Nutrition

This is a ditty I thought up while reading Malthus and an essay from Asimov on the populations problem. I'm unsatisfied, but I thought I should post this draft because it's close to what I'm looking for. Maybe this will give you a little bit of insight into my views.

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Wessel didn’t know, didn’t care. About anything. He just ran constantly.

The cal-counters just chased him. They didn’t know – and certainly would not have cared if they did know – Wessel’s name, or his birthday, or how his mother and father had had such astronomical hopes for their son. They did know his parents however, briefly. But there had been no sympathy for dad who had only ever wanted a son to carry on the name, or mom. Mom's sole wish was for a child to coddle and care for and make a mark on the world – like she couldn’t.

Wessel hadn’t been coddled, and was sure the only mark he left on the world would come from his blood when the cal-counters finally caught up. Remember, he didn’t really know anything. The counters always caught up, caught you, then caught your blood as it streamed from your veins; it was never wasted like Wessel thought. There were too many people, not enough space, not enough energy, not enough. Period. That was why Wessel had to run, run, run, without ever knowing.

Knowing that his legs, his arms, his heart, his presence on the Earth was an intolerable drain on her resources. For the morsel of food he stole from an elderberry bush, someone went hungry in Bulgaria or Tunisia or wherever. The cal-counters made sure of it. For every panting breath he took as the fliers closed in, an air allowance was subtracted from a tiny little apartment Wessel would not live to see.

His life was a statistical impracticality. When a counter saw him, they saw the few hundred calories he consumed per day. They enumerated every single one, mulled it over, comparing to the average. Then they determined he was an anomaly in the system. Then they tried to kill him.

How he had stayed alive for so long – almost three days – Wessel had no idea. When they had come to his home and told his family they were excess who had to be eliminated, he somehow managed to get away before they put him in one of their special body bags too. Mom had climbed into the silvery carapace meekly, but he could not. He didn’t know why. It was your duty and responsibility to give yourself up for the Earth, the schoolteacher had said once. That was before it was determined using so much energy busing so many children was wasteful. The schoolteacher, though; in a short time she had taught Wessel how the Earth was straining at the breaking point, humanity was the cause, and the cal-counters were salvation - from ourselves.

He wasn’t sure of that anymore. He didn’t care if it was true, really. They were going to kill him because of the Earth, and Wessel did not understand how they were saving humanity if all they cared about was the Earth. And calories. And air, and water and sustainable crop production and a hundred million other things he could not understand.

But maybe there was one thing he knew after all. One thing he suddenly understood very well. As Wessel ran, heard the thup-thup-thup of rotor blades descending, he thought about it for the last time - and the first time. It was not worth living, if he had to live like the counters did.

Running, Wessel was finally free. Finally alive. Finally conscious, able to seek out his understanding and search for knowledge. And when he was finally tackled to the ground, and beaten to pulpiness, and shoved into the silver body bags that let no moisture escape, he knew that he died fulfilled.