Replacements
Nov 27, 2022 18:20:08 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Nov 27, 2022 18:20:08 GMT -5
Replacements
By Radrook
By Radrook
Bill Mulligan stood before the mirror gazing at the stranger that was staring back. You see, he had reached the ripe old age of 88 and still had great trouble identifying himself with the extremely aged. Instead, he felt like a boy trapped in an old man’s body. It was moments like these that always forced him to contemplate the brevity of life. Weird just how quickly time had flown. It seemed like only yesterday that he was a kid attending elementary school classes with his entire life stretching before him into an eternity. Yes, he also had been physically a kid and didn’t know how the aged were perceiving him. Now he finally knew. He had been perceived as a replacement for those who died and now, he also saw children that way.
Now everywhere that he looked they were there. At grocery stores, at parks, in homes. Always reminding him of the rapidly approaching termination of his ridiculously short life. Innocently going about their childish business totally unaware that he was painfully aware of their presence and all that their existence really signified. Totally unaware of the horrendous turmoil that their presence was arousing whenever they came into his view. Always cheerful. Always optimistic. Children they were called, now he called them The Replacements. Those units that were being meticulously prepared as if on an educational assembly-line to populate this world when all the other people who had populated it before them were gone.
Yes, it was their real purpose, their all-important, prime directive, even though they did not realize it. Surrounded by the aging, the sick and the dying, they were being systematically trained to fill the ever increasing niches left vacant by the constant deaths. Little did they imagine in their innocence, that everyone past a certain age would be dead once they themselves reached the age of twenty or that everyone present at their birth would definitely be dead when they themselves reached old age.
Of course informed of their real replacement of the dead status. Why? Well, perhaps because their teachers had never truly realized it themselves. Or perhaps because their teachers considered such a revelation a mental cruelty. After all, how could such immature minds handle such a truth? Why place a Damocles sword above their heads? Why not let them exist in the fairy tale of their own imaginations instead. Why expose them to bitter truth so early? After all, there due time for such bitterness would arrive in its due time.
In any case, such a replacement for the dead concept would have seemed strange to such tender minds. So would telling them that their education and training was to perpetuate existence of a constantly dying human race. After all, they were simply kids who had arrived in a wonderful vibrant world and whose future seemed bright and it was best just to leave it at that. Neither could they really have fully appreciated such a revelation. As grandiosely important as they viewed themselves? Needing to be replaced was inconceivable. How could such vibrant bodies ever wears out? After all, they saw with their own eyes how their bodies attempted to relentlessly repaired themselves. A cut bled but blood quickly coagulated and sealed the wound.
Brand new skin would miraculously appear. Nature seemed fanatically intent on a perpetual continuation of their life, a single-minded purpose of preservation it at all costs. So it was inconceivable that this same nature would suddenly give up and permit permanent harm to their bodies without putting up that same powerful fight. Furthermore, as if to add a certainty to that viewpoint, each moment brought positive changes. Each year they felt stronger, more robust. A preparation for an eternal future surely since such meticulous preparation would never have been installed if eternity had not been in mind.
The aged seemed not to fit in with this scheme. So surely, they must have been a separate species of humans who had always been that way. Not once had they imagined that the decrepit people had once been as vibrantly young as they were. That these feeble persons also had experienced a vibrant childhood and that life had also seemed interminable for them. That they also had considered old people a separate species and totally unrelated to their future.
Yes, the replacements were spared that realization for most of their lives. Instead, the future seemed endless and a sense of indestructibleness and eternity was all they knew. They had been spared the anxiety of those placed on death row who know that their end draws near with every tick of the relentless clock. Only very gradually were the replacements made aware of their impending demise. Only gradually did the dread of an impending termination of life become a rather reluctantly dim reality. Only eventually did they fully accept that they also were scheduled for termination and that those children that they saw emerging constantly into existence were indeed their replacements who would someday also need to be replaced ad infinitum.
Once that realization took hold, a sense of the futility of all their plans and the foolishness of squandering precious time in idiocies, as of time had been a worthless commodity to be carelessly squandered took hold. No longer did the future stretch out into infinity for these replacements No longer were the aged a separate species totally unrelated to them in any significant way. True they had been told stories of former youths turned old But they had felt an exception to the rule just as they had felt an exception to the rule when others suffered horrible accidents.
But as the evidence piled up that they also were included in the scheme of things. That the relentless scythe that had mowed down the previous millions of other replacements stretching back into seven thousand years of history. When it suddenly dawned on them that they were no exception to the rule, then the children that had once been seen as mere children were seen for what they really had been all along. Merely replacements for the dead, of which he also would soon be one himself.
Now everywhere that he looked they were there. At grocery stores, at parks, in homes. Always reminding him of the rapidly approaching termination of his ridiculously short life. Innocently going about their childish business totally unaware that he was painfully aware of their presence and all that their existence really signified. Totally unaware of the horrendous turmoil that their presence was arousing whenever they came into his view. Always cheerful. Always optimistic. Children they were called, now he called them The Replacements. Those units that were being meticulously prepared as if on an educational assembly-line to populate this world when all the other people who had populated it before them were gone.
Yes, it was their real purpose, their all-important, prime directive, even though they did not realize it. Surrounded by the aging, the sick and the dying, they were being systematically trained to fill the ever increasing niches left vacant by the constant deaths. Little did they imagine in their innocence, that everyone past a certain age would be dead once they themselves reached the age of twenty or that everyone present at their birth would definitely be dead when they themselves reached old age.
Of course informed of their real replacement of the dead status. Why? Well, perhaps because their teachers had never truly realized it themselves. Or perhaps because their teachers considered such a revelation a mental cruelty. After all, how could such immature minds handle such a truth? Why place a Damocles sword above their heads? Why not let them exist in the fairy tale of their own imaginations instead. Why expose them to bitter truth so early? After all, there due time for such bitterness would arrive in its due time.
In any case, such a replacement for the dead concept would have seemed strange to such tender minds. So would telling them that their education and training was to perpetuate existence of a constantly dying human race. After all, they were simply kids who had arrived in a wonderful vibrant world and whose future seemed bright and it was best just to leave it at that. Neither could they really have fully appreciated such a revelation. As grandiosely important as they viewed themselves? Needing to be replaced was inconceivable. How could such vibrant bodies ever wears out? After all, they saw with their own eyes how their bodies attempted to relentlessly repaired themselves. A cut bled but blood quickly coagulated and sealed the wound.
Brand new skin would miraculously appear. Nature seemed fanatically intent on a perpetual continuation of their life, a single-minded purpose of preservation it at all costs. So it was inconceivable that this same nature would suddenly give up and permit permanent harm to their bodies without putting up that same powerful fight. Furthermore, as if to add a certainty to that viewpoint, each moment brought positive changes. Each year they felt stronger, more robust. A preparation for an eternal future surely since such meticulous preparation would never have been installed if eternity had not been in mind.
The aged seemed not to fit in with this scheme. So surely, they must have been a separate species of humans who had always been that way. Not once had they imagined that the decrepit people had once been as vibrantly young as they were. That these feeble persons also had experienced a vibrant childhood and that life had also seemed interminable for them. That they also had considered old people a separate species and totally unrelated to their future.
Yes, the replacements were spared that realization for most of their lives. Instead, the future seemed endless and a sense of indestructibleness and eternity was all they knew. They had been spared the anxiety of those placed on death row who know that their end draws near with every tick of the relentless clock. Only very gradually were the replacements made aware of their impending demise. Only gradually did the dread of an impending termination of life become a rather reluctantly dim reality. Only eventually did they fully accept that they also were scheduled for termination and that those children that they saw emerging constantly into existence were indeed their replacements who would someday also need to be replaced ad infinitum.
Once that realization took hold, a sense of the futility of all their plans and the foolishness of squandering precious time in idiocies, as of time had been a worthless commodity to be carelessly squandered took hold. No longer did the future stretch out into infinity for these replacements No longer were the aged a separate species totally unrelated to them in any significant way. True they had been told stories of former youths turned old But they had felt an exception to the rule just as they had felt an exception to the rule when others suffered horrible accidents.
But as the evidence piled up that they also were included in the scheme of things. That the relentless scythe that had mowed down the previous millions of other replacements stretching back into seven thousand years of history. When it suddenly dawned on them that they were no exception to the rule, then the children that had once been seen as mere children were seen for what they really had been all along. Merely replacements for the dead, of which he also would soon be one himself.