Death In The Afternoon

                                                                 

2:15 PM, January 15th, 2061.  Steve Wilson was dead.  A massive heart attack felled him and he was dead before his head hit the holograph keyboard before him.  Even in the silence of his work place at home his death did not go unnoticed.  Apple Monitoring Services (AMS) picked up the last of his fading pulse on his I-Watch and "the cloud" reported the ceasing of his key strokes to his employer.   Even as the central server at his work place sent a signal to his time card record...to record the last minute and hour of work Steve's heirs would be compensated for, Apple Monitoring Services dispatched a "deletion team" to Steve's home.  

The Deletion Team arrived 9 minutes and 30 seconds after Steve took his last breath.  They removed his I-Watch, typed an order to delete all data from Steve's I-Cloud account, then removed his hard drive slid it, and him, into a body bag.  A drone was awaiting the body outside.  The team carried the body bag, hooked it up to the freight platform and activated the "send" button..to haul Steve off to the central incinerator.  

Other than the notification of family members no one knew Steve Wilson was bound for the incinerator.  The AMS had deleted the existence of Steven Wilson when they hit that "cloud delete" button.  To Facebook and Twitter and Tumbler and Pin It and Instagram, Steve Wilson never existed.

And death was of no consequence these days anyway.  Too depressing, and obituaries tend to divert the masses from their enjoyment of Facebook postings and the stimulating play of a good war game.

Once the Deletion Team returned to station they would hit a single "send" button that would notify local, state and federal officials of Steve's death.  The IRS servers would spring into action, examining Steve's old tax returns to determine if they could assess some estate taxes, the Social Security Administration breathed a sigh of relief that they wouldn't have to be funding old Stevie in his old age.  The Obamacare site was equally happy, having been spared the future death panel ponderings.  The State servers ran a query to see if they couldn't confiscate Steve's home for delinquent property taxes or if he left a will or not; the better to claim the property in probate.

There was no question Steve Wilson would be cremated, en masse with the hundreds of others who had died that day.  The 16 billion people on earth, and the extraordinary cost of land had led authorities to excavate old cemeteries, dispatch the boxed remains to a blast furnace, thus opening up valuable land for commercial exploitation.  The only cemetery left in the nation was located in Washington D.C....its dedicated use restricted only for the burial of government politicians.  After they had excavated thousands of dead soldiers they began calling it Arlington Presidential and Congressional Cemetery and anyone who had served in the Democratic Socialist Congress of America had burial rights.

Steve Wilson's ashes, along with his fellows, would be hauled to an organic farm in Oregon...to be used as fertilizing mulch on hemp and marijuana farming concerns.  

Happily, Steve Wilson's replacement received a text message that he had been hired to fill the job opening.  The text message provided a temporary user name and password and ordered him to key in by 7AM tomorrow morning....and to be sure and wear his I-Watch!

Death in the afternoon..."joy in the mourning!"