As our lives become increasingly split between the digital and physical, how do you handle the divide? Do you live in the real world or do you favor your online persona?
This piece was first published in Seven Story Publishing’s Wrising Writers Magazine and is reprinted here for my paid subscribers. Thank you all for your support!
According to the algorithm, I died overnight. As far as I can tell, I’m still alive. I pinched myself and I felt it. I saw myself in the mirror and I used the toilet when I first woke up. But when I logged onto EulogyOS to start the workday, mine was the first in the queue of names awaiting post-mortem processing.
When you’re little, you dream about what you’ll be when you grow up. I’m scared to imagine the kid who dreams of being an undertaker. As a data mortician for the Bureau of Post-Mortem Affairs, I’m only a little bit better that the other kind. It certainly wasn’t my dream, but it was one of the paying jobs for a software engineer after the Great Automation. After the series of financial crashes, people got desperate. Death processing emerged as a safeguard to prevent them from collecting extra benefits on behalf of a dead relative.
I voted for the new regulations, thinking people shouldn’t get away with crap like that.
It’s rather ingenious when you think about it: predictive analytics fed by unfettered access to health data, search histories, and consumption habits became the future of actuarial tables, with more impressive accuracy. Nearly everything else relies on algorithms and artificial intelligence, but post-mortem administration still requires a human touch. Every death plan is unique, most involving bespoke code modifications. A data mortician scrubs your history, closes your accounts, and memorializes you for friends and family. Depending on how much you invest in your virtual afterlife, we might also customize your avatar with body modifications or boost your death notification within your social networks.
Hoping my appearance was some sort of glitch, I tried a soft refresh of my EulogyOS, but my name remained on the list. For a moment I thought it might be a fellow “death raker” pulling a prank, but then my file began to populate with documentation and it all looked legit. A system-generated list of all my accounts, followed by my death certificate. Clicking on it, the document was already signed by my sister…and linked to her tearful farewell message.
Cece hadn’t even tried to call me.
Before my death bureaucracy unfolded further, a popup informed me that my EulogyOS access was terminated and the system logged me out. When I tried to get back in, the platform said my account was suspended owing to post-mortem security protocols. My terminal as good as bricked, I switched over to my mobile to check if maybe there was a system outage.
Even after the Great Automation, cell phone carriers continue to operate on the “impossible to break” contract model. You can’t live without online access, and even the lowest quality terminals are fairly expensive. The whole reason the mobile providers get away with the insane terms is because they remain the cheapest option. According to my death certificate, I died on the twelfth meaning I have eighteen days before I am cut off.
The EulogyOS status page showed all systems were operational. I suddenly wished I’d taken advantage of the death planning services offered to Bureau employees. Without one, standard operating procedure dictated everything. After they settled the balance on my rent and other accounts, they’d offer whatever was left to my sister. I may be alive, but I won’t stay that way without food and shelter and once they close my accounts…
Think, Sam, think!
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