Bleeding Heart

I stood perfectly still as Candy stepped onto the space ship transport shuttle. If I had let myself move, even a millimetre, I would have jumped in after her. I loved her so much that I could hardly breathe at the thought of living without her.

Candace Marie Barshay-Trent, R.N. -- my precious Candy -- insisted it was her duty. She was the only one with medical training in that motley group randomly chosen by computer. A hundred and fifty assorted souls plucked from the Global Population Register, with no regard for age, skills, gender or health.  In the uneasy social climate of the times, the filtering of candidates was considered discriminatory.

Candy could have applied for an exemption before the lottery because she had underage children, but she said she didn't want to take advantage of a loophole. She wanted to share the same risks and privileges as any other citizen. She let her name stand, and she was chosen.

We spent our last hours together in the mall, sitting on the massage chairs and chatting about trivia because our deeper thoughts were too dark to contemplate. I had brought a whole roll or loonies, and she used them all. She loved the way the artificial steel fingers slid along her spine, waking up her connective tissue. She claimed that she felt energized for a full twenty-four hours after using one of those chairs, although I never noticed any difference. There would be no malls or massage chairs in the fledgling colony of New Hope, the first instalment of science's final answer to overpopulation, extinction, and ecological collapse.

The Global Union President assured us that interplanetary transportation would become more efficient with time, and at least half of the earth's population would be safely transferred to newly terraformed planets in the Periclean solar system, a mere thirty light years away. Extraterrestrial colonization would be humanity's finest achievement.

The GUP (Candy and I referred to him as “Guppy”) was only partially right. Fewer than five thousand emigrants were ever transported. I wanted to go with Candy -- many of the Chosen would have paid handsomely to have the children and me take their place. But Candy said that we had to put our children first. The new world was too perilous. If the atmospheric shields collapsed, everyone would die four minutes later. She said she would never get a good night's sleep if she was worried about her darlings' sudden death. I told her I would never sleep well again, worrying about what could happen to her. It might be years before I was informed.

She was the one who insisted on our divorce. She said I deserved another chance at a normal life, a normal home. The children would thrive better if they had a mother. I asked who would marry me when my head and heart were full of my first love and all my dreams were about her. Candy said she had already spoken to a friend of hers whose husband would be one of the immigrants. Crystal was a lovely lady, she told me, always thinking about others, and we would understand each other because we shared the same grief.

Candy’s matchmaking worked out better than either of us imagined. Crystal and I found comfort in sharing a bed and weeping together through the long hours of the night, but we never had sex. We saved that for VR sessions with our former spouses.

Today, the new colony celebrated its 23rd anniversary. Our children did, indeed thrive. Anna is a high-level politician, and Adam is a well-known cyberartist whose works are eagerly sought by his admirers. Crystal and I are growing old together in relative comfort.

This morning, Anna appeared on all channels with the announcement that the latest initiatives to repair the atmospheric generator had failed. From now on, we will have to buy the air we breathe. Good news for Global Atmospheric Unlimited -- doesn't Adam have some stock in that? I must ask him. Not so good news for the millions who can't afford the sixty dollars for a week's supply. Our overpopulation problem will finally be solved.

I wonder if New Hope has massage chairs now.