The Department

Today is my retirement from The Department.
Its full title is The Department of Human Management and Operations, but we mostly call it The Department.
After nearly two hundred and fifty years’ service to my country, and by extension the world, I am stepping down from my duties.
I will be free of the responsibility.
Almost a quarter of a millennium employed to one aim.
Well over three times the average human lifespan spent working at that single purpose.
Ensuring enough people die.
Every government in the world, even those in the most dysfunctional of states, has a version of The Department.
Some large. Some small. Some only one person.
They may work in different ways, but they all work to the same aim.
Classified at a level where even heads of state rarely learn of our existence, we consider ourselves guardians of the planet.
You may think that there must be millions of us employed in The Departments all around the world.
But, perhaps surprisingly, you would be wrong.
Difficult as it may be to believe, the majority of the world’s governments actually spend the bulk of their budgets on, if not trying to improve their citizens’ lives, then at the very least not trying to end them prematurely.
Unlike us.
We exist solely to ensure the number of humans on earth does not grow out of control.
A thinning of the herd.
The reason for our existence, the greatest secret of humanity.
When we left the oceans, countless millennia ago and began our evolution on land, we retained, deep in our DNA the key to not aging.
Or at least aging so slowly as to be effectively immortal.
Of course when I say immortal, I mean functionally immortal.
We will not die naturally of old age, but we are not invulnerable.
We can, and frequently do, succumb to violent ends; be those man-made, or through accidents.
We are also not equipped with an immune system that can withstand every disease.
For sure, it is far better than the average person may think, or even a relatively skilled medical practitioner may discern, but it can be compromised.
We engineer the occasional pandemic.
We are not so mighty as to be capable of inducing earthquakes.
They, sometimes rather helpfully, are an element of our world we leave to Mother Nature to aide us in keeping her children’s numbers under control.
And when she is not helpful or reluctant to intercede, we can, with some effort, steer an avalanche.
Considering the numbers of people on earth, if natural disasters and the occasional pestilence were not to dwindle our numbers naturally, it would be virtually impossible to manage our population.
We struggle to keep up at times.
I will not divulge which wars The Departments have started.
Sometimes between themselves.
Sometimes as allies against an unsuspecting state.
Perhaps some solace may be gained from knowing that we are not responsible for all of them.
Our species is more than capable of turning a disagreement into a conflagration.
But still, we try our best.
The Departments all over the world have individuals working for them who are inviolate.
Our Untouchables.
Individuals who were in the Napoleonic Wars.
Individuals who helped build The Great Wall and the Pyramids at Giza.
Individuals who were present for the first burial of another human.
Individuals who remember the mammoths.
Individuals who recall the discovery of fire.
These long-lived ones are afforded the greatest of reverence.
They are our collective race memory made flesh.
They have seen our species’ countless mistakes, and advise their versions of The Department on how to use those mistakes.
Post my retirement I will be allowed to live on for as long as I choose.
No one will come for me with a needle or a gun or a runaway car.
At least not deliberately.
I will live as long as I am able to avoid blind bad luck.
I will remain unharmed until I decide I have lived enough life.
Provided I obey The Rule.
The knowledge I carry must pass with me.
My only testament to what I know, what I have seen, what I have done.
Will be this.
So now, you know as much about The Department as I did upon joining it.
And what secret you need to keep.
To my successor, I hand my duty over to you.