“What’re you gonna do when they come for you, Bob?”

“Well Chuck, I’m gonna go kicking and screaming and biting and clawing and scratching. They’re not gonna take me easy. I will not just lay down and die.”

Chuck sighed. “I’m not sure I have the energy to go kicking and screaming. I just don’t know that I can fight the young bucks.”

“But I think we’ve gotta.”

Chuck sighed again. “Yeah. I think you’re right. I think we’ve gotta. For all the old fogies out there. We’ve gotta fight the eugenics program. Youth is not all it’s cracked up to be. We are not just taking up space and using resources that the young people need. We still have our uses. We still deserve to live our lives.”

It was Bob’s turn to sigh. “But I think we missed the boat.”

“How do you mean?”

Bob looked deep into his friend’s eyes. “We should have been the ones sticking up for the old people. The lame people. The sick people. We should have stood up for those who our peers said were drains on society. We should have said that putting them down like lame and old animals was wrong. We should have said that this obsession with youth and perfection was not the way it is supposed to be. We should have stood up for all of life.

“Even though I’m gonna fight when the death squad comes for me, I realize now that I should have fought for all of the ones who have gone before. We should have stood up for them when we were still young and had a voice.”

Chuck agreed. “I guess you’re right. We should have stood up for all the undesirables when we were still desirable. We might have lost, but we would have been in the right. And we would have stood for something. Now, we just go to the gas chambers and the graves. We have gotten too old and undesirable. To undeserving of life.”

“Undeserving.” Bob looked at his friend again. A tear formed in his eye. “But when did 40 become too old to deserve to live?”