Mitchell Kamarov did not know his parents. No one knew their parents, since it was not necessary to know them nowadays to survive. There was no such thing as money; no one had a need for it. In the 137th Amendment to the Constitution of The World, everyone was guaranteed a right to a computer and a feeding tube.

Mitchell hated his feeding tube and his computer. But he did not dare tell anyone. It was a law, according to Amendment 245, that everyone had to be happy. Period. He dared not think it either, as that would have been grounds for what the WorldNet police called “termination.” Your feeding tube was removed and the hard drive was wiped of your thoughts and feelings and memories, all kept in folders. You were left to die.

For an occupation, Mitchell had been assigned Document Destroyer. The basics of this job was to read old texts and to put them into a computer document, in case they needed to be referenced by an Important Person. The advantage of the job was that Mitchell, who had been educated as a typist, was able to learn beyond the education he had received.

He was very secretive about his occupation and, during the first five years of his life, he had trained himself to remember things without storing them on his computer where, he knew, WorldNet would assuredly find them. And kill him.

The most interesting thing Mitchell had ever discovered in his work was the definition of the word “kiss”: to touch or press with the lips slightly pursed, and then often to part them and emit a smacking sound. It haunted his thoughts.

Today was Mitchell’s twentieth birthday – the day when, according to tradition, he was to reproduce and be terminated. But Mitchell had other plans.

Mitchell knew he had not lived a good life. It was an empty life. And then, a plan came to him. A most devious one that was sure to work. A twentieth birthday present, he thought, just like in The Birthday, which he had transposed not two days before.

In the fourth hour of the day, after six hours of mandatory sleep, he began his work day, just like all citizens. At exactly the eleventh hour, he hooked himself up to his kitchen unit and continued to work like everyone else. It was when the thirteenth hour struck that Mitchell put his plan into action.

He stood up from his desk and exited his tiny cubicle. He walked down the only one of the long gray hallways he had ever been in and, when he reached the end, he turned left. He knew he did not have much time; the WorldNet police knew where he was because of the GPS in his head. If he was gone from his office, they would suspect something. He began to move quicker, peering into every cubicle until he found a woman. He entered.

“Hello,” he said. She turned around.

She stood to address him. “Please kindly return to your office and call me. I am sending you my number now.”

“Excuse me, but I-” She cut him off.

“I am very busy and do not have time to-” But she was cut off too, not by another person, but by Mitchell’s lips. For reasons she did not know, she was kissing him back.

The spectacle continued for some two minutes before a tinny voice behind Mitchell spoke.

“Stop what you are doing at once.” A WorldNet drone had arrived. Mitchell did not stop. Nothing was going to ruin his moment. “You are breaking the law. Prepare to be terminated,” warned the drone.

Mitchell had been prepared for this but did not care. He was to die today anyway. His life was now complete. He broke away from the woman and said, “Smack.”

The dart exited the drone’s barrel and found its target with precision. Before Mitchell had so much as hit the ground, the woman was back at her desk, working fervently for fear of her own termination.

“Proceed with your work, citizen; there is nothing to see here.”

And so Mitchell Kamarov became the first person in over 300 years to die smiling.