Dystopian Short Story Competition - Runner Up

“Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
Genesis 22

The ritual was now an accepted part of everyone’s life.
     Everyone agreed with it in principle, that is until it directly affected you. The need to
control an expanding population had required drastic measures and then the Draconian
‘Offerings Law’ came into force. At first, there had been disbelief, denial, and anger
and then as is usually the case, acceptance of the inevitable. The last day of the month was
the dread day. The system was simple. You waited for a number to come up and if it
was your number you presented yourself to your local ‘Offering’ Centre and there would
be one less family member to feed, clothe and educate, and your family would receive a
badge of merit for service to the community. It was the one lottery you never wanted to
win.
     Everyone knew someone it had happened to. It was surprising how the abominable could
become so normal—simply a part of everyday life. The rationale was straightforward
enough: less consumers, less drain on the system, more resources for fewer people. Initially,
in public, people had voiced outrage but in private there was a silent acquiescence, and the
legislation was passed.
     And now it was their turn.
     When the number flashed up on the screen, they knew it was their zone because of the
first two digits and then the personalised eight-digit code came up on the screen.
     It was David’s number. He was 12 years old.
     As a family with five children they had known that statistically, they were more likely to  
have a chosen member. Also, as a family with five children they knew that sometimes
general sympathy could be lacking—the dominant feeling being that you had created the
problem yourself, so now you had to contribute to the solution—everyone had to make
sacrifices. Of course, they had their children before the new re-production laws took effect
but that did not make it any easier.
     They sat in silence, David said nothing. It never ceased to amaze him how quickly the
children adapted to the new reality. The boy David had known this happen to fellow
classmates and neighbours but now it was him.
     They had two weeks to make the adjustment before they were due to present at the
centre.
     Online counselling sessions were routinely offered to the families affected by the
selection process. He and his wife, Helen, would spend time with David, helping him adjust
to what was about to happen. David had always been an inward, studious boy; a boy who
took things seriously. He was not a natural rebel—he was compliant and this seemed to
make  the process harder. Helen was publicly stoic but behind closed doors, her heart was
breaking. How could this happen? How did we let it come to this?  

     On the due morning they left early.
     They had decided it would be better for David to leave before the other children were
awake, so they had said their goodbyes the night before. As he waited in the car, he thought
he could see David’s younger brother, Charlie, looking out the bedroom window. There was
only eighteen months between the two older boys and he knew Charlie would miss David
terribly. Helen would now  be saying her final goodbyes in the house. Eventually, David
emerged from the house and Helen came out just behind him, standing in the driveway.
He thought about how many mornings he had taken David to school and how he had
sometimes sat impatiently behind the wheel as David dawdled with coat and schoolbag and
now, he wished he could turn back the clock and he thought about how utterly surreal this
now seemed. He had no bag or books now—for this trip he would not need anything. When
David got into the car, he started the engine and reversed slowly out of the driveway. He
could not look at his wife’s face. David raised his hand to wave goodbye to his mother as
they pulled away from the house.  
     It was only a fifteen-minute drive to the centre.
     He did not put the car radio on in case David wanted to talk. He had a speech planned in
his head but now the words he had formulated seemed trite and redundant. David just sat
with his hands in his lap. They drove like this in silence, as they had many times in the past
in more ordinary times, but this particular morning the silence made him uneasy. He noticed
then that David’s hands were shaking.
     ‘Does it hurt?’ David said.
      He turned to look at his son. It was the first time he had talked about the procedure.
His mind flashed back to when David was a young child and he had taken him to the
dentist, and he may very well have asked that same question, but he could not remember.
He also recalled when they had brought David, their first born, for his first baby
vaccinations, and when the nurse first administered the needle how little David’s face had
changed and then the tears came and that look of betrayal aimed at the parents, and at
Helen who cradled him in her arms and how he, not David, had felt sick to his stomach in
the car on the way home.
     ‘No, it doesn’t hurt,’ he replied.
     Like everyone else he guessed what the procedure was and how it was apparently as
humane as possible. Now as he looked at his son, he saw how pale he looked, and he
wanted to weep because his son was so brave, but he knew now that his son was scared—
afraid of the dread reality as to what was about to happen. He wanted to turn the car
around and flee and hide but he knew this was impossible and that such an action would
bring terrible consequences but he despised himself for the fear that had made cowards of
them all.      

     The centre itself was like a cross between a hospital and a corporate office block. It was
as innocuous as it was sinister—the bland normality of the place making it even more
bizarre. After they arrived at the centre, they parked the car, went inside, and handed in
their paperwork. The woman behind the desk was professionally polite and smiled at David.
She entered his details into the system and then asked Father and son to walk through a
door. There was an armed security guard outside. They passed through the door and
entered a long corridor which opened out into a circular seating area. It reminded him of an
airport departure lounge. They sat. A TV was playing and there were magazines scattered
about. More security guards were inside. Perhaps that was, for some, the moment the
reality of what was about to happen set in. It was easy enough to face it in the abstract until
the thing was right in front of you.
     He reached out and took David’s hand in his own.
     Even as a 12-year old his son had never shirked from his touch.
     ‘It’s okay David. Everything is going to be alright.’ He was conscious of how banal his
words might seem—as so often the words of adults must seem to children.
     After ten minutes a door opened and a man and a woman, both in white coats, entered
and came over to them. The woman was holding an electronic clipboard.
     ‘David Roberts?’
     Father and son stood up.
     The woman looked at David: ‘You are David Roberts?’
     ‘Yes,’ David answered. The woman checked a box. She then asked him to confirm his date
of birth and his address.
     ‘Would you like to follow us?’
     Father and son headed toward the door.
     ‘I am afraid you can only come as far as the door,’ the man said.
     He realised he was still holding his son’s hand.  
     At the door, he turned to his son, leaned forward, and hugged him so tightly he thought
he might break him in his arms and then kissed his son on both cheeks.
     ‘You go now,’ he said.
     And then, he pushed his son away from the door and stepped forward.
     ‘I’m going in,’ he said to the white-coated man and woman. The man and the woman
looked puzzled.
     'Excuse me?' the white-coated man said.
     ‘I said I’m going in,’ he repeated. ‘It’s allowed.’
     ‘Dad,’ David said.
     He moved toward David and put his hands on his shoulders.
     ‘Call your Mother. Get her to come and pick you up. It’s okay. I love you.’
     Then leaning closer, he whispered in David’s ear: ‘Some day this will all end.’
     Then turning he walked through the double doors, followed by the two white coats, and
could not look back at David.
      ‘We will have to fill out new forms,’ a flustered sounding white coat said behind him.
     There were precedents. You could substitute. It was allowed. It was one of the system’s
small mercies but it was rarely enacted. Also, once a family had offered, they could
no longer be called upon and their numbers would be deleted from the system.
     He walked swiftly down the long bland, white corridor and he kept the image of David’s
face in front of him.
     His children would now be safe.
     And that was as painless as he could possibly make it.
     He had kept faith with his son.