Ted’s train was due before too long. He slowly walked the edge of the railway platform. He imagined it as the edge of a cliff—a thousand foot drop to the rail ballast below—ballast mixed with cigarettes butts, paper coffee cups and chip packets. All these things were once wanted, he thought. And now they’re not.

A rat appeared from beneath the platform and crawled into a coffee cup. The rat searched for dregs—a hit of cold milky morning coffee. After licking up the precious plunder the rat ran back beneath the platform. Ted was very amused.

A pigeon squatted at the edge of the platform. Ted noticed how its toes curled over the edge. It had dirty little toenails. It was hard to tell if it was sleeping or just resting. Ted took further steps toward the bird. It still didn’t seem to want to move. Could I get close enough to it to kick it into the air? he thought. That would teach it for being so smug. But he knew that the people with whom he shared the platform would be horrified at the site of an old man booting a poor old bird. He’d no doubt be arrested.

Ted stopped only a foot’s length from the bird. He thought it seemed feasible that the bird weighed up its risks around humans. How safe does it feel? he thought. Does it measure the likelihood of me attacking it against the energy it would use if it were to fly away, just to be safe? How much time would it have to spend scavenging crumbs and rubbish on the platform to replace the waisted efforts of flying away unnecessarily. There has to be a cut off point, surely.

Ted was quite pleased with his clever risk analysis. At this moment the bird stood up and walked away from the edge. But the bird had calculated well because the large and silent train drifted out of the fog behind him and passed within a whisker of Ted’s elbow. Ted took a jump away as the train’s doors and windows flickered past. Ten heavy rail cars pulled into the station. Ted looked about and noticed people watching him.

Stupid man, they must have thought. How close had I just come to death? If I had worn my long coat, it could have caught on the train and dragged me along the platform. I could have slipped down the gap and been grinded to mince meat under the wheels?

Ted joined the cue of passengers. I don’t think very well these days, he thought. I’m such a scatterbrain. I’ll get myself killed.

He knew he had a habit of switching off from the world. This sort of thing happens when you are a hundred years old. But he knew his problems would soon be over.

The Platform Guard blew his whistle and then with an extraordinarily loud voice yelled: “Stand away from the doors please. Stand behind the yellow line until the doors open.” Ted could feel his frustration boil. Why do they have to shout so loud? I’m right here.

A thousand people climbed out and a thousand climbed in. He looked for his place on the train. This is what he liked about train travel, there were always plenty of seats for everybody—especially his age group. His age group was a strange anomaly; a common birth-aid medication had reduced his generation by 50% before it reached 15 years of age. Strangely, 15 was like the magic number. He remembered his parents waiting anxiously for his special 15th birthday. The chances of getting the condition after then dropped to a negligible level. What was worse was that it took around 17 years before the authorities of the day clued onto it. That was a lot of people who were in the pipeline to death. And he remembered so many of his school friends simply failing to show up to school one day. The lucky students who remained eventually became accustomed to empty school desks. Once it was confirmed that a student had passed on, the teachers usually had the desk removed from the class. It would be unnecessary to have it taking up all that space in the classroom—the ghost of students past. The guard blew his whistle as loud as he could and the train silently accelerated, leaving white swirls of mist behind it.

Ted looked about at the other age group seating arrangements on the rail car. Not surprisingly, the seats were allocated so that the older you were the sooner you could get off the train. Ted walked down the isle observing how the first three rows were for people aged 150-200. The next five rows were for those aged 100-150. And then there were the two rows for his age group: 80-100. He had the two rows to himself. Even though everybody knew that these rows were rarely filled, nobody dared sit in them. You’d be arrested. Ted took a seat. Behind him sat the 55-80 year olds, and behind them were the rows for the majority of people—those who hadn’t yet been treated.

Ted looked at the back of the heads of the elderly in front of him. They look so well, he thought. Nobody even gets bald any more. They look healthier than I do.

Outside, factories puffed out steam that blanketed the city in a heavy wet tropical haze of clean emission—the pride of any modern city. It was exotic, people thought; a tropical rainforest city full of humidity-friendly plants. The city was even dubbed Shangri-La.

Ted looked back at the young people in the back rows. Schoolgirls gossiped, laughed, and ate. They played with each other’s hair and threw rubbish on the floor. This annoyed Ted terribly. Boys hunched in their seats looking out the window silently, wondering which factory they would work in once their 10-year education programme was complete. And men on their way to work looked out the window too. They knew which factory they had been allocated. They knew it well.

Ted recalled his factory career, and then his administration career. It was a good system. Everybody got the same—equality. And then at 55 you retired and got your first treatment. 150 years of living the good life to look forward to.

The factories never ended. The train would stop at platforms where, outside, tired men lined up for the train after finishing their 12-hour shift. ‘12 hours of work, 12 hours of play’ was the saying. They would finish off their cigarettes as they entered through the train doors and throw the butts down the gap to the rats waiting below. They would blow that last lung full of smoke into the train, walking along, talking with smoke still puffing from their noses and mouths. The Platform Guard would blow his whistle loudly and the men would take their seats in their allocated area and they’d laugh and yell. You could tell they had been drinking. The girls would go silent and cover their legs.

This pattern seemed to occur stop after stop. Silent men exited and drunken men entered. Many knew each other and passed clever comments as they passed. The rail car was starting to sound like a party.

It was coming up to Ted’s stop. Ted was nervous. When he stood up from his seat anticipating the stop, nearly all of the passengers went silent—even the drunken ones. Ted walked down the isle past the older people. The 100-150s gave him that knowing look. A few of them even gave him a reassuring wink. The 150-200s gave him that peculiar ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet’ look—they were known to be a very strange lot. And when he reached the door and looked back at all of the passengers there was a consensual mixed look of both joyful hope and underlying fear—for Ted, for everybody.

The doors opened and a cloud of steam rolled in. The Platform Guard was outside waiting patiently. Ted stepped out of the train and, despite the presence of the guard, felt suddenly alone on the platform. The guard knew that Ted might change his mind—it happened occasionally. Ted gave the guard a nod. The guard didn’t even blow his whistle—there was nobody to blow for, and this was supposed to be a place of silence anyway. The guard stepped back on board and the train rolled off without a sound, leaving a swirl of hot fog behind it. Pigeons, hot and sweaty, paced around the platform quietly cooing, saving their energy in the heat. Ted followed the signs; though he knew the way from last time. Over his head was an iron arch that Ted hadn’t stood beneath since his last treatment when he was 55 years old. Above him in twisted wrought iron read the title ‘Sydney Age Treatment Facility’. Beyond that he could just make out the silhouette of a building with a stout chimney with masses of steam rolling out of it.

What a great birthday present, he thought. I get to live for another hundred years after this. A pigeon waddled within an inch of Ted’s foot.

‘Stupid old bird,’ he said.

The pigeon continued along under the arch and into the haze. Ted looked up at a faint glow of sunlight that pushed through the haze. He then followed the old bird through the archway to the facility to receive his special birthday treatment.