The Average Man

This is me.
I was twenty-three and just out of school when I died.

It's funny, because when I woke up again, they told me I had my whole life ahead of me. I still do, I suppose. But it's not my life anymore.

I didn't ask to be brought back; I didn't ask them to re-clone me. I signed a no-recloning order as an attachment to my no-resuscitation form. But the Beyonder government had other ideas.

They've been doing that lately: recloning people without their say-so. I thought it was a rumor until it happened to me.

According to the Beyonders, I'm an "asset to the community." I don't even know what that means. I've never been very good at anything; looking back, I'm a rather average man. I don't think you can get any more ordinary than I am:

But they've labeled me an "asset" anyway. Why? Why am I such an indispensable member of society? Why am I too good to die?

What makes me so special that what I want doesn't matter anymore; that for the greater good of society, my life is no longer my own?

The way I figure it, it's one of three things, and none of them sound particularly appealing:
Pretty bad, huh? But it gets worse. I mean, think about it. if they do to average men what they've done to me, then what do they do to the talented people? The dimmers?

It's a short distance to go from choosing who lives, to choosing who dies.

I hope I can be forgiven for what I am about to do...........
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Last Modified: 4/17/98
Wendy Elizabeth Kemp