The Number

People are born with a number on their wrist. While everyone has assumed it's a popularity score, a single person has realized it's actually the number of people who will be attending your funeral.

(Prompt) 

It doesn't normally get to you, the jeering from your classmates - you develop a tough skin, with a zero on your wrist - but today something in you had snapped.

You run to your favorite place, the old junkyard in the forest, where the greenery and vines have mostly reclaimed a handful of ancient cars.

You come to a panting stop and sink into the grass. Tears drip as you cradle your wrist, imagining that number changing to anything - even a one. But everybody knows, the numbers don't change.

The voices of your classmates echo in your head.

"I'll never be loved," you whisper.

"It's not about love," a voice says, and you startle, turning. 

A boy your age stands on top of one of the old car wrecks. He's looking up into the light streaming down through the trees, his hand digging around in a microwave bag of popcorn. A streak of red dye shimmers in his dark hair.

It takes a moment, but you recognize him from your school. He's hardly ever around, always being kicked out of class for getting into fights with the Big Numbers or talking back to the teachers. The other students say he's done juvie time for drug possession.

"Oh?" Is all you can think to say.

"Nah," he says, munching. "My family owns a funeral parlor - the numbers just show how many people will turn up to yours."

Your heart drops.

He says it with such genuine disinterest that you can't help but believe him. You look down with devastation at the zero on your wrist.

"But that's..." you whisper, tears gathering. "That's worse. How am I supposed to live a whole life knowing that there won't be a single person who cares enough to mourn me?"

"Don't be daft," the boy says and tosses a piece of popcorn that bounces off your forehead.

It startles you out of your tears.

He jumps from the top of the old car down onto its rusted hood, and you're sure for a moment the whole thing will give way. "Maybe you're just the last of your people to die." He shrugs. "Besides, those big-numbered assholes have shitty, heavy lives ahead of them."

He throws a piece of popcorn into the air and maneuvers to catch it with his mouth - the old metal groaning under his feet.

"They're probably stuck becoming politicians." He says, chewing. "And how many people attend a politician's funeral out of love?"

You blink at him, mouth opening to argue but unable to think of anything to say.

"We," he says, opening his arms to the sun and tipping his head back. "Are free."

You say it quietly to yourself, looking down at your wrist. You want to hear how it sounds. See if it has as much power as when he says it.

The boy hops down to the ground and drops the bag of popcorn, walking towards you.

"See, we already know the ending."

He grabs your hands, pulls you to your feet, and begins swinging you around in a circle. You squeak in surprise, but the movement is so childish and joyful that you have no choice but to laugh.

He grins back like he's won something. "Which means that in the meantime, we get to do whatever we want."

"Anything?" You say.

Your mind goes home, to your mother's scolding and your father's disinterest, your brother's unkind laughter.

"Anything." The boy says.

You look down at where your hands join - on his wrist, opposite your zero, is written the number one.

His head is tipped back into the breeze as you swing each other around, and you smile at his smile - knowing, suddenly, that no matter how it ends, your life will have love in it after all.