The Measure(21)

Most of the top results were about the recent shooting, but on the second page, Nina happened upon a new website called String Theory. It appeared to be a public message board, but the comments seemed different here. There weren’t any posts about aliens or God or the NSA. The problems felt more urgent, more real.

Any other short-stringers seeing impacts on their health insurance? I had informed my insurance about my string and was just denied coverage for tests that I thought would be covered! Also heard rumors of some short-stringers’ premiums increasing suddenly.





Please help my brother: He’s an amazing chef, it’s his DREAM to open his own restaurant in New York, and he only has 3 years left to do it. But the bank denied his loan application because of his short string! Check out our GoFundMe to help him raise the money.





I confided in a coworker about my short string, and now I just got laid off from my job as part of “long-term fiscal planning.” AKA my life isn’t “long-term” enough for this company to keep me employed?? If there are any lawyers reading this, do I have the grounds for a wrongful termination suit?



Nina kept scrolling down the list.

What is the government doing to help short-stringers?? It’s like they did all the research, proved the strings were real, and then left us to fend for ourselves. We need legal protection!





Has anyone collected data on string length vs. demographics? Wondering if there might be higher prevalence of short strings among POC or low-income groups? This could be actual proof that generations of systemic abuse + lack of opportunities are KILLING the people in these communities!



One of the responses to the last post was currently gaining traction.

Do NOT go digging for that data. It will only get twisted around and come back to bite you. Pro-gun groups are already blaming the hospital shooting on the strings. What’s next? “It’s not OUR fault that you’re poor and sick and jobless—it’s the strings! It’s out of our hands!”



Maybe Maura was right, Nina thought. Maybe it didn’t matter anymore where the strings had come from. Even if they were sent from heaven, or beamed down from outer space, or traveled back in time from the distant future, it was people who decided what to do with them now.





Once the truth




Once the truth of the strings had been acknowledged by all but the final few holdouts, the new world came into focus: a garden in which many inhabitants had eaten the apple, while the rest remained too scared to bite.

The weight of this revelation, this once-unthinkable knowledge, continued to solidify in people’s hearts and minds. It grew heavier and heavier, applying more and more pressure, until finally, inevitably, some cracked underneath it.

Homes and possessions were sold; jobs were abandoned—all in the pursuit of making the most of one’s time. Some wanted to travel, to live on the beach, to spend time with their children, to paint and to sing and to write and to dance. Others dove into an abyss of anger, envy, and violence.

In Texas, a week after the incident at Memorial Hospital, another short-stringer gunman opened fire in a shopping mall.

Two back-to-back shootings perpetrated by short-stringers set off a media frenzy. should we fear more attacks by short-stringers? the chyrons asked.

In London, three computer scientists nearing the end of their strings hacked into the accounts of a major bank and made away with ten million pounds, presumably in the hope of living out their final years on a secluded island without extradition.

Stories circulated on social media of couples calling off their weddings just days in advance, upon learning each other’s fates, while others eloped in Las Vegas, their rushed nuptials like a raised middle finger to the boxes at their doors.

A small number of short-stringers decided to use their remaining time to take revenge on those who had wronged them. When the target of one’s rage had a long string, any murderous efforts would inevitably prove futile, so other ways were found to exact pain. Ordinary folk behaved like mafiosos. Windows were smashed, homes were burned, legs were broken, money was stolen. Both embittered and emboldened by the knowledge that they wouldn’t live to suffer a lengthy imprisonment, some short-stringers felt almost invincible. There was no need to fear death row if you were already sitting there.

And the risk-taking of those with the shortest strings was matched by those with the longest. Buoyed by the assurance that they would live through old age, they went skydiving and drag racing and experimented with hard drugs. They forgot that having a long string only promised them survival. It didn’t preclude them from injury or illness. It didn’t mean they would go unpunished. News anchors, doctors, talk show hosts, and politicians urged long-stringers to remember they were not invulnerable. You’ve been given the ultimate gift of a long life, they said, you don’t want to spend it in a coma or in prison.

But despite the dramatic acts of those with long strings, it was still the short-stringers who caused the greatest alarm. Surely those who turned to violence accounted for only a minuscule fraction of the full population of short-stringers, but there was a sharp enough rise in criminal acts to stoke public anxiety. And, while most of the world’s long-stringers could sympathize with the short-stringers’ anger and grief, they couldn’t help but grow fearful.