“The Donors” A Short Story
Original Image courtesy of Medium. Text added by Newsman Staff.
This is based on a discussion I had in a philosophy club about utilitarianism taken to the extreme. I wrote this because I wanted to try and make something set more present day to see what sort of mood I could convey with my writing.
A dark van is driving through the streets of an idyllic town, rows of large houses with spacious gardens and children walking around without a fear in the world. As the van passes by one of the many playgrounds, two of the adults notice it and cast worried glances at each other before going back to whatever they were talking about before.
Again and again this happens as the van passes by groups of people and it seems as if a haze of fear descends over the town. The van stops outside one of the stores in the town center. Inside and around the store, everyone freezes while a tall woman gets out of the van and walks into the store. She looks around at all the people frozen in silence, sighs, and says, “Oh, I’m sorry, that’s not why I’m here, I just needed a snack. Feel free to go back to what you were doing.” The tension in the room drops noticeably even as no one starts moving. The woman walks over to the cashier and picks up a chocolate bar, saying, “Just this thank you.” After waiting a few seconds for him to respond she seems to realise something and snaps her fingers. As soon as this happens, the man responds, stammering “of course, of course, no charge for you, thank you so much for your visit.” The woman seems bemused, but she takes the bar and returns to the van, getting in the back.
After a few moments, the van starts moving and, almost at the same moment, the town starts moving again as if some invisible switch has been flipped. Nobody acts as if anything strange has happened, but some of the civilians appear to have a little more fear in their eyes.
The van continues to drive around the town, now in the residential section. It stops a few more times and it is difficult to make out what happens aside from the fact that everyone around it freezes and then reanimates once it starts moving again.
Finally, the van stops and the picture sharpens as the woman from before and two men get out, everyone around them is frozen but looks as if they are trying to move. They walk into the house and then to the dining room where a family is eating. The children appear to have been playing some sort of game on the floor and are frozen in place. The parents are sitting at the table and look as if they were having some sort of conversation that is now frozen in time.
The woman stands back and watches as the men walk over to the father, pick him up and carry him out to the van. As they put him in the back we can see several other frozen bodies that were probably taken from other houses.
The van starts moving again and everyone on the street reanimates, while the family remains frozen in shock. Suddenly, the youngest of the three children asks the mother “where did daddy go?”
The mother responds with the customary answer, fighting back tears, “To serve our country.”
“Will he be coming back?”
She pauses for a second and then responds, “No, he won’t.”
