Jade Harley Short Story

It 'd been six years and counting now. And eight years since her life had been thrown for a loop in Life 's Box o ' Lemons. But, honestly, who else but Jade Harley was still counting anymore? To the Sibyl System, he was nothing more than a mere segment of the deceased population, a statistic in an endless, expanding ocean of information.

It was more than that; he was more than that, she had said. A life was still a life, and a grandfather, still a grandfather. Even if said beloved grandpa had rotted, withered into a husk - a healthy, well-cared for husk. Jade was thirteen when things had decided to defy gravity and try going up a downwards slope. Too bad for them that scientific laws were almost infallibly accurate, and the law of gravity would not be denied. (She was a science fanatic, but science never did play favorites.)

And dear old eccentric Grandpa Harley slowly atrophied over a course of two years. Well, not noticeably at least; she couldn 't blame the medical staff for his death, not when they all tried so hard in a profession they were destined for. Yet even with the correctional vision of her glasses (she refused to get correctional surgery, just like her grandpa in those forgotten times of the technological revolution), Jade could never see how the charismatic, goofy old man who loved having tea parties with silly-looking blue lady dolls with the quirky, wide-toothed smile could deteriorate into a living zombie. Eyes weren 't supposed to change color, but she swore that his emerald eyes, which glimmered and twinkled with all the vivacity of a life lived to the fullest and the thrill of ADVENTURE!, dulled into a ghostly, mocking white - the same hue which adorned the bedsheets, the uniforms, the equipment, and, simply,