As Dante arrived home he felt very tired, and hungry as his
dog Scruffy welcomes him home with playful yelps. He had been toiling fourteen hours on
two jobs day after day and it was as exhausting as it can get, as far as he can
remember. It was already way past 11pm and
he decides to reheat a quick dinner from the fridge. As he opened the fridge he
found out that there was only one frozen dinner left. He sighed and took only half of it, knowing
that his beloved partner would arrive a bit later and would be hungry for food
too. He strokes his dog Scruffy and
throws him a morsel from his dinner.
Things are getting tighter and tighter for Dante, as it has always been as far as he can
remember. Taxes are getting higher each time, even as wages are going down assuming one gets lucky enough to find a job. He and his partner did not
have children, yet they had to support
four elderly people in the house: his own parents and that of his partner. He resents the fact they had no
choice but to support their elderly parents but he knew there was no other way.
He, like his partner was sole offspring, and besides the state required them to
support their parents under the force of the law. The state had long ago given
up on public institutions for the elderly, doling out only paltry monthly
pensions for them that was hardly enough even for their food alone. Anyway, he
knew that their household arrangement was typical. It is after all in the year 2102, just
into the twenty-secondth century and indeed much has changed over the past hundred years.
Over the last half-century, major companies and even cities
have declared bankruptcy. He remembered his grandfather say they used to live
prosperously in Detroit many years ago, and they left due to the city declaring bankruptcy after
a long hemorrhage. Then one city came after another, and after another. The
government had no more resources to bail them all out, being in dire financial straits itself. Many businesses have shrunk along with the population, and
recent reports declared that the median age for his aging country was 46 yearsof age, a stark reality that was the result of disastrous population policy along with government's heavy push for contraceptives and abortion over the last
hundred years or so. He suddenly remembered it was so long since he had seen couples
pushing baby carriages around the malls.
Nowadays his typical sight was of elderly people moving around in canes or motorized
wheelchairs, and it was the younger breed who were assisting them around.
As he took the last
bite of his dinner, Dante wondered what the world looked like a hundred
years ago. Were there many happy families strolling around in the parks and malls
with their children? Did people manage on single jobs alone? Was it easier to
find a decent job for a double-Masters degree holder like him? As he pondered these
thoughts his domestic partner, Marko arrives. He had a dejected look on
his face. What happened? asks Dante as he plants a kiss on Marko's lips. Got
laid off again, replies Marko curtly, and goes straight to rest in the bedroom which he shares
with everyone. Marko looks even more tired than he was, he did not even eat the half-dinner I left over for him, rues
Dante.
This situation is getting unbearable, Dante decides. Now I
have to support five people. Marko is certainly getting to be a tough burden
around, and he decides it was time to divorce him. That would rid him of three people off his back. It would be his sixth divorce in as many years, but he would take a half-day off
tomorrow to get the paperwork done over with. As he pats his playful dog Scruffy, it dawns on him that it might be a better arrangement for him to marry his dog, and a lot
less expensive too. It would even be
more practical and makes a lot more sense than marrying a bridge, for example. After all, he
loves the dog - that is all that matters for the government to legally recognize the marriage - while the paperwork it will require will not be much of a problem.
Sigh, too many problems he concludes…and then falls asleep on the couch beside his dog, away
from the heavy snores of the five people in the shared bedroom.
