Every Ten Years

Every Ten Years

Saria and I did incredibly well in our twenties.

Far better than everyone in our friend group. There was a lot of luck, sure, but we also gutted it out. Our relationship hit a few rocks and one iceberg, but we knew if we could persist, keep our relationship going despite the many frustrations. and have our predicted baby at twenty-eight, we'd do very well at the ends of our ten years.

Two days after Saria turned twenty-eight, when I was also twenty-eight, Darla Jane was born. We had hit the date on the button.

Exactly one week before my thirtieth birthday, I received a huge prize, as expected. Money and land.

Saria's birthday was two months later. We expected something close again, but were surprised she got an even higher score and her prize was even bigger. Along with the land and cash, she received a completed house. It was a truly nice house with plenty of green space for future children. Sadly this was not foreshadowing.

The twenties prizes set us up well, which was good, since our thirties predictions were a trainwreck. We had planned for two more kids, at our mutual ages of 31 and 33, but we simply couldn't conceive again. The lack of births, themselves, cost us very few points, but the predicted child care, pre-schools and primary schools, natural follow-ons to having kids and the money and property to support them, put a strain on our thirties and Saria decided it was no longer worth gutting it out with me. If we were going to be penalized anyway, and quite seriously so, she might as well rip off the whole Band-Aid.

She left me, taking our daughter and our dog, too. Well, she didn't really leave me, since she and Darla Jane and the dog stayed in the house.

My thirties prediction score was so terrible, the penalty put me into debt. The only silver lining was that I was able to avoid jail, but just barely. Saria didn't fare much better a few months later. But she was able to keep the house, since she had both her land and my land to sell to help meet the gigantic fine.

The other silver lining, I guess, was that I was able to predict my forties pretty well, since I had no partner, no money and no prospects. Meaning: there was not much to predict. I was depressed when I selected the life and travel choices in the predictor, checking off almost nothing other than finding a better, higher-paying job at forty-two (meaning more taxes which would earn more points) and some small travel, though I selected nothing out of state and certainly no international travel.

I chafed at these meager predictions for the next ten years, knowing that I could not afford another low score. Even though I would be able to save some money in that decade of my life, I could not afford much of a punishment if I broke the predictions even in small ways.

Also, I got sick at forty-four and, as the pop-ups continually say as you submit the prediction sections, "Illness is No Excuse."

Some people woke up from comas in jail, which was terrible, but there was really no one to complain to. There wasn't even an open field on the Predictor forms. Simply select, calculate, confirm and submit. The machines take it from there.

I met Jayne at forty-eight. She was forty-five, but we both were too nervous about our scores to have more than a few casual dates until she turned fifty. Those five years were long and I was, admittedly, nervous to select that I would be partnered up, that she and I would marry, when we reached fifty and fifty-three respectively. I had to lock our commitment down at fifty, predicting my life changes and action over the next ten years, my fifties, three years before we could even get engaged.

The good news is that we did get married on time and much of our fifties, especially mine, progressed as we had predicted. She even got the exact years of her eye and knee surgeries correct. Of course we missed a few things, my broken ribs and her vertigo, but my score was more than solid and the prize gave us both a nice runway for the next ten years, where we could travel more and enjoy at least some of the finer things in life.

By tonight at midnight I need to submit the predictions for my next ten years. From sixty to seventy.

My father died at sixty-eight, which he did not predict, though he did not expect to live much past seventy. Incorrectly predicting the date of his death meant nothing to him, since he was the dead one, but it hurt other people's scores who did not predict they would have to deal with his decline and death, a life event that affects the living the most. I had predicted he would die when I was in my late forties, so those were points I got to keep. When I learned just how ill he had become at 67, I reviewed my 40s selections and had a very odd mix of emotions when I saw I had been prescient on that one. I actually forgot I had selected that life event for my fortieth year submission. But I gave myself some slack, since I was, as mentioned, truly depressed when I created my selections at that time.

There's no use dying with assets. Those are assigned to people with good scores.

If you predict your own death, you might as well select high expense and high-support life events. Why not? Others, though, get back at the system and the machines by selecting a truly drab existence and then using far more resources and support than they allocated. They had better die, though, since the resulting terrible score, in either case, would bankrupt them and land them in jail.

The entire submission is only about six forms long, similar to an online census report. The last form is the summary prediction - all ten years on one screen - and you can go back and edit the five previous forms before you confirm the summary submission. You also have twenty-four hours after summary submission to make any corrections. I'm of the school of thought that once submitted, don't rethink it. Those 24-hour edits seem to haunt people for the entire decade.

"I kind of expected this," Jayne said with some malice when she reviewed my forms.

"If you don't want me to..."

She shook her head so I stopped talking. "No, go ahead. Submit it." She added, "It's pretty cowardly and puts all the pressure on me."

She was talking about my prediction I'd die at age sixty-nine.

"My father and my grand-"

Again, her look stopped my tongue. She said simply and matter-of-factly, "You just don't want to die alone."

This was true. We had talked about that a great deal.

I replied, "Actually, no..." I started, but quickly changed my tack, "I mean, yes. That is true." I did not look forward to spending another decade alone. "But it's more the opposite. I want to live."

Jayne looked confused and, also, suspicious.

"It's true. My twenties were great. We did what we wanted and got it right. Then my thirties and forties, as you know were terrible." Again, I added quickly, "Until I met you."

"But...?"

"But I had to wait. Again. Another five years, five long, very long, years, until we could risk losing any more points."

She nodded, seeing where I was going.

I continued, "And the last five years were amazing. Toss the statue down the garbage shoot amazing." She smiled, but not fully. But I was smiling fully, "And I want to really live, really live the next ten years. Even if..."

"Even...?"

"Especially if-" I corrected. "Especially since they will be my last."

She sighed. But she understood. Even so, a tear fell from her left eye. Her sad eye, she called it. The other one, she joked, could keep its composure.

"My last ten years," I concluded. "This is the only way to beat the system," I added.

Jayne nodded and lifted her chin up towards me. She wiped away the one tear and said, "Then let's make them great."

End.


Epilogue:

The forms when you are in jail are different. They're longer, actually. Mainly because they are far less trusting of your decision-making process. Which is also why you need two of the staff to sign off of them, entering their special codes, before you submit.

Jayne died before she was sixty years old. Neither of us predicted this. As expected, but not predicted, I did not fare well for the next five years. And while I thought of killing myself at sixty-nine, to get that prediction right, I simply did not have the will to do so.

At age seventy, the fine emptied my savings ironically unspent in my sixties. It made no difference if you used few resources; all that matters was your prediction score. And I was given eleven years in jail. I had zero expectations I would live to serve the entire sentence, but predicted I would. Fuck the computers.

The 80s form is on my screen now and the Prediction Counselor is sitting next to me. One year left and I still live.

My only regret is that I didn't move faster with Jayne. We wasted five years. I know, I know. Who could predict that a perfectly healthy woman whose only complaint was a sad eye and a bad eye would suddenly drop at fifty-nine? Even so, it was the wrong bet. We should live in the present and not bet on our future. Damn the prediction. Damn the computers.

But it's hard not to be introspective as you enter your zero year. Every ten years.

They system is irrelevant. The two-edged sword cuts either way.

I predict I will live to 90. And I predict I will find a soul mate and get married. And I predict we will travel to India, a place I've always wanted to visit but thought would be too difficult. Especially since I hate spicy food, both the hot kind and simply the spiced kind.

But what the hell.

"India?" asks the twenty-three year old staffer in the blue jumpsuit and blue cap. He looks at me as if he's surprised an 80-year old can still be above the ground or make it to the nearest bus stop, let alone travel to India.

"Yep," I say. "Bet on it."

He shrugs and enters his code. "You won't make it to ninety anyway," he declares.

"You may be right," I reply. But I predict I will. I've never been more certain of anything in my life. At least not since I was 30.

I hit submit.

The End