52 bad short stories.

Heather did not know she was selected to be reckoned. The person chosen does not find until it's time to die. She brushed her grey hair and went about her business. She was of the age that is normally chosen but of the 8,000 people on the planet, chances seemed unlikely. She had heard about being chosen. She had two friends last year who received the "honor" of the reckoning. They both worked in the greenhouses. The remembrance ceremony for both was amazing and the people who were chosen to end their lives were merciful. They went painlessly into their death and their bodies were entered into the compost which feeds the continuance flame.  This is the protocol for all who are reckoned.  As she dressed and got ready to go to section 4 and work in her medical unit, the reckoning did not even cross her mind, why would it? Humans don't think of their own death every second of the day. Her grown daughter, Silvia, joined her, for the last 4 years they both worked in the sam...

Edgar knew it was expressly forbidden, but he couldn't help it. Almost like it was an addiction, a desire which burned inside of him to make sure that he could spread the word. Maybe this was what he read about religious zealots; he didn't understand the concept. Mars only had one religion: the book of continuance, staying alive.  He had been working for months, in his lab in his greenhouses, bioengineering plants no one on Mars had seen before, plants his grandfather brought in the hopes that one day Mars would be terraformed. Bioluminescent plants, flowers bringing him smells he had never experienced and neither had anyone else alive on Mars today.  He sat in a chair, with his dark, warm robe, as people walked by, it was a market, he had vegetables and herbs on his table, with a tent over his booth, in the dome the Martian sun beat down, but it was still cold. It was always cold.  It was fine to sell these vegetables, people were selling all sorts of random things, the ...