[ WP ] Money is now useless . Goods and services are purchased with time off the end of your life . Working extends your life . You find yourself in need of a new car ... .

`` Thank you, thank you so much, yes, I'll see you tomorrow morning, thanks again.'' 
 
 I leaned against my pale wall, bathed in the final slanted rays of sunlight, enjoying the way the heat eased my stiffened frame. It's been a tough seven years, each one worse. I'd kept my spartan apartment when others would have slept on the street, I feared for my health. In the past I'd been in a call centre, but the jobs became scarce. 
 
 Yes, nowadays you needed friends. They taught each other, they hired each other, their children ran grocery stores and paper routes to build up life-span for study. Apostates were artists as long as they were related. 
 
 Thank God for the charity-minded concerned with their immortal souls who kept the church open, and the genuinely kind hearted who spent tireless hours running the phone-lines and reaching out to the destitute. They're re-hiring me as phone monkey, it seems like circular logic. I'd held on, I wonder how many others they nurse and let go and nurse and let go... 
 
 My eyes started to strain as the room darkened in sunset's wake. A terrible thought crossed my mind. Toothless and malnourished, how would I ever make it to the centre tomorrow? 5 miles away. 
 
 Across the road used cars glinted coolly in the dusk. The risk was high, I'd lost track of my age. The office light was on. I shuffled over. 
 
 A large man at the desk, bathed in yellow light, lifted his sagging and grunted in a questioning fashion. 
 
 `` A basic model, ready to go, do you have one?'' 
 
 His little eyes darted up at me, but lost their hungry shine when he saw I was more crippled than him. He hoisted himself from the desk and fumbled through some papers to find a grubby key, which he handed to me. 
 
 `` 6 months'', he shrugged. 
 
 He looked a little bewildered; perhaps he did n't know that I had a job. 
 
 My heart was beating fast and strong for the first time in some time. As soon as I took the key my vision clouded and I felt myself stooping a little more as I turned my back to him. I walked out. 
 
 I broke my toe on a bucket. A large man led me out of the closet into a yellow-lit room. He looked a little bewildered. I was showed to a nice looking white car. As I stood admiring it, he fished a key out of my shirt-pocket. 
 
 `` Oh'' I exclaimed 
 
 The large man scratched his head and scuffed the ground with his foot. He stuck two fingers into my shirt pocket again and pulled out a paper. I watched a pigeon walking in circles under a dried up little tree. 
 
 `` Come on, let me take you home'' 
 
 I let the large man guide me into the car 
 
 I slept outside the agency that night. 
 
 After two days gnarled fingers could dial the phones, after 3 my eyes could read the numbers without thick lenses. In a week I remembered that taxis existed. 
 
 
 

