The Family : 25 December 2099 : A Bigger Place

“Grandad, is Christmas dinner really the place to be talking about buying houses? It’s a bit of a yawn.”

“Why not? I just want to get a bigger place so we can keep the family together.

“This place just isn’t big enough for all of us now with the sixth generation coming along.

"Maxine, Lowri and Anwen2 are all expecting at the moment - and they’re only the ones you’ve told me about.”

“Grandad, you forgot about Sally and Sarah3…”

“I’m sorry Elsbeth, even with my daily dose of MemorexPlus I can’t recall everyone in the family now. I remember the nine granchildren. And, and…

“Don’t tell me, I’ve got it, it’s coming. Twenty-three great grandchildren, forty….”

“It’s 53 actually now, Dad. Fifty-three great, great grandchildren.”

“Oh dear. I hope I remembered the Christmas transfers for everyone. I did ask Holo6 to do that for me.

“I’ve never been much good at remembering birthdays and presents and all that. Sarah always used to take care of that. She would have liked to seen you all here again for Christmas. And she so wanted to see our first great, great, great grandchild. She could have stayed with us. Why did I let her go?”

“Dad please don’t do this at Christmas. Mum knew the risks. She wanted to try the new ganglion replacment therapy.”

“She could have kept taking the MemorexPlus like I do. Why, why didn’t she?"

“Dad it doesn’t work forever. The side effects were getting too much for her. You know that?”

“I know. It won’t be forever. That’s why I want us all to be together. While we can.”

“Grandad, come on. Everyone’s waiting for us in the dining room. The turkey is going to get cold.”

“I still do like Christmas dinner. The turkey, the stuffing, the roast potatoes, the yorkshire pudding…

“Of course it tasted so much better when we grew it all. I know synthfood is all nutritionally optimised and all that but it just doesn’t taste the same as the real stuff.”

“Grandad, grandad I brought you something special. I grew them in science - these are carrots!”

“That’s so clever Daniel. We’ll make a farmer out of you yet.”

“Grandad, what’s a farmer?”

“Oh Daniel. A farmer was someone who used to grow crops in the fields, and raise sheep and pigs for meat. And they had cows for milk, and chickens for eggs.

“That was how we got food when I was young. But since the Big Die Off it’s all synthfood.

“Thank you Daniel those carrots are the best present. I am so going to enjoy eating them.

“I remember when I grew carrots. Sometimes I would just pull them out of the ground, brush off the dirt and eat them there in the garden. Sarah would tell me off for not washing them if she caught me.”

“Dad do you remember the first year we produced all the Christmas dinner ourselves?

“You slaughtered Tarzan the turkey. We picked him as he used to chase me round the yard. And all the veg was from the garden.

"We even managed a bit of wheat that year for the flour for the yorkshire puddings."

“I remember that too Dad. But the cranberry bush didn’t do very well and we only had seven cranberries - we had to pad out the cranberry sauce with blueberries.”

“That was the year we got the new puppy just before Christmas and he stole one of the turkey legs from the table.”

“That was 80 years ago but I still remember it like it was yesterday. We loved that puppy.”

“MemorexPlus - make your memories seem just like yesterday…”

“So Grandad, what’s this about a buying a new place? I thought this complex was fine for us.”

“It’s sort of okay but we can’t get everyone here. There’s over a hundred in the family now and we can only fit thirty or so in here. I’d like a place where the whole family can come together.

“I know you all have your own lives to lead and the younger ones are scattered across the country now. But I want a place where everyone can come when they want to."

“I think we’ll need a hotel for that Grandad.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be having so many children. We are breeding like rabbits. And there are six more on the way now.”

“Six? I thought it was only Maxine, Lowri, Anwen2, Sally and Sarah3 expecting at the moment.”

“No, Moya too actually, we were going to wait a few weeks before announcing it, but heck now we have.”

“Congratulations.”

“There is nothing wrong with having children. We have earned the Procreation Credits. We have followed the rules. We have all served the Alliance.”

“I have loved having children, but I do feel bad for the families who haven’t earnt any Procreation Credits.”

“Are you talking about your friend Andrea? It’s her own fault if she hadn’t dropped out of her educational program and completed her training she would have got a credit. Then she had to marry that loser Martin. He had the chance to do military service but he opted out. He could have got a credit for that. And if he had been killed in action she would have got an extra credit."

“If you are so concerned about her Karen, why don’t you give her one of your credits?”

“Procreation Credits can’t be transferred, else maybe I would.”

“They can if you know the right people. Do you want me to fix it for you?”

“Please, please everyone. I want to show you what I have in mind.

“Holo6, would you bring up the property view presentation please.”

“Wow, that’s big.”

“What is it? Where is it?”

“More importantly how would we ever be able to afford that place? It must be a few billion tokes.”

This is the first draft of the first story I have written since I was at school forty years ago. Thank you to the creative spirit of steemit for giving me the push to have a go. If you found it at all interesting let me know in the comments and I will post the next chapter.

You might also be interested in some of my other posts :

[header graphic and carrot image by @pennsif // turkey & puppy images from pixabay - Creative Commons CC0 // country house image by Glen Bowman from Newcastle, England [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons]