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Description
        The tattoos, they caught on incredibly fast. I mean, it only took about half a year after the Death-caster came out. That’s what the press called it, the Death-caster. Anyway, about 6 months after the first televised prediction, these tattoos starting showing up everywhere. It went from fad to craze to routine. Everybody did it. You would get some blood drawn. The machine would quiver a bit and hum. You’d get your paper and you’d go straight to the tattoo shop. Pretty much everyone has their cause of death, their C.O.D., tattooed these days. The accepted place to get it became the top of your left arm. Every time you go to check your watch, there it is in simple letters with a line underneath: Fire, Gunshot, Car Accident, Suicide.

        Walking down the street you can see it all. Plane Crash and Brain Tumor are holding hands, window shopping. Prison Riot pauses to let his dog urinate on the curbside. No one is embarrassed, everyone rolls up their sleeve. Overdose or AIDS will hunt for eye contact, defying someone to voice an opinion. Old Age walks around with a smug look on his face. I still laugh every time I see someone with a Hepatitis tattoo. I recently met a childhood friend downtown, and when he scratched his face during our conversation, there it was, Autoerotic Asphyxiation. But not everybody adheres so strictly. The ironic and the rebellious walk around sporting Life. The overtly religious have God’s Will. Everybody asks what mine means.

No, of course nobody believed it at first. Experts in all sorts of fields were on every news segment proclaiming the limits of genetics, the power of free will. Go about your daily lives. Buy plain tickets. Work. Well, here we are 3 years later, and every tattoo, every prediction in every medical file, matches every death certificate on record. The Death-caster is never wrong. These days you are either staunchly religious or an atheist.

        People didn’t riot when they learned their C.O.D.’s; the world didn’t end. But there were some big changes. If you were lucky enough to have substantial stock in any of the big name fast food companies, you are a billionaire now, since everybody without heart-failure lined up for the number 6 combo. Needless to say obesity is through the roof. So is drug addiction. So is alcoholism.

        It did, however, permeate everything. Dating agencies reported that a shared C.O.D.  is one of the top attributes people are seeking in a significant other. I guess the hope is that you and your true love will die together. It’s poetic. The machine launched a million different movies, songs, books, and TV-dramas: stupid, little, ironic stories about a knowledge of your death being its cause. Last night, a talk show host made a joke about a doctor destroying a slip from the Death-caster before the patient could read it. The punch line was that the slip said “Malpractice.” Out there the life insurance companies are still scrambling to come up with a viable business model. Out there parents are learning how their newborns will die and are sure to completely fuck the kids up trying to avoid it. Out there schools are being constantly re-segregated whenever a new School Shooting shows up. Out there soldiers with I.E.D. are crying over their deployment papers. Out there the government is monitoring and interring the Suicide Bombs and the Martyrs. But it never works, the machine always wins.

        But with all the Knife Wounds and Earthquakes and Poisons, my tattoo alone draws stares. With all the clever puns and social commentary scarred on left arms, mine attacts questions. When the blood had been drawn and the papers signed and the Death-caster stopped shaking and humming, my mind started. I thought about the junkies, the grossly overweight. The wrecked drunk driver, paralyzed from the neck down, longing for his Brain Embolism. These people convinced of their immortality, their Achilles’ heal etched into their left arm. And as the doctor walked toward me with that slip of white paper, that death sentence, the five letters next to C.O.D. coming closer, sharpening. I slapped the sheet of paper out of his hand and I left. I walked straight to the tattoo parlor, past the horde of Cancers and Drownings. I waited in line behind a Pipe Bomb and a Hunting Accident. When I showed him what I wanted, he shrugged and took me to the back room. And every time I check my watch, there it is, my reminder. My defiant show to the rest of the world: ?????. Just because it’s there, doesn’t mean you have to use it.  I never roll down my sleeve.

Description
        The tattoos, they caught on incredibly fast. I mean, it only took about half a year after the Death-caster came out. That’s what the press called it, the Death-caster. Anyway, about 6 months after the first televised prediction, these tattoos starting showing up everywhere. It went from fad to craze to routine. Everybody did it. You would get some blood drawn. The machine would quiver a bit and hum. You’d get your paper and you’d go straight to the tattoo shop. Pretty much everyone has their cause of death, their C.O.D., tattooed these days. The accepted place to get it became the top of your left arm. Every time you go to check your watch, there it is in simple letters with a line underneath: Fire, Gunshot, Car Accident, Suicide.

        Walking down the street you can see it all. Plane Crash and Brain Tumor are holding hands, window shopping. Prison Riot pauses to let his dog urinate on the curbside. No one is embarrassed, everyone rolls up their sleeve. Overdose or AIDS will hunt for eye contact, defying someone to voice an opinion. Old Age walks around with a smug look on his face. I still laugh every time I see someone with a Hepatitis tattoo. I recently met a childhood friend downtown, and when he scratched his face during our conversation, there it was, Autoerotic Asphyxiation. But not everybody adheres so strictly. The ironic and the rebellious walk around sporting Life. The overtly religious have God’s Will. Everybody asks what mine means.

No, of course nobody believed it at first. Experts in all sorts of fields were on every news segment proclaiming the limits of genetics, the power of free will. Go about your daily lives. Buy plain tickets. Work. Well, here we are 3 years later, and every tattoo, every prediction in every medical file, matches every death certificate on record. The Death-caster is never wrong. These days you are either staunchly religious or an atheist.

        People didn’t riot when they learned their C.O.D.’s; the world didn’t end. But there were some big changes. If you were lucky enough to have substantial stock in any of the big name fast food companies, you are a billionaire now, since everybody without heart-failure lined up for the number 6 combo. Needless to say obesity is through the roof. So is drug addiction. So is alcoholism.

        It did, however, permeate everything. Dating agencies reported that a shared C.O.D.  is one of the top attributes people are seeking in a significant other. I guess the hope is that you and your true love will die together. It’s poetic. The machine launched a million different movies, songs, books, and TV-dramas: stupid, little, ironic stories about a knowledge of your death being its cause. Last night, a talk show host made a joke about a doctor destroying a slip from the Death-caster before the patient could read it. The punch line was that the slip said “Malpractice.” Out there the life insurance companies are still scrambling to come up with a viable business model. Out there parents are learning how their newborns will die and are sure to completely fuck the kids up trying to avoid it. Out there schools are being constantly re-segregated whenever a new School Shooting shows up. Out there soldiers with I.E.D. are crying over their deployment papers. Out there the government is monitoring and interring the Suicide Bombs and the Martyrs. But it never works, the machine always wins.

        But with all the Knife Wounds and Earthquakes and Poisons, my tattoo alone draws stares. With all the clever puns and social commentary scarred on left arms, mine attacts questions. When the blood had been drawn and the papers signed and the Death-caster stopped shaking and humming, my mind started. I thought about the junkies, the grossly overweight. The wrecked drunk driver, paralyzed from the neck down, longing for his Brain Embolism. These people convinced of their immortality, their Achilles’ heal etched into their left arm. And as the doctor walked toward me with that slip of white paper, that death sentence, the five letters next to C.O.D. coming closer, sharpening. I slapped the sheet of paper out of his hand and I left. I walked straight to the tattoo parlor, past the horde of Cancers and Drownings. I waited in line behind a Pipe Bomb and a Hunting Accident. When I showed him what I wanted, he shrugged and took me to the back room. And every time I check my watch, there it is, my reminder. My defiant show to the rest of the world: ?????. Just because it’s there, doesn’t mean you have to use it.  I never roll down my sleeve.