Promises, Promises

This story is by Wendy Goerl and was part of our 2024 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

She couldn’t even pronounce the diagnosis. What she knew was it was either an expensive treatment that had a good chance of not even working, or a ticket to Life Beyond.

Not much of a choice, really.

Three rummage sales later, her apartment had been reduced to a box of dishes, a box of clothes, some shelving units, a pile of mail, and the remains of her model horse collection. Three sales of pennies on the dollar had reduced her beautiful collection that she’d spent over forty years and probably over $20,000 amassing to a measly $600. So many people benefiting at her expense. Now, she was packing up the last of them.

She picked up the unfinished remake, her first commission, a miniature of the client’s moderately-successful racehorse. An answer to her prayers: money coming in and an opportunity to have more potential clients see her work. Except that the client had stopped answering emails, apparently fallen off the face of the Earth, right after she’d spent nearly half the promised $500 contract price on fresh supplies and tools. Said tools were now with the daughter of a downstairs neighbor, a gift of her rummage-sale leftovers. She wrapped it in a raggy T-shirt and put it in the last empty box.

Another unfinished remake, this one a Western Horse she’d started etching but set aside during the one week of her life that she’d pulled overtime and never gotten back to working on went in next. That week had been followed by twenty-hour weeks, that dwindled to ten-hour weeks, that dwindled to six-hour weeks, ending in “permanent layoff” when the business closed. After that, she hadn’t even been able to land a job interview.

Next was the Saddlebred Weanling, the one she’d traded a mint-condition charcoal Rearing Mustang and Lying Down Foal for back when she was still in high school and too willing to accept adults as unqualified experts. “Swapped Tears” she’d named it, regretting the trade. (She’d undervalued the condition of her Mustang.) A customer poking around at the first rummage sale had held it up with a broken leg “found like that.” She’d mended it, yet it remained unsold. She nestled it in the box next to the signed Golden Charm Secretariat, which she’s refused two insultingly-low offers for. Fat lot of good it did, didn’t it? she asked herself. Now she’d gotten nothing for him.

A few of the newer “Little Bits” (What were they called now, “Paddock Pals”?), dismissed as cheap copies in the rummage sales, got tucked into the gaps between the larger models. Finally, she gently laid Misty and Stormy, the ones that started her collection with her earnings as Poppy Princess back when she was eight, on top, so she could look at them as long as possible. They probably started everyone’s collection, which was why nobody was interested in the well-played-with pair.

She looked around the apartment. Only the shelves that had housed her friends remained; the new renters could decide what the make of them. Tomorrow was the first of the month, but they might not come until the weekend.

Yesterday’s mail was still sitting on a shelf.

She almost threw the mail away unread, but she still had a bit of time. The first was a notice from her apartment management reminding her that she had until the end of the month—in other words, tomorrow—to vacate the premises, because it was already rented to new tenants. The second and third were junk mail. The fourth was a dollar-store “get well soon” from a charity that she’d volunteered at in order to have some kind of “work” to put on her job application that was as personal as the junk mail. The last was a hand-painted sympathy card from the “snowbird” of the now-defunct art group she used to paint with. For a moment, she stroked the delicately-rendered butterfly on it. She nearly put it into the trash with the rest of the mail, then decided to stand it up on one of the shelves.

What luck, the taxi was already waiting when she took the trash down. He helped her load the boxes of clothes and dishes into the trunk as she brought them down. She went back in long enough to drop her key in the super’s mailbox, then climbed in the back with her friends, wanting to be near them as long as possible.

“Please fasten your seatbelt,” he told her.

A brief flash of anger went through her. For decades, she’d passed up opportunites and even jobs to avoid cars in general and seatbelts in particular. She swore the day she wore one of those damned belts was the day she died. She buckled it. “To thine own self be true” was a crock of shit, another lofty platitude that turned out to be another empty promise.

“Where to?”

“First, Goodwill.”

After he again helped her with her boxes, he took her to Beyond Life.

The receptionist had a few final papers for her to sign, then she followed a doctor-looking “facilitator” to a softly-lit, quiet room where a smoothly-contoured pod awaited.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“How many times is everyone going to ask me that?” She had that question, or something to that effect, asked of her at least twenty-seven times in the last three days. She wouldn’t have slogged through the mountain of red tape if she hadn’t been sure. The argument that had gotten her through the red tape was that a diagnosis like hers was expensive to treat and not always successful; she’d either be in debt the rest of her life or saddling her family with it if she didn’t survive. The truth was that her life had been a dark tunnel for years and she could hear the “choo-choo” from the approaching light at the supposed end of it. The diagnosis qualified her for assisted suicide and an excuse to die without stigma. “I’m sorry, we have to ask.” He opened the pod.

Now she hesitated. On the inside, the suicide pod looked so much like a car interior. It won’t be for long, she reminded herself.

She settled into the pod, and he explained the controls available to her; contouring of the (seat? bed?) support, choice of temperature, selection of music available, what to expect, “I changed my mind” button.

Then he closed the pod. She made no changes to the configuration, selected silence, settled back, and closed her eyes. Soon, she would be done with this crapsaccharine life.

—

At first, she didn’t know where she was. She started to stretch, and hit something above her. Confused she looked around, realizing as she awakened that she was still in the suicide pod. Had something gone wrong?

The pod opened, and she saw the same facilitator that had closed it. He was smiling, and the receptionist was standing next to him, with a wad of paper. Also smiling. “Welcome back,” he said.

She looked from one to the other, confused. “What…?”

“We got a call from the hospital. There was an error in your diagnosis. You don’t need to die.” His smile widened. “You have a second chance.”

Tears began to form. She looked at the receptionist.

The receptionist noticed the tears and offered her a box of tissues. “We, of course, will give you a full refund. Plus, we can refer you to a counseling service to help you…”

She didn’t really hear the rest. They helped her out of the pod, put her in a taxi (buckled in again) with a pile of papers with a check refunding the suicide service on top, and sent her back to the address she’d lived at for three years.

The super took her back to her apartment, opened the door for her.

She walked into the center of the room, dropped to her knees, and stared at the check. It wouldn’t buy back her collection. It wouldn’t rent her another apartment. Tomorrow she would be homeless. She’d given up everything for the promise of being free of this world.

Yet another empty promise. Now, she had nothing. She let the tears fall, obliterating the ink on the check.