[Short Story] - Overpopulation

“Starting with the first of January, every child born will have its maximum lifespan reduced to 24 years of age, down from the current 25. The decision has been made due to the continuous rise in the population, and the shortage of livestock necessary to keep everyone alive. The board has–…”

I was watching the news at the local bar, and the people there went full mental with the announcement. Beer mugs were thrown all around, and one of them managed to hit the television, smash its screen and unhinge it from its holder, forcing it on the floor.

In the year 2057 a new law had been enforced that every human would be killed on their 70th birthday due to overpopulation and the resulting shortage of food to keep everyone alive. Not even a decade later the number had been reduced to 65, then 60, and so forth. By 2182 the maximum age was down to 25, and in 2187 a new law was enforced that lowered the maximum lifespan to a new all-time low of 24.

People were told it was the only righteous way to put an end to the rising overpopulation problem. Supposedly, limiting couples to just one child wouldn’t have worked out because of all the new human rights that have been introduced over the years, because there couldn’t be a severe enough punishment for couples who would not abide the law. Even if such couples were force to pay a very high fee for the additional child, the government still had to provide them with the means to live a normal life, thus rendering the law useless.

Using similar reasons they somehow managed to justify that all humans could live free of all restraints but only to a set maximum lifespan. If they died beforehand by other means, it was solely their fault.

It was also agreed that the only people allowed to live longer than the law-enforced age were the scientists working on saving the problem, to encourage people to try and solve the problem, and the politicians that made all the decisions, such as myself.

As a young child I have taken interest in politics because the system didn’t make any sense to me and I wanted to make a change. I didn’t know how and what change I wanted to make, but I knew I had to make my way into the parliament to be able to, which I eventually did. After extensive participation in the matter, long and tiresome testing of my psyche, and signing dozens of confidentiality agreements, I was welcomed into the board in 2185, at the age of 22. It was then I realized the full scale of the problem. And the real reasons behind it.

Earth wasn’t overpopulated. Not anymore. Not for the last 30 years. In fact, the mortality rate was far above that of natality. The world as we knew it was made to come to a natural end. In favor of a new, different one.

Ever since that faithful day back in 2057, Earth was split into two. A part that remained the same, the Old world, and one that was being built anew, the New world.

All the people from the Old world have been deported to the New world prior to the first iteration of the law, the entire thing cleverly disguised as mass migration due to several of the many wars, starting all the way back in 2016, when the first supposed migration crisis kicked in.

The new world, with a grand plan but void of all its people, needed a working force to implement the planned changes. The elderly made their way first. Instead of being killed in the Old world, they were deported to the New world as slaves to help lay its foundation. The elderly were also convenient, because they didn’t want to have any newly born babies there before it was complete enough for them to live there.

The first mission was to clear the new world of everything manmade. Entire cities were wiped off the face of the Earth by means of explosives and huge heavy-duty machinery.

But because the workers were old and not properly taken care of, they were dying like flies. They couldn’t handle building cities anew. The new order needed younger, more capable men. The problem was conveniently solved by making the masses believe the problem with overpopulation was becoming more and more severe, and they needed lower the maximum lifespan.

It was all part of one single grand scheme. A textbook example of “out with the old, in with the new”.

Only they didn’t tell me what the “new” was, no matter how many times I’ve asked. All I knew about it was that the wealthiest of people have had enough of all the human rights and being restrained. They wanted to be Kings in the proper sense of the word.

My job at the parliament was in no way connected with trying to save the population of the Old world. Instead, I was going through hundreds of sheets of information regarding newly built cities in the New world and strategically housing all the new people there, managing how many children they were allowed to have, slowly allowing for the new world to flourish and the old one to die. I had no insight whatsoever into anything else, and it was eating me up inside. I knew it couldn’t be anything good.

Every day when I left for work I had to look at myself in the mirror and cope with my actions. I had wanted to make a change in the world, but my work was far from the change I had wanted.

That day at the bar I had had enough. Seeing all those men and women get notified of the new decision about their lives that I helped take was my tipping point. I wasn’t going to help the world as I knew it get undone. Not anymore.

I knew all the media houses were corrupt and in on the grand plan, and that I couldn’t hack my way into the computers and websites. I had to organize a protest and speak up about it, like in the old days.

I had the advantage of knowing who was, and who wasn’t, part of the plan. I knew who I could speak to safely. I knew I could contact the town’s mayor and I also knew he would help me. We organized a smaller group and printed thousands of flyers that we then scattered across town, leaving piles of them at schools, pubs, and even in front of retail stores, informing the public there would be a gathering on the Evergreen square on the 29th of October, and that one of the parliament members was going to blow the whistle.

Information about the event spread like a virus and not even a week later it was all one could hear people talk about in the streets. Strangely, though, people at work didn’t even break a sweat. They didn’t even as much as acknowledge it.

Come the 26th, I appeared on stage in front of the masses. I told them all I knew about what was going on and the reality of the situation they were in, but not even one of them believed me. They booed me off stage, throwing at me whatever items they had on hand. I was determined to change their minds, until someone in the crowd threw a granite block at me, hitting me straight in the head and knocking me on the floor.

I cried out for help with the little life I still had in me, but nobody bothered enough to move or call an ambulance, not even the mayor. Worse so, the very people I wanted to save, threw ever more granite blocks, eventually robbing me of my consciousness for good.