A Bright Future

The electronic door opened with a swoosh and Mr. and Mrs. Rigby stepped into The Family Planning Centre. An assistant wearing a pale blue uniform of a knee length skirt, white shirt and pale blue blazer met them instantly and ushered them over to a row of cheap plastic chairs.

“You can wait here,” she said in a high-pitched voice. The kind of voice that would eat through your mind if you had to put up with it for too long. “Someone will come fetch you when there is a computer free, OK?” The assistant hurried off, not interested in what the Rigbys’ answer would be. Mr. Rigby wasn’t bothered as long as she didn’t talk to them again.

“This place is nice, isn’t it, Sean?” Mrs. Rigby questioned matter-of-factly as she examined the large hall that they were currently waiting in. The ceilings were impossibly high up and were white like the top half of the walls. The bottom half being a very pink, pink colour.

“Yeah, it’s lovely, Tanya,” Sean Rigby answered although he thought the exact opposite. After thirteen years of marriage though, he’d lost the motivation to disagree with his wife. Theirs had been a marriage of convenience in that neither expected very much from it. Sean Rigby had been brought up with the constant reminder that marriage was a curse. He’d never found anyone that he disliked more than Tanya but could still suffer time with. For that reason she’d been the perfect potential bride. Tanya on the other hand had been told that marriage was just a disappointment so saw no reason to expect any more of it than the cynical grump that Sean Rigby could be.

A bald headed man in a white suit was walking purposefully towards them, a fake smile plastered across his somewhat podgy face. His cheeks lit up to a bright red and he offered his hand to Sean. Sean stood up and shook it.
“Howdy, folks my name’s Brian and I’m here to help you through the planning process,” the man said in a southern drawl which Sean couldn’t help but feel was put on for show. Brian shook hands with Tanya before continuing. “If you folks would like to follow me…”

Brian led them into a small room, one of many that came off of a long corridor connected to the entrance hall. The room was painted white but this time there was no pink divide. Against the far wall sat a wooden table, painted with a white marble effect, upon which rested a computer screen. Brian closed the door to the room and pulled out the two chairs under the table for Sean and Tanya to sit down. “Now folks, if you just touch the screen we can get started.”

Sean reached out and rather timidly touched the screen and it flashed into life.
“Welcome to the Family Planner 9000 program, version 1.087,” said a slightly feminine computerised voice. The screen displayed a menu with several options.
“OK folks, everything is touch based so just touch the option you want and the program will explain the rest,” he pointed to a button on the wall next to the desk. “When you’re finished or if you have any problems just press the buzzer on the wall, I’m gonna give you some peace now,” finished Brian and he slipped out of the room leaving the Rigbys alone.
“Please choose an option,” prompted the computer.
The options available were ‘Create a new child’, ‘Edit an existing child’, ‘View child list’ and ‘Delete a child’.

“Create a new child,” Sean responded out loud, prodding the relevant area of the screen. A new screen popped up asking whether the Rigbys wished to create the child from scratch or to randomly generate its characteristics. Sean didn’t wait for a prompt from Tanya before choosing ‘Create from scratch’ and then the female option on the ‘Desired Gender’ screen. After this another screen was shown with the heading ‘Physical Appearance’ at the top and a list of body parts that you could adjust. The Rigbys began with the face.
“
Wow! You can choose a celebrity face, let’s do that!” said Tanya pointing excitedly at the screen. Sean chose that option. “Look it’s got Britney Spears! Pick that one!”
“You sure Tanya?” inquired Sean not completely sold on the idea. He was of the opinion that having a child was folly anyway but to have a child that looked like somebody else seemed pointless. However, since the advent of the new Family Planning Centres, raising a child wasn’t the same arduous task it had once been. No longer was there a nine month gestation period. You placed your order in the centre and it was delivered within 2 -3 working days. This meant no need for maternity leave. More time for work. Recently the company behind the Family Planning Centres had made a breakthrough and you could choose the age of your child freeing up even more time for work. And neither Sean nor Tanya held down good enough jobs to be able to afford time off. Up until recently Sean had always had an argument against Tanya’s insistence that they ‘make a baby’. Now he’d run out of excuses.

“Do we really want OUR little girl to look like her?” Sean questioned again.
“Of course we do! She’ll be beautiful!”
Sean sighed. Tanya had a simplistic way of looking at the world. Sadly, whilst it was sometimes endearing in its simplicity, it was very rarely realistic. He selected Britney Spears’ face and looked to Tanya when it asked if they wished to change the child’s eye colour. Tanya looked at him blankly.

“We want blue, yeah?” he asked trying to remember the conversation they’d had during the car journey there. Tanya nodded so he chose it.

The Rigbys finished choosing the appearance of their new child and selected its personality. Their child was going to be a good-natured, fun loving girl. Which seemed fairly vague to Sean but Tanya wasn’t all that bothered.

“Please select your child’s age,” instructed the computer.
“What do you say, about four?” Sean offered.
“Four! That’s a bit old; we’ll miss out on her early years!”
“Well, we can go for younger if you want but I have no intention of changing nappies and that!” argued Sean.
“Good point. OK, go for four.”
Sean chose the option but nothing happened. Suddenly, the screen went black and then two seconds later another screen appeared.
“The Microsoft Corporation would like to apologise for this program error. Please upgrade to the newest version of your Windows operating system to avoid further problems,” said the computer this time in a male nerdy voice. Sadly change wasn’t a universal thing.

Sean cursed and pressed the buzzer on the wall. Brian arrived in just under a minute and saw the screen.
“I’m so sorry, folks. Let me restart this so you can put all your options back in.”
Sean sighed miserably as Brian set everything up again. “To make up for that difficulty we’ll throw in a free delivery, OK, folks?”

Brian hurried back out of the room, through the corridor and over to the chairs filled with waiting people.
“Excuse me?” said a male voice and Brian looked round.
“Ah, Mr. Bill Gates the 3rd, you interested in another heir to your business empire?”
Bill Gates the 3rd cleaned his glasses with a smile before Brian led him to an empty room.