Twenty Years of Universal Life Celebration

An opinion piece set in the future.

Image generated using AI.

It is now genuinely hard to remember when Life Celebration was optional. Harder still to recall that it was once known by the funereal phrase ‘assisted dying’ — a name so gloomy it practically invited opposition. Back then it was reserved for the terminally ill. They were envied their choice of a dignified end. They were envied their choice. A choice so many of us wanted and campaigned for.

The Campaign for Universal Celebration finally succeeded in 2030, extending that dignity to everyone. Progress, at last, was made available on truly equal terms.

Of course, the Universal Celebration Bill endured the same weary parliamentary ping-pong as its predecessor, the Assisted Dying Bill, shuttling between Commons and Lords for years. Resolution came only when the Church of England’s bishops offered their full support, once it was agreed that the correct age for Universal Celebration should be three score years and ten. Biblical authority has a way of settling these things. The policy was no longer merely efficient; it was ordained.

It is difficult now to explain to younger readers just how chaotic death once was, and how much emotional resistance there initially was to reform. Before Life Celebration, before ‘assisted dying’ as it was once known, we were more like beasts, dying whenever accidents, illnesses or fate got the better of us. Bodies lingered and resources drained away. Life was — frankly — very untidy and inconvenient in the years that dragged on for some.

But progress marches on, and life is so much more civilised now. Instead of limping on through pointless years like lame useless donkeys we are productive until the last day. We are retired at seventy with thanks and celebration. As the slogan goes: “Seventy years. Perfectly enough.”

Life gleams; it is never allowed to tarnish. Instead of dirge-like funerals, we have parties. Instead of deferring to fate, we press a button. Instead of decline, we have design and conclusion.

In these more advanced times, unless one opts for an Early Life Celebration Day, each citizen reaches their appointed date at seventy, a threshold that is now widely accepted as both humane and economically sound. Friends, family and colleagues gather, not in hushed depression, but in brightly lit halls strung with bunting and banners. We blow out the candle on the Life Celebration cake. We applaud and cheer.

And at the centre of the room stands the Celebration Pod.

The self-operant ascends the short flight of steps to sustained clapping, pausing at the top to wave. The Pod’s wide window ensures they can see the celebration continue uninterrupted through their final moments. The button pressed, nitrogen is released and retirement is achieved.

In the early years, people clung to outdated customs. Urns were placed on mantelpieces, or ashes were buried in cemeteries. Frankly, space was wasted. Thankfully, that sentimental phase of human evolution has now passed.

Today, almost everyone agrees that we should remain as productive in death as we were in life. Human remains are efficiently processed and converted into industrial fertiliser, enriching soils depleted by decades of overuse. The reduction in population since Universal Celebration alongside the efficient disposition of human remains is “Feeding the Future” — quite literally! — as the pod manufacturer’s beloved advertisement reminds us.

The abolition of the old coronial process was essential to this advance. Once death within a Celebration Pod was formally reclassified as an administrative event rather than a medical one, delays vanished overnight. Pod manufacturers responded with admirable speed.

The Celebration Pod Mark II now incinerates the self-operant’s remains automatically following confirmed retirement, compressing the output into a standardised fertiliser unit. A sealed paper sack is released from the base of the Pod within minutes, ready for collection and redistribution. Closure is both symbolic and useful.

Twenty years on, it is clear that Life Celebration has delivered exactly what it promised: dignity, efficiency and joy, without the burden of lingering excess. The individual critics — once vocal in their opposition — were themselves celebrated many years ago. Their ideas have long been retired. Anti-progress opposition is remembered mainly through trigger warning-labelled essays by sociologists and historians.

Let us mark this anniversary with gratitude that progress does not linger. So much has changed.