18
BIRDY
Six months earlier
I am not a people person, and it is a relief to be back in London. Back in my flat. Back inside the life that I have built for myself since the life I knew was taken away from me. Everything that has happened over the last few days feels like a dream—the hospital, the inheritance, the grandmother I didn’t know I had, the trip to Hope Falls, the one-night stand. It’s all a bit overwhelming—even for me—but I will not let this diagnosis define me.
Nobody else needs to know that I am terminally ill, that’s between me and death. It’s time to get back to reality. Back to work. Back to who I am now, not who I was then, before I knew. But first, there are some things I need to know.
I leave Sunday downstairs in the bookshop, walk along the little lane that is Cecil Court, and step into real London. I hail a black cab to Harley Street, anxious not to be late for my appointment. The fancy letter I found from Thanatos claimed to predict the exact day of my grandmother’s death.
I want to know if it’s a con. And if it isn’t—which of course it is—I want to know if they can predict mine.
The receptionist knows my name before I say it, which is a tad disconcerting. I sit in a waiting room—something I am getting used to—but this is not like any of the NHS hospital waiting rooms I have spent hours in recently. This is a private clinic on Harley Street and it looks like something from the future. Instead of dated, tired furniture and a permanent smell of
bleach and despair, everything in this place is brand-new and white. The air has the calming scent of a luxury spa, and the staff all look like models, with perfect hair, flawless makeup, as though their faces have been airbrushed, and permanent white smiles.
I only booked the appointment yesterday and now I am here. The Thanatos website consisted of a landing page with the company’s name and a phone number. That was it. No details about who they are or what they do.
Nothing. When I called the number, a posh female voice immediately purred that membership was by invitation only. I didn’t ask membership of what, instead I gave her my grandmother’s name that was printed on the invitation I had found at her house in Hope Falls. Because Olivia Bird is my name too.
I was put on hold for a long time. So long I almost hung up, but then a voice replaced the soothing music I’d been forced to listed to, and I swear I could hear the woman on the phone smiling as she said Welcome to Thanatos.
I was given a different web address—something you would never find unless you knew to look—and asked to complete an online questionnaire.
An hour later they called me back, offered me an appointment today, and here I am. No waiting list. No waiting. When I first found the Thanatos letter at my grandmother’s home I felt nothing but rage. I was sure that it was a con, just another—albeit elaborate—way to take advantage of the elderly.
And take their money. But the anonymous voice on the phone said that there are no fees at Thanatos.
You give us your time and we tell you how much you have left.
That’s what the voice said. More than once.
As though it were a line from a script.
I might be here in the waiting room, but I still don’t believe that a company can really predict a person’s date of death. I know we live in a world ruled by technology capable of things I couldn’t have even imagined when I was a child, but this just sounds too far-fetched. A quick Google search soon proves me wrong.
There are literally hundreds of news articles about the subject. Ranging from stories about scientists using blood samples and laser beams to predict how long a person will live, to more recent AI developments involving algorithms that can guess when someone might die with a “high degree of
accuracy” based on their DNA. While there seem to be a lot of companies all competing in the race to create an accurate death clock, none of the ones I have found online claim to be able to predict the exact day a person will die. A death date.
There are very few details about Thanatos online, almost none, but I found one tiny mention of it in a recent newspaper article describing it as “one of the world’s leading pharma tech companies”—whatever that means.
They wouldn’t even give me an address until I completed the online questionnaire and was offered an appointment. All I had that proved this place even existed was a paper invitation and the website. Both looked stylish, expensive, and minimalistic. A lot like this waiting room.
“If you could just fill out this questionnaire, the doctor will see you shortly,” purrs the smiling receptionist, handing me an iPad. She’s young, early twenties, and dressed in designer clothes that look like they cost a week’s wages. I still can’t figure out the scam. I’ve met more than my fair share of criminals and she doesn’t look or sound like one. But she does look familiar, even though I can’t put my finger on why. I think I might have seen her in a film, but that seems unlikely. I stare at the iPad in her pale, manicured hand.
“I already filled out something online—”
“That’s the first questionnaire. This is the second one. It’s all part of the process.” She says the words slowly and kindly with a smile so strangely sincere it is unnerving. Her teeth are a dazzling shade of white and too perfect, just like the rest of her. I wonder how many questionnaires there are going to be in total as I take the iPad and start answering the next set of questions. Some of which are the same as last time, almost as though this is a test.
The questionnaire starts with the basics: name, address, age, sex, weight, height. Then there are some questions I didn’t expect and feel uncomfortable answering:
Please state your annual income.*
List names and dates of birth for all known family members.*
Any and all social media accounts must be declared below.*
Any and all email addresses (past and present) must be declared below.*
ALL questions are PART OF THE PROCESS.
*Failure to disclose any requested information terminates the process.
I swipe to the next page of the digital questionnaire and see a long list of statements with yes/no options. It seems obvious that I have to say yes to them all if I want to proceed.
I hereby agree to install the Thanatos App on all my electronic devices within my home and those carried on my person. Yes/No.
I hereby agree that Thanatos will have access to all previous medical records for me and any immediate family. Yes/No.
I understand that I will not have to pay for this service, but I will sign an NDA if selected as a suitable candidate. Yes/No.
The list goes on and on, page after page. I fill it all in with true enough answers, then hand the iPad back to the too perfect receptionist.
“Thank you, this looks wonderful,” she says, beaming as though I just baked her a bloody cake. “Now I just need to scan your fingerprints.”
I take a tiny step back from the desk. “Why?”
“It’s all part of the process,” she says again, like a fucking robot. “All of our clients have to complete these steps before meeting with the doctor.”
In my line of work the scanning of fingerprints is something best avoided. My mind is racing ahead, wondering why that is part of the process.
“Can a person’s fingerprints predict when they are going to die?” I ask.
She smiles. Again. “Everything will be explained to you when you see the doctor, and they’ll be more than happy to answer any questions you have then. If you would rather leave, you are of course under no obligation to stay.”
The unspoken threat is not lost on me. I let her scan my fingers and thumbs on both hands because what choice do I have. “Please leave all your belongings—including any electrical devices and all phones—in the locker provided,” she says afterward. “Then you may proceed to room nine, where
the doctor will be waiting for you.” Her smile vanishes as soon as she looks back at the screen.
The doctor does not look like a doctor. He doesn’t sound like one either.
His face is strangely familiar—just like the receptionist—but I’m not sure where I have seen him before. He also smiles a bit too fucking much, and I’m starting to think that smiling is compulsory in this company.
“Hello, I’m the doctor,” he says.
I’m guessing if he wanted me to know his actual name he would have told me. He’s young, younger than me at least, and everything he is wearing looks expensive and brand-new, the shirt, the fitted waistcoat, the shiny, pointy, leather shoes. The room we are in is a white box devoid of decoration. There are two white swivel armchairs, a white table, and a discreet camera. It seems they plan to film me.
“Don’t worry about that,” he says when he notices me staring at it. “Just saves me having to make notes while we chat. Tell me in your own words why you want to know when you will die?” he asks with another dazzling smile. He starts nodding before I have started answering, as though trying to
encourage the words out of me.
“I’ve had a diagnosis of—”
“Yes, I read that,” he says, as though hurrying me along. “But why do
you want to know your end date?”
“My end date?”
“Sorry, that’s just what we call it. Your date of death?”
Fuck me. Straight to the point then. I guess that’s part of the process too.
“So I can make preparations, I suppose. Say goodbye to loved ones.”
He nods and I think I have given the right answer. But then he frowns.
“You don’t really have any loved ones though, do you.”
What variety of tomfuckery is this?
His words were a statement, not a question.
I stare at him, speechless, thinking I must have imagined him saying that to me.
He smiles. “Except for your dog, of course; we understand that you love Sunday. From what we know about you, and we know a lot, you know when a person is telling lies, so it seems strange to us that you would lie yourself.
It’s just that, you are an intelligent person with an above average IQ. Your score when you were a child suggests superior intelligence…”
How does he know my bloody childhood IQ score?
“… As does your track record at work.”
I deliberately never told them what I do.
I start to stand. “I think I’d like to leave now—”
“Please sit, Birdy. May I call you that?”
“I’d rather you—”
“We know your mother called you Birdy when you were a little girl— before she committed suicide—and that you prefer to be called Birdy than Olivia. And we know you know that with a diagnosis like yours, you’ll probably be dead before too long.” His insensitivity stuns me into silence.
“Your pupils have dilated a little, so I can see that I have upset you, and I apologize for that. Your emotional response level is a little higher than we estimated based on the information you supplied. Causing you further anxiety is not our intention, but I hope you can understand our strict guidelines and the need for checks and balances. What I’m trying to establish is if we tell you the exact date you will die, what will you do with that information?”
“I don’t understand how you can claim to predict when—”
“You don’t need to know how, Birdy. That’s our job. We only want what is best for our clients, and we are a highly ethical company, one which takes its role and responsibility seriously. If telling you the date you will die might in any way cause you additional suffering or anxiety, we simply won’t do it.”
If this is an act it’s a bloody good one.
Is he an actor? Is that why I recognize him?
He’s waiting for me to say something, and the truth feels like the best option.
“I want to know because there is someone I need to see before it’s too late.”
He stares back at me for a long time, then nods.
It’s only then that I notice the earpiece he is wearing.
“Good,” he says, as though I have just passed a test. “I’ll be back in just a moment.”
He leaves the room and “just a moment” feels like it takes almost an hour. I can’t be sure because they made me leave my watch and my phone in the locker and there is no clock in the room. I have never been a patient person, so after what feels like too long to leave me waiting, I stand and walk toward the door to let myself out. As soon as I reach for the handle the door opens, almost as though someone was watching me the whole time.
“Sorry to have kept you,” says the doctor. “This is the nurse. She’s going to do a few tests, starting with a blood test if that’s okay?” I guess we’re still on a no-name basis. The nurse, like her colleague in reception, looks like she just stepped off a catwalk. “Please take a seat, this won’t take long.”
I remove my tweed jacket, roll up my shirt sleeve, and reluctantly sit back down. The nurse smiles, wraps a tourniquet around the top of my arm, smiles again, then inserts a needle. I’ve never been great with needles, so I turn away. The doctor resumes his position sitting on the white chair opposite me, then answers my next question before I have time to ask it.
“Our tests involve a blood sample, some nail clippings—think of it as a mini manicure—followed by a scan, which will feel very similar to the MRI you had at the hospital, but works in a different way. Then I just need some skin and hair samples. It’s all just part of the process.” I turn back to the nurse and see that she is filling a third small tube with my blood. It seems they need quite a lot.
“Okay. After you’ve carried out these tests, what happens then?” I ask.
The doctor smiles. “Then we’ll be in touch.”
The letter arrives the next day.
There is no stamp. It has been hand-delivered.
It looks just like the fancy black envelope my grandmother received, with rose-gold foil letters printed on expensive-looking card stock. But this time the name on the front really is mine. My hands tremble a bit as I start to open it. People with my condition, diagnosed at this stage, can sometimes live for another year, possibly two. Or they’re dead within six months. The diagnosis was a death sentence without a deadline. This might give me a
more accurate time frame, or it might all be nonsense. I understand enough about pharmaceutical companies and the lengths they are willing to go to in order to secure contracts and make money. A lot of money. And it’s often when people are at their most desperate and most vulnerable that they fall victim to huge corporations who feed off despair to fulfill their greed. But Thanatos, a so-called pharma tech company, still haven’t asked me for a penny. They invited me to see a doctor straight away and haven’t even made me wait for the results. Despite my cynical nature, I’m starting to believe they might actually be able to do what they claim to be able to do: accurately predict a person’s date of death. If not, it’s a very elaborate hoax, and given they don’t charge for their services I can’t quite fathom what they are getting out of it.
Sunday jumps up on the sofa beside me and rests his head on my lap.
We stare at the envelope in my hands as though we’re both afraid of what might be inside. I open it and carefully take out the letter. My eyes rush to read the date of death first—of course—but then I read the words printed beneath it several times, as though I can’t quite process them.
Thank you for joining the Thanatos Family … We all have a right to know when our last day will be, and now you can live your best life every day until the day you die, and make any arrangements with peace of mind.
Do be sure to contact us if you need any further information on the number below.
We wish you a Happy Deathday.
Seeing my end date, as the doctor called it, winds me.
Maybe nobody should know their date of death.
Maybe we should all be allowed to dream that we might live forever.
But then who in their right mind would want to live for fucking ever?
I know what I need to do.
