Cerebral Contents:

Update for 05.13.08:

Male Model by Phil Doran

Set to Replay by Willie Smith

Backsliding by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

Tree by G. David Schwartz

05.05.08:

Disintegration by Don Hucks

Five Feet and Building by Joel Van Noord

Grocery Aisle by Richard Lighthouse

Cross the Road by Ashok Niyogi

04.29.08:

Lookalikes by Phil Doran

Dinner by Brandi Wells

The Modern Covenant by Daniel E. Wilcox

Death by Onions by Michael Frissore

04.21.08:

Future's Children by Kimberly Raiser

Identity Theft by George Anderson

The Datists by Adam Engel

A Great Deal of Money by Justin Hyde

04.14.08:

Mr. Papaya and Dale by Eric Suhem

California by Caroline Imreibe

Aftermath of Vehement Argument #1,068 by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

Trip-Hammer Vitality by Lisa Nickerson

04.07.08:

The Florence of Basel, or Why Readers of Nietzsche Need to Read Burckhardt by Jeff Crouch

Slideshow by Miles J. Bell

Friends of the Poet by Sean C. Bowen

Picture Perfect by Leah Baldwin

03.24.08:

The Streak by Jeremy Hendrix

Grab Your Butts by Emme Hor

Far Away by Ashok Niyogi

Staring Down a White-Tailed Doe by Aleathia Drehmer

03.17.08:

The Hairbrush by Vernard Kennedy

Dog Days of Winter by Niall Berkeley

Poem From My Grave by Michael Lee Johnson

Mashed Potatoes and Hamburgers by Matt Finney

03.10.08:

Hard Work by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

Jetty Cake Pigs by J.D. Nelson

I'm Quiet in Bed by Moctezuma Johnson

Tequila Shakes by Richard Lighthouse

Future's Children

by Kimberly Raiser
 

"I had the first dream thirty years ago, but no one would believe me. I woke up one morning drenched in a cold sweat, shaking at the thought of what I had seen in my dream. Now, it's happening, everywhere. It began with a few random deaths chalked up to natural causes, but the numbers are increasing. People are asking questions. The answers are right there in front of them, and I've known it all the time. It's the same dream I have over and over."
 
"I remember when there was talk about placing tracking chips in our children in case of abduction. I remember how opposed the Green Party was. Talk radio warned us about it all the time. "Uncle Sam watching your every move, spying on us from within." That would have been the project's attribute. No one thought of what they could really do with those chips, but I did, I had the dream. Over, and over." (He began to whimper quietly.) "No one would believe me. Legislation had already been passed."

"Just think. The population was overcrowding our resources. Medicine could cure just about everything, but at the same time was driving the cost of healthcare to a level that we just couldn't maintain. What they've done! Implanting humans with tracking chips from birth."

***

"Mr. Wayne, Dr. Tomlinson needs to speak with you," said the nurse.
 
Jim simply nodded.
 
"Good morning, Jim." The doctor looked distressed, like he had bad news.
 
"Hey doc." Jim sat up in his metal hospital bed, stretched his arms, and took some notes on a tablet.
 
The doctor was beginning to get more and more apprehensive. He knew what this news meant to his patient of twenty years. This was not going to go over well.
 
"Jim," he paused and motioned to the nurse behind him. "I have something troubling to tell you."
 
Jim's face went pale. He knew, he could feel it in his gut. He could feel it twist and turn. He began to shake, his face writhing and contorting with repulse. "No, I don't want to hear this." He began shaking his head and pacing back and forth. He knew about the history of cancer in his own family, it had taken out both of his parents at young ages. He had feared this for a long time.
 
"Jim." The doctor tried to place his hand on Jim's arm. He began to feel ill himself. "It's your daughter."
 
"NO!" he screamed and began flailing his arms. Three orderlies came running into the room to sedate him. "NO! NO!"

***

"He's quieting, Doctor," said a nurse.
 
"Jim." The doctor tried to focus Jim's eyes on him.
 
Jim looked up at the doctor. With a tear streaming down each cheek, he began.
 
"You people, why can’t you believe that's what they've done! You don't want to know."
 
"Tell me, Jim."
 
"I've told you before." Jim composed himself, yet he did so with passion. "The chips monitor the entire human body for defects and illness. Mostly it monitors 'high cost illness and diseases.' But think about it. The chip identifies a pathogen, like a malignant cancer. It sends out a lethal dose of a nontraceable substance into the body, don't ask me what it is because I don't know. It kills the person with no traceable evidence of anything suspicious. They just go to sleep one day, and never wake up. Not only is it population control, but it saves on billions of dollars of healthcare. Now think even further. Put your Hitler cap on. Now we stop that individual from passing down a negative trait or predisposition for that particular disease. A hundred years from now we have a healthy population, a smaller population. The economy will boom. Every child in this country born in the last thirty one years has had that chip implanted in their body. Any one of those people that would have gotten some crippling disease is dead. Of course the numbers would not be astronomical, because most of those people are still fairly young, and most things that are that serious don't kick in yet."

Jim's eyes wandered closed for a second. "But it does take out the AIDS population. That is a very interesting item. Patients have been showing up dead, and upon autopsy the HIV virus was detected at minimal levels. So now, the CDC thinks there is this new deadly strand of HIV out there, that kills you immediately. How ridiculous is that?! It sure is scaring the crap out of people, and for a while, it may mask what is going on out there. Just watch the news! You'll see. It's happening. Now all the government has to do is have mandatory chip placement for all those born prior to the legislation. Maybe that will get people suspicious."
 
Jim paused for almost an entire minute, he looked up at the doctor with glassy eyes. "My daughter, is she...?"
 
"I'm sorry Jim, she died in her sleep last evening. There was nothing anyone could have done."
 
"NO!! When are you people going to believe me! God no!" Jim slumped to the floor.
 
The doctor knelt next to him. The last twenty years he had been trying to convince Jim that it was all paranoia, that is was all in Jim's head. Dr. Tomlinson found no wisdom to comfort his patient. Only a few days ago the doctor had become the father of a baby girl himself.
 
Now he felt sick with fear.


______________________________________
Kimberly Raiser is Author/Editor of Route 66, "a magazine with pocket size stories..."

posted 04.21.08.

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