productivity

productivity

fiction
edward w pritchard

My daughter had moved away and her Mother and I had long since parted so I was driving home from my part time job as an adjunct professor at Kent State University to an empty house.

In a light rain I stopped and picked up a handsome couple hitch hiking near the entrance ramp about twenty miles from my exit.

I knew the tall young girl was related to my daughter as soon as she commented on my shoes. They were leather and she seemed incredulous that any one would kill an animal to make a pair of shoes. My daughter's a vegan and she politely censures me the same way for eating meat. I had a hunch about the girl as soon as she entered my car. Also the young girl is majestic in her person like other female relatives in my family.

It turns out the girl and her husband are from the future and she is my great great great grand daughter. They are here to ask me to give up a few years here at the end of my life so her son may live for ten or twelve more years. The boy is apparently sick and needs a very expensive medicine and to get it approved the powers that be in their time in the future are using a formula of age of death of past relatives and productivity and I am the obvious choice to sacrifice a few years so the boy may buy some time. The boy she says is a musical prodigy of sorts, like a Mozart or Chopin and like them is about to die young.

I have a few weeks to decide. Suddenly life seems very precious to me, even if my productivity is rather low. Still I believe extraordinary people should be helped and nurtured especially one's relatives. A quandary for me that's for sure.

For now I have been listening to classical music by you know who and also walking in the woods and enjoying the here and now. Before I choose anything I wanted to be sure I understood the issue entirely.