Was thinking this morning of a fiction piece set in a reality where everyone lived the exact same amount of time. Death wasn’t a surprise; it happened precisely and promptly to everyone at some definite mark (like the last day of their 75th year or something).

The mechanics of such and the resulting social and cultural constructs that would result of such a paradigm are themselves interesting to ponder. But then what I think I would do with this story would be to start out with the occurrence of someone dying “before their time” – the first unanticipated mortality. It would throw everything into upheaval.

What kind of story would I want this to be? What commentary would it make on life and human nature? Would it follow one particular character or a group? What change might a protagonist(s) undergo?

This would be fun to write sometime.

-LS