Fragile Shard 13. The Sad Tale of Life After Life.
Ilya Petrovich sat at the very beginning of a long line — only two hundred people remained ahead of him — in a shabby, dimly lit corridor of the Kinetics Institute for Life Limitation. The chair beneath him creaked with every movement, and large dirty drops from the ceiling kept falling on the top of his head.
It was impossible to say that Ilya Petrovich was alive. However, it was hard to call him dead, either. Recently reaching the age-after-retirement, from the point of view of the Great Imperial Neural Network, he was now something akin to the living dead. Taking into account the limited resources of the planet and critical overpopulation, once a person left the working age and ceased to be useful to society, according to the GINN, they were deprived of all the advantages of human existence.
Thus, for the fourth year, Ilya Petrovich was forced to live in one of the many underground dormitories that stretched for kilometers into the bowels of the earth under New St. Petersburg. His penthouse on the one hundred and fifty-third floor of the central Peter and Paul skyscraper was handed over to the new, young, and promising Master of the Old Center, and the predecessor was sent into underground exile. Additionally, Ilya Petrovich suddenly lost his young wife, the harem of young mistresses, the chic Rolls-Fly garage, and even the lunar residence, which he was especially proud of, since it was two square meters larger than the villa of the mayor of the Kudrovskaya volost. All of this was confiscated from Ilya Petrovich and carefully transferred to the heir.
In an overpopulated world of victorious patriarchy and an absolute cult of power, there was no longer room for personal attachments, personal possessions, or personal rights. Ilya Petrovich, sobbing at night on his damp and rotting thin mattress, could not get out of his head the last look of indifference his wife gave him when he was taken away by employees of the Federation for Equitable Allocation of Resources. For several years of living together, he had grown accustomed to her sincere tenderness, affection, and respect. But as soon as his term expired and a successor took his place, she immediately began to look at the newcomer in exactly the same way, completely forgetting about him, Ilya Petrovich.
For four years, he wandered like a ghost through the narrow corridors of the hostel, unable to accept his current position. He was too accustomed to being important, significant, and treated with attention and respect. Now, who was he? No one needed a pensioner without children and friends, without money and power, who couldn’t even sew a patch on a worn and greasy jacket from Tom Ford — the only thing he had left from his past life.
One evening, as Ilya Petrovich once again wandered around the restroom where even the smart TV did not work, his neighbor, a rather peppy old man named Vanechka, who was born here underground, asked, “Ilya Petrovich, why are you toiling so? It hurts to look at you. You should go to KILL and apply. Perhaps they’ll take you for past merits.”
“Where?” the former Master of the Old Center barely moved his cracked, bluish lips.
“Well, to the Kinetics Institute for Life Limitation, haven’t you heard? They say they’re doing some kind of experiments with the brain, and it seems that if you’re selected, you’ll begin to live like a king, just like at the Toppers. There’s always a long queue.”
“Why don’t you go yourself if everything is so good there?”
“Not allowed, Ilya Petrovich. This is only for Toppers like you. They don’t take us, the Lowborns.”
Since then, Ilya Petrovich had a goal. He even began to condescend to communicate with the underground scum around him in order to find out where this mysterious KILL was located. He found out — and then he started looking for an opportunity to submit an application somehow bypassing the queue. But, unfortunately for him, he couldn’t find such options, as he didn’t even have anything to give as a bribe, and he didn’t know how to give it correctly — he had only learned to take bribes in his past life, with no need for a lot of skill.
That’s how Ilya Petrovich moved from his tiny little room to the thousands of people in line at the door of the KILL sorting point . He spent four months, twenty-three days, four hours, and forty-six minutes in it.
And he almost overslept the moment when it was his turn. But when the dim green light above the door turned green, some unknown force seemed to throw him up, tearing him out of his restless dreams. Weakly orienting himself in space from sleep, on unsteady, buckling, and trembling legs, he carefully slipped into the longed-for room.
The room was fairly well-lit, and behind the office desk sat a large, middle-aged lady, strikingly similar to his secretary from a past life. She looked equally tired and irritated.
“Last name, first name, patronymic,” the mistress of fate mumbled indistinctly.
“Chief Ilya Petrovich,” Ilya Petrovich bleated softly, cautiously observing the lady from under eyelashes quivering with fear. His entire present image, with every detail, contradicted his sonorous surname, but this was far from funny; it was infinitely sad.
“Alright then, former master of the Center of New St. Petersburg, blah blah blah,” the lady muttered, hiding her flushed cheeks behind the monitor. Ilya Petrovich trembled.
“Bribes, bribes, bribes,” the lady sang under her breath. “Yeah, and then bribes, I understand. Yeah, we love domination; well, nothing new. We’ve already seen it a thousand times. Oh, and this is something new.”
In such a monologue, the lady spent at least half an hour delving into the whole life of Ilya Petrovich and voicing even the most secretive details that no one else could possibly know. He already regretted coming here, regretted getting out of his future grave, where he had been confined twenty years before his death.
Ilya Petrovich was trembling.
“So, Ilya Petrovich. What can I say? There are good news, and there are bad news. In short, look: in principle, I can admit you to the program, but you need to work.”
“W-w-what?”
“Well, you know how it goes, get under the table,” the woman laughed, but the flicker of amusement immediately reverted to her standard indifferently businesslike mumbling. “You will be sent to the lower tiers of the upper world; there’s a shortage of scavengers now. Work there for five years, and you can skip the queue to get into the program.”
“Can I think about it?”
“Look, think about it all you want. No, now let’s make a quick decision. People also need to see me, after all.”
Ilya Petrovich was trembling. And he agreed.
And so he ended up in a five-year garbage and sewer penal servitude. Over the years, he grew haggard, transforming into a real old man, losing the remnants of his hair and pride, and even forgetting about his former life and the mysterious magical program they promised to enroll him in at the KILL. He reeked of a mixture of the finest local scents, sifting through garbage, cleaning pipes, sleeping on bare floors, and eating leftovers. Yet, for some reason, he continued to exist.
One day, they came for him. Carefully wrapped in a warm fleece blanket, they placed him on a stretcher and took him to the main building of the KILL research center. They washed him, shaved him, and gave him a beautiful lilac jumpsuit, congratulating him on getting into the brain dependency program. He was immersed in a capsule with liquid and connected to tubes and wires.
“Here it is, paradise life has returned after all the misadventures. Take a bite, plebeians,” thought Ilya Petrovich.
He opened his eyes in his penthouse on the one hundred and fifty-third floor of the central Peter and Paul skyscraper. Nearby lay his wife, not as young but still beautiful. He looked at his young and handsome body, and at that moment, he began to realize that something was wrong. His body did not obey. It wasn’t his body. Not-his-hand began to stroke the bare breasts of his wife, but he didn’t feel the touch of the smooth, delicate skin. He could only watch through someone else’s eyes, at what was happening. Helplessly observing his successor passionately making love to not-his own wife.
Witnessing how a completely different person lives his life. Watching without even being able to cry helplessly.
It was the paradise he had supposedly deserved.
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“Fragile Shards: Whispers of Transience” is an evocative anthology that spans 15 years of the author’s writing journey. From mystical adventures to dark introspections, these tales traverse vivid landscapes, offering a captivating glimpse into the ever-changing tapestry of human emotions and perceptions. Each story is a unique shard, reflecting the complexity of life’s experiences and the resilience of hope.
