait, the more it costs if you back out - for services rendered. You understand."
