SciFi and Fantasy Stories: The Death of the Philosopher

The Death of the Philosopher

            August 8^th, the year of our Lord 2082, sometime around 3 pm.

Welcome to my diary. I am Ronaldo Artiz. No, I’m not as ethnic as the name may seem to say. My parents just thought it was original. They wanted it to be easy to pick my name out of a roster. They made this decision around the time I was born, August 8^th 2062. For those of you who’ve failed to pick up any mathematics (and with the calculators today, who can blame you?) that would make me 20 years old, to the day. I have just finished Priming School. A hundred years ago children finished their primary education by the age of 18, that is to say elementary, middle, and high school. Things have changed somewhat since then. The upper levels have gotten harder and the lower levels have become meaningless psychobabble designed to integrate children happily into society. The lower levels have been that way since 2050. There are already studies being conducted to show how harmful those first years have been to a child’s development. There is therapy, self help books, and a class action law suit to prove how wrong we were to try to bring up children like that. The upper levels have been heavily influenced by psychology as well. Mind altering drugs are widely available, and their use is mandatory. Enter math class. Take math pill. Wait five minutes. Artificial Hormones created. Attention captured. Subjects, formerly rowdy teenagers are now passive sheep. It’s a teacher’s dream. Never mind though, that’s all in my past now. My priming education is over. The End Ceremony has just finished. My life has just changed. I figured it would be a good time to begin a diary, posterity and such. I have 24 hours to register a vocation with the central employment office.

            August 8^th around 6 pm.

 I sit down at a terminal in the central employment office. The entire place seems to be coated in stainless steel. The terminals are in private booths, entirely sealed. Your choice of a vocation is a sacred act of free choice. No one can gainsay that which you choose. I scan the instructions on the screen briefly, a needless precaution. I have known how to use this system for the past two years at least. A query box asks ‘What is your desired profession?’, a blinking curser signals its readiness to receive my answer. I quickly type in the profession I have decided on. A brilliant choice, to my mind. I have spent the last two years deciding it. I hit enter.

            As I leave I run into a friend from school. She is slim and attractive with a bright personality. Her name is Karalin.

            “Ron! Are you here too?” she asks, brightly, of course.

            I snort in response and think, can’t you see me standing in front of you?

            “How did it go? I just got the most marvelous job assignment!” her brightness is unperturbed.

            “Just fine. As easy as they always said it’d be.” I replied. I didn’t feel much like talking about my most recent experience, private matters and all that. She didn’t feel the same, so I moved the spotlight back onto her. “And you?”

            “Oh! It’s wonderful. Wait till you hear!” I waited. “I’m to be a dancer! At the Marly Center, no less!”

            I put in a Herculean effort and my jaw didn’t drop. She had just been sent into a dead end. She would dance there till her looks faded, and her lithe flexibility slowed. Ten years at best. Then she’d be doing unskilled labor for the rest of her life, too old, too burned out by her dance training to be retrained. I grunted, but then I recovered. False enthusiasm oozed as I smiled and congratulated her. Afterwards I walked her home, it was more or less on my way anyhow. All the way we met classmates coming from or going to the central employment office. All of them hopeful, all of them satisfied. I went home quietly after saying goodbye to Karalin.

            August 9^th 3 am.

            I have 12 hours to register my vocation with the central employment office. For those of you reading this it must seem confusing. I did go to the office. I did enter my vocation. But instead of getting an immediate assignment I had gotten these instructions:

Vocation request processing. Go home. Wait nine (9) hours. Do not disclose any deviation from the norm to anyone else. Your aptitude is being considered.

            That was it. I went home. It’s now nine hours later and my home terminal has just chimed. A priority message from the CEO (Central Employment Office). It reads simply;

Vocation request DENIED. Reapply for a different position.

            They had just denied my most basic right as a citizen. Ever since 2030 the primary liberty in North America was the right to choose ones vocation, and the right to pursue it regardless of all else. Naturally, talent and ability decided how far you went in your vocation, but work within that vocation at some level was guaranteed. You were never denied. It had been ingrained in my psyche for the past 20 years. You cannot be denied.

            I decide to go back to the employment center. Perhaps there is someone I can talk to there. Even if it is 3 am, this is the registration period. They are busy 24 hours a day.

            Shortly thereafter…

            I drive up to the center and find the parking lot empty. The lights are on but the center seems deserted. It’s common knowledge the center is busy all hours, but I suppose no one ever checks to see if that common knowledge is correct. The doors are open though, so I walk in. I find a janitor mopping the halls. He’s probably an Employment Officer who was not skilled enough to get a fulltime job, doing menial work to fill in the rest of his work hours is the closest he can come to his vocation aside from a few very small employment related activities.

            “It’s late, you must be a deep thinker to apply at the last minute like this.” The janitor.

            “What do you mean? I still have nearly twelve hours.”

            “Yeah. But you can’t register if the place ain’t open for you to register at.” The janitor retorted.

            “What do you mean, not open? Don’t people register the second day?”

            “With most people it’s so ingrained that they register right after graduation they don’t think about doing it late. They can’t even try, they just have to wait it out until they’re declared Uncitizens.”

            “What then?”

            “You don’t know? I guess you don’t. The few uncitizens we have are generally ostracized from society. They do menial tasks and servant’s work mostly. They’re among us, but not among us, if you know what I mean. They’re isolated like. Not even really allowed to talk to citizens. It’s subliminally built into a citizen to recognize and ostracize uncitizens. You’ve probably seen a dozen or so of them in your lifetime but won’t recognize a one of them if you see them again.”

            “What? How much time do I have to register?”

            “About three minutes.”

            I don’t even answer him, I just run to a terminal. I quickly integrate my personal information into the form and it again displays the Query box asking me what I want to declare as my vocation. I don’t know what to say. My first choice, I thought, would be my only one. A back up wasn’t needed. We were always taught that, people who spoke about having a back up were shunned as being queer. Why wouldn’t they get their first one if they were really citizens? Panic welled up inside me. I froze. I then realized I had twenty seconds left to type in an answer and hit enter. I didn’t even think as I typed. I didn’t even know what I had typed until the assignment came up. Marly Center. Dancer. I snorted. At least I was still somebody, a nobody somebody perhaps, but at least I was somebody.

            August 15^th 2082 time slot left vacant

            I haven’t had much time to fill in entries here. I have spent the last week in almost total isolation. I had a check up with a CyberDoc. Since it was my first experience with one I suppose I should say something about it. The CyberDoc is physically a tank. You strip and jump in. Your lungs fill with the fluid and you find that you can still get oxygen from it. It’s a little like drowning without dying, I suppose. Each molecule of the fluid in the tank is unique in a totally neutral manner. The CyberDoc can keep track of the location of each one. You spend 24 hours in the doc and it gets to know you better than anyone has ever known you before or ever will again. If it weren’t a piece of software a person might feel violated. Some people still feel violated. After my dip in the tank I was prescribed a strict regimen of exercise, diet, and lifestyle to follow in preparation for my new vocation. Today is the first time I meet the other people in the dance troupe I will be a member of, Marly Dance Company C. The dance company does various styles. Jazz, Ballet, Modern, Ballroom. The dancers must be flexible, strong and have incredible fine muscle control. With modern methods and perseverance (which it is impossible not to have due to modern methods), it takes approximately 3 weeks to reach the required level of physical and mental preparedness. This level, I am told, and from what little expertise I have now I can concur with, is exponentially greater than the masters of the 20^th century who dedicated a lifetime just to building their technique. For those of you, again, who have little or no mathematically knowledge you may replace ‘exponentially’ with ‘much much’.

            I suppose I should spend some time aside from my historical musings to get back to the present matter. Today I met my new coworkers. The dance company is small. 4 couples who dance together, or as a group. Four men. Four women. The other dancers all looked stunning after only a week of preparation. I have to admit the last few times I had caught myself in the mirror I was not displeased. I felt healthy, I looked good. My proportions had filled out to the perfect symmetry for my height. Karalin was there too. She had been attractive before, now she was incredible. I had not known before now that she had been assigned to this dance company within the Marly Center. There were dozens, perhaps hundreds of companies of all sizes and gender mixes. She had told me so much about her assignment that first day on the walk home, but not which company. She was bright as always. She seemed pleased I was there as well, nervous because she knew none of the others. She brightly asserted that it would be something if I were to be her permanent partner. I agreed with her dryly that it would, but at that moment I realized she was right. We would be. Our heights, our physical appearances, the similarities and contrasts, they made for a perfect dance couple. Perhaps it was the CyberDoc’s work over the past week. I don’t know, I have an unsettling feeling I’ve been groomed for this position since well before then. So much for my sacred right to choose.

            Our instructor was also introduced to us then. He was an incredibly manly looking man. He could have been a drill sergeant in any of the great wars. A marine sergeant. He was strong, his face was stern and resolute. His body looked like it could snap like a whip, or throw a fist with the force of a howitzer were violence necessary. That was my first impression of him, before he even spoke. The moment he spoke he dropped in my estimation until he was somewhere between smelly fungus and dirt. His manner was entirely effeminate. His voice sounded as if it had never changed. He was not a tenor, he was a soprano. He moved with a grace and a sway that seemed purposeless. It was far from the determined military stride his war hero’s body seemed to demand. This contradiction disgusted me. Though I tried to tell myself he must have redeeming qualities, his existence seemed an affront to the true intent to nature that made women one sex and men another. I find myself hating him, and we have just met. I don’t mean to say he’s evil. It’s merely that he disgusts me, like a food that makes you ill and vomit, you don’t want to look at it. But still, from this man I will learn my trade. I will learn to dance. And that, is the vocation I, as a free citizen chose.

August 23^rd 4 pm

I have fifteen minutes right now. This is the first break I’ve had since writing my last entry. I eat, I sleep, I dance. My life exists in no other form. I spend 14 hours a day with Karalin. 8 of those hours are with the entire group, the others are spent alone in private practice. One more week and we will begin to work on the specially choreographed dance that the company’s choreographer has prepared. Each company has its own vocational choreographer, some even have several. We have but one. Our first public dance is September 3^rd. Time to go back to work… I probably won’t get a chance to write again till then.

September 3^rd late evening.

The dance style was a mixture of jazz and ballroom, it had elements of tango and salsa. Such crossbreeding is common in the area of dance today. To do straight tango, or straight salsa is considered retro almost to the point of being chic. Soon it will be all that’s done. Then, ten years after that we will begin to crossbreed dances again, it will be retro at first, and then new post retroism. Art is all about recycling. Still, it was exhilarating. I was precise, we were all precise, we interpreted the dance immaculately. We imagined the movement and a finely tuned body obeyed our commands. We were watched by adoring critics. Some were harsh, most weren’t. Some were exultant. I helped Karalin carry all of her flowers home after the performance. I have been so cynical about everything, but I really enjoyed tonight. Perhaps I really am where I belong, perhaps this really is for the best.

September 4^th midday

All of the members of the company have the day off. Karalin wanted to spend it with me but since we are practically joined at the hip as it is I gently coax her into joining the other ladies on an excursion to the beach. I told her that she would look tremendous with a deep tan, but she countered that it would look silly next to my mild one. Again I insisted saying the contrast would be exquisite, she thought a moment and conceded. I have the day alone, to myself. I pick up the various newspapers and begin to read review columns about our performance. They are all Trade Magazines, there is nothing but trade magazines these days. Everyone only works for their vocation. Thus there’s no interest in a publication that covers say, sports and theatre, international news and local news. I had forgotten this last night. That’s why I enjoyed it so much. Had I remembered who was in the crowd, had I remembered the microcosm I live in, the bubble I cannot breach because I typed ‘Dancer’ into that cursed machine… I would not have been so happy. You see the audience was made up of people in the industry, one and all. Dancers watching to improve their style, choreographers studying the work of their peer, and above all, vocational dance and music critics. Just as with the magazines, no one has any interesting in crossing disciplines. The focus is too strong on their own vocations. They don’t even stop to ask why. I attempt to make up for it. I do, though. I ask why, and I’ll ask why for all of those people who do not ask why! Because someone must! Why do we do this? Does anyone care but ourselves?

September 5^th Midday

Yesterday after my entry I attempted to find the answer at the bottom of a bottle of vodka. When I didn’t find it there, I moved on to look at the bottom of another bottle. I vaguely remember passing out sometime after sunset. I woke up this morning in a CyberDoc. I remember feeling miserable… I feel fine now. I go on with dance practice just as if nothing had happened. No one questions me. I had done it on an off day, my resolve when I required it was unshaken. My effort was not lacking in the least. Unfortunately, while the bout of foolishness cost me nothing, it gained me nothing either. Time to go, my break is over.

January 1^st 2083 2 am

I have not written an entry in quite some time. This is mostly because nothing new has happened. My days have been exactly the same. There are rehearsal days where we learn new dances. Dance days, where we perform. And rest days, the most infrequent of all, where we are free to do as we please. The critics are harsh and kind as always. As always I feel exhilaration the night of a performance, and depression the morning after. After my first excess with alcohol I have not tried to drown my troubles in anything else. Drugs, gluttony, women, obsessive habits, they’d all just be the same mistake in a new form. Painful, healed, and then ultimately useless. Still, I sit and I question the microcosm I live in. What evolutionary or divine purpose does the Marly Center for Dance provide. No one except dance people attend (it is the same for all other dance centers the world over). The beauty is there, but no one cares but those who create it. If one has beauty is not one supposed to communicate it to others in some way? I do not know, I wish I could, but society resoundingly tells me to quietly keep it to myself. My coworkers do not see it, they only work, they see it as a career. Perhaps just slightly, Karalin sees it. That is actually why I’m writing today. Something significant has happened. 3 hours ago I asked Karalin to tell me at midnight if she would be my wife. Two hours ago she said yes.

February 8^th unspecified time

The wedding seemed to almost prepare itself. Vocational wedding arrangers were quickly contacted by the Dance center social liaison (another specialized vocation) and it was all artistically designed to befit two rather successful dancers in their great step into the future as a married couple. Karalin is ecstatic. I haven’t found the why of the universe yet, but somehow her unbridled brightness is comforting. She doesn’t understand why I ask why, and it sometimes disturbs me that she doesn’t ask it as well, but in the end I don’t know why I ask it, and so I can’t fault her for not asking. There are a great many guests. Vocational friends I have made, one and all. My old dance teacher even shows up, perhaps it’s the traditionalness of the setting, but I manage to find him tolerable for this one day, and even grudgingly admit that I am glad he came. I need to go now though, one tradition that has not died yet is that of the honeymoon, and I’m about to leave on mine.

May 15^th 4:28 pm

The honeymoon went well, but once it was over life was doubly active. Couples have social obligations that single vocational careerists do not. It simply happened that we began to have to appear at social gatherings together that otherwise could have been skipped. I don’t really know why, again, that this was necessary. It was simply an instinct, like foraging for food, only without any apparent real need for it. Recently I have also experienced the recurrence of my post performance depression. At first it was completely absent. I thought Karalin’s presence had extinguished it. Unfortunately it appears it was only submersed temporarily because it again surfaced. Now that I couldn’t get away during those times Karalin was the first person to witness this tendency. It worried her greatly, she, of course, blamed herself. Even though I assured her that it had happened before we were married she pointed to that time where I had been without it, and proclaimed that she must just not love me right any more, and that if she hadn’t messed up along the way I’d still be happy after performances like I had been just after we were married. I’m beginning to think this marriage was ill conceived. Karalin is incredibly distraught over her inability to make me happy at times. I am ridden with guilt beyond my normal cynicism because I cause her such pain. I just don’t know why I am this way, I don’t know why she can’t relate to me, or I to her. I don’t understand this gap between us, I don’t understand why I’m so alone, why I can’t be happy in the world the way it is. Though she doesn’t either, she doesn’t seem concerned about any of it, all that’s wrong is that I’m unhappy, that’s all she sees. That’s the problem. Though this marriage perhaps was a mistake, still the pain of breaking it off would not be worthwhile, there is still some joy here and there. I’m sure she has not even thought of breaking the marriage, and it would pain her to know that I have considered the possibility. She would not understand that a man such as I considers all possibilities no matter how remote. I’ve now locked this diary so that it cannot be read with a key. I have yet to decide what I will do with the key, but if you are reading this I must have made some provision.

September 3^rd

Our first anniversary performance. For the first time I do not feel even exhilaration on stage. I remember the first time, I remember how I felt a fool afterwards. I was not giving anything to the people watching, they were all professionals, they had no joy in what I was doing, just work, and joy in their work, it wasn’t me they enjoyed, just their jobs, they could watch and critique anyone and they’d enjoy it. Karalin surprised me, as she sometimes does with a the obvious solution, the one I had not seen. She told me I should attempt to change my vocation. In extreme cases where a vocation is truly unsuited to an individual they may change. I will file for the change the next day. I ask for anything else. I do not at this moment care whether or not I am put into another bubble, anything to escape this one.

September 4^th

I am given the immediate response to my request that I may change vocations immediately. My new position is a vocational fencer. The physical requirements and training as a dancer can be carried over to this new field with great ease. Karalin will remain as a dancer, but transferring from the company to a group that specializes in solo dancing. My presence in her life has changed her psychological profile, and it is now the only dancing she is psychologically qualified for. She could not acclimatize to a new dance partner, or even to dancing with a group of other individuals. It is now either with me, or alone. I’m not sure keeping this diary is good for me. On the one hand it lets me vent my feelings, but on the other it may reinforce those feelings. I will give it a break. Six months, perhaps a year. I hope whoever is reading this will remain well until then.

September 4^th 2084

In just one year I have become a regional champion fencing master. I have brought something new into this field by carrying with me my experiences as a dancer. Slowly I see young master fencers incorporating my artistic styles into their fencing technique. I am revolutionizing this bubble. I even have a chance at the upcoming world championship title match. I am happy, I have finally made a difference. I have finally managed to break down the barriers of the bubbles in this world. People have seen my art and accepted it, I feel understood at last. Karalin is even happy now. Her solo dances are bright and full of springtime. At home we dance together. I am even toying with the idea of performing a public dance with her.

October 12^th

I have been trying for months to schedule the public dance with Karalin that I mentioned before. I am blocked at every turn. Everytime I find the way closed before me I am more determined that it will happen, that I must make it happen. But now it feels useless. The dancers I know are only interested in me as an ex dancer and as Karalin’s husband. What I can bring back to them from my experience fencing is something they have no interest in. The only way I could change them would be to go back to vocationally dancing and show them. To change dance the way I’ve changed fencing. They won’t let me. Society will not let me go back. It says I was there and it wasn’t right, if it wasn’t right it can never be right again, the door is closed to me forever. So much for my God given right to freely choose my profession.

December 14^th

I am truly disgusted. Having changed the fencing sphere a small bit I have been unable to do anymore. Though at first I had great hopes it is clear that at most I have added a footnote to the art form of fencing. These bigots are so resistant to change. Everything is what they’ve experienced before, beyond that they cannot see a church by daylight! But what truly infuriates me is that they go about without asking why! It’s enough that they do, it’s enough that they act. All is reaction. Thrust, parry, thrust parry. As all of mathematics follows from two plus two equaling four, so does all fencing follow the simple concept. It could be true art, it could be explored, it could broaden their horizons and open their minds. But they are too focused to accept such a possibility. All of their lives is focused on conditioned responses. More and more intricate patterns of conditioned responses. To them, it is chess. Symmetry, symmetry. No one plays Go anymore.

March 12^th 2085

I can stand it no more. They will not listen. I am the champion fencing master of the world and they will not listen to me. They watch my foil with rapt attention. But my words are just so much meaningless noise. Ideas mean nothing to them, I am alone in my thoughts. I cannot reach them. Karalin is again unhappy, and I grieve because I cannot make her happy. I cannot lie to her though and say I am happy. She knows me too well, she would see the lie and be even more upset knowing how much it pains me to lie, knowing that I lie for her. In that case she would blame herself doubly. I don’t know what to do. I think I must retire. Perhaps as a retired citizen, not bound to a vocation, amongst other retired citizens equally unbound I might find mental freedom. The problem is arranging my retirement. There is no financial problem, the only problem is proving my need to retire. They cannot make me work, but my constant conditioning through childhood and then as vocationally training will not let me stop. I must be what my vocation says I am. Unless a skilled trainer makes me something else. They even require vocational psychological trainers to retire the conditioning of a careerist once they themselves retire. I am considering a plan though.

March 18^th

My plan is in place. I have in effect foiled my opponent’s foil, so that it is no longer foiled. Sorry, but I am slightly giddy with my impending plot so near to fruition, I could not resists the word play. What I mean to say is my opponent’s foil is no longer a foil. His first lunge I will allow to strike me just so, it will glance through my leg if I meet the blow correctly (I have studied his style closely, he always opens thus, it should be no problem) that I will have a permanent limp. Nothing too serious, but the minimum I require to be excused from my vocation and retired. Karalin knows nothing about this, but I am sure if she did she would manage to dissuade me. Though there is a chasm between us, she loves me, and I cannot help but love her.

March 24^th

Everything went as planned. There was a huge moment of astonishment when they found that I had been injured in a fencing accident. The bubble wept for my wound. I was treated as well as possible, but I was correct in the precise execution of my plan. The wound healed, but only to the point that I had a limp. Only a dancer and a fencer could have pulled off such a stunt. I consider it my most masterful use of my career skills. I have gotten notice of my retirement.

March 25^th

Disastrous news has come today. I got a simple letter stating this;

Your retirement has been canceled, and because you cannot assume a new vocation because of your previous conditioning and your physical infirmity your citizenship has been summarily revoked.

I am still able to live and eat by virtue of the protection of my wife’s citizenship. Dear sweet Karalin immediately suggested she refuse her own citizenship to join with me, but I convinced her at length she must keep, if not for her sake, for mine. An infirm uncitizen had no means of support. Especially a conditioned one who could not be unconditioned to the point of doing non active work. I was stuck. All I knew was the fine art of movement, and all I could not do was move in that art form. I secretly harbor the fear that this is a punishment for bucking the system. Now I am no threat to it, I have no power to break down bubbles. I am ignored universally by citizens, if Karalin were not my wife, and were her love for her husband not greater than her conditioning to ignore uncitizens she would not notice me either. It’s almost amusing at times when people look at her quizzically and ask ‘To whom are you married?’ Humor at such things is the only amusement I have left.

March 30^th

I made an interesting discovery today. The strangeness of which has driven me out of a deep depression at my ostracism. I mention it because of that. I have today met another uncitizen. He has infact been living with us for quite some time. He sleeps on the couch in the living room. Our conditioning did not allow us to notice him. He would eat our food, shower in our bathroom and everything. So complete was our conditioning we never noticed him, or having noticed him, never remembered. Perhaps that is the source of bad dreams, actual bad things happen but we are conditioned to forget and so all that remains is a bad dream. I attempted to talk to this other uncitizen but unfortunately due to his isolation his speech skills are almost non existent. He knows many phrases from trade magazines and can mimic speech, but it makes no sense when he speaks. I tried to point him out to Kara, but she could not notice him, her conditioning was too strong.

April 3^rd

I have learned from my new friend’s example that an uncitizen can go many places and do many things a citizen cannot, simply because an uncitizen is not noticed and any disruption he creates is explained away by the citizens’ conditioning. I saw a beautiful Go board in a museum the other day. It was so magnificent I couldn’t help myself. I walked straight up to it and took it. The beads had a pair of velvet bags for carrying. A little ostentatious perhaps, but serviceable. The Alarm went off at the museum when I took the board, but due to the conditioning of the people they thought it was only a bug in the system. It was reset within minutes. I sat and amused myself for quite sometime watching the citizens stand and point at the empty pedestal, their mind and conditioning producing a Go board there from the picture on the wall behind it. Someday I’m sure a person with superiorly creative conditioning will come along and find a suitable excuse to see the board missing, and thus replace it.

April 30^th

Triumph! Though I still cannot speak with my new friend in any meaningful way I have managed to give the uncitizen the name of George, which he now recognizes as his own. I have also, and this I am much more proud of, tought him to play Go. He has proven most adept, I think it is perhaps because his conditioning is weaker than mine and allows less of a reactionary strategy. Karalin can still not see him, but I am gratified that she can at least see the Go board. She believes, however, that I create the patterns myself. She is quite pleased that I’ve taken up art and will spend long periods of time staring at finished games. I think the asymmetry does her good.

January 1^st 2100

This diary has lain unattended for quite some time. To tell you the truth I forgot about it. I have decided that this anniversary I will give Karalin the key to it. I know she will not understand much of it, her conditioning will not allow her to understand some, and the rest I suppose is just something she was born unable to understand, but still. This one entry I want her to be perfectly clear about. Karalin, I have always loved you, I love you now, and I will always love you. Happy Anniversary, Darling.

Footnote, I know it has changed in the past and so may change again, as of this writing anniversaries are figured from the time of engagement.

December 21^st

Today is a sad day. My heart is breaking. George has just died. This is a grief I must bear alone. I knew he was sick, but I could get no doctor to notice him. I tried to treat him myself, and with some success. I believe I at least kept him comfortable until his end. At the very end he even managed to speak coherently for the first time. He said to me. “Thank’s Ron. It was a good game. I’m glad I got to go out having won a few.” Such clear speech shocked me. Oh, the things we could have shared! A person to talk to! Oh, my heart is breaking! Not only has my best friend died, but I can get no one to understand that he is dead, or even that he ever lived. He won the last game of Go we played, it was a fantastic match that took a week to finish. I will leave that board as it is forever. Karalin is at her wit’s end. She cannot tell why I am so sad. Even in my state of grief she cannot conceive of George. All she can do is understand that I have given up my stone art (as she called it when I played Go) and that the last piece I made would stand forever. In a surprising show of depth of thought and brilliance she called in a sculptor who managed to piece together a marble statue permanently and indelibly recording the final state of my last Go game with George in black and white marble pieces on a rosewood board. The pieces are fixed in place in some manner known only to vocasional artists. The board is engraved at one end ‘George’. I have no idea how Karalin managed to realize enough past her conditioning to do this for me, but it truly has brought me some comfort. Karalin has realized this and been comforted herself.

December 21^st 2120 8:30 pm

It is on the 20^th anniversary of George’s death that I must sadly make this entry into my diary. I too, am dying. I have done the best self diagnosis I can and I can find no cure for it. Karalin has in vain tried to get me medical attention, or any attention at all, but I am too much an uncitizen to be noticed. I am recording this from my deathbed. I fully expect that I will not last the night. From the rudimentary medical equipment I’ve managed to carry off in the past I can safely say this is a nearly sure thing. I want to again say that though I’ve never learned why, though I’ve spent most of my life as an outsider, even when I was a citizen, and even though we cannot fully understand each other now, I love Karalin, my wife.

There is a chime in the bedroom terminal and it opens to a conference screen. For a second it says ‘Connecting…’ and then there are large red letters that proclaim NO VIDEO. From the speakers there comes a voice.

“Mr. Artiz?”

“Yes?” I answer weakly, surprised to the point of exhilaration.

“This is the Central Employment Office.”

I say nothing, waiting.

“We have become aware that you are dying, and would like to express our regrets, and to offer you one thing.”

“Yes?” I ask.

“Just this… We granted your first vocational choice. You may not have known it, but you have always been following that vocation.”

“What do you mean? You refused that vocation!” I tried to sit up, my anger boiling, but I only ended up in a coughing fit. Karalin forced me back into bed.

“Speak the name of the vocation you chose, Mr. Artiz.”

“You know what I chose, you bastards. I chose Philosopher.”

“All who choose Philosopher get a message saying they are denied. A philosopher may only serve as such if he lives another vocation, or as an uncitizen. You have the great distinction of having served as both. We cannot condition out of you the makings of a philosopher. It will forever separate you from those who cannot begin to ask the questions you do. Thus we refuse you and hope that you become an uncitizen where you may do the most good, or in some rare cases you gain a secondary vocation which you use as your day to day job while all the while philosophizing.”

“But why?”

“Exactly, Mr. Artiz.”

“You bastards! Tell me why!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Artiz, we must go now.”

“But… why…”

December 21^st 9:15 pm

(The diary is taken up again, the voice record type is different now, a beautiful and gentle feminine voice with much grief in it continues)

My husband, Ronaldo Artiz, died December 21^st 2120 at 9:15 in the evening. I loved him dearly, and though he is right in saying I never truly understood him, I believe with all my heart he is the greatest man I have ever known, and possibly even the greatest man who has ever been.

His Loving Wife,

Karalin Artiz