The Retirement Plan

The Retirement Plan

"This one's you grandpa!"

James felt the warmth bloom in his chest as his grandson held up the drawing. A lopsided house with a crooked sun. Two stick figures, one with black and white hair, holding hands. "It's you, Grandpa," Eli said, pointing to the tallest figure. "And there's me."

Pride. Joy. Love. The emotions swelled together, golden and full.

James' hand moved to his phone before he'd consciously decided. Muscle memory. He opened the app, logged the feelings: Pride (child-related), Joy (familial), Love (grandchild)—High grade. The extraction took thirty seconds. A gentle pull, like exhaling. The emotions drained away, leaving the memory intact but hollow.

You have been credited $140.37. Thank you for using Emocom.

Looking back at his grandson's eager face, he felt nothing.

"It's very good," James said. The words were true. He could see it was good. He remembered feeling proud. But the feeling itself was gone.

Eli's smile dimmed slightly. Kids could tell. They always could.

"Show Grandpa what else you drew," James' daughter, Sarah, said quickly. She met James' eyes across the table. That look again. The one that said Dad, please.

Her older son, Sam, was at the counter making a sandwich, earbuds in, pretending not to notice the tension.

Still a habit that had been hard to shake. But he'd already sold it. The transaction was complete.

At least tonight he could take them out to dinner.

Forty-two years since you could sell and buy emotions. James had thought it was absurd at first. But when Sarah turned three, the hospital bills came. Childhood leukemia. Six months of treatment they couldn't afford. He'd sold everything they'd take. Joy from her first steps. The love from her first "Dada." The relief when the doctors said she was in remission.

All of it converted to currency, used to pay the bills.

He'd planned to stop after that. But then there was rent. Student loans. Sarah's college fund. His wife's funeral. The normal endless hemorrhaging of money that comprised a life.

And after a while, every time he felt something good, something sellable, he thought: This could be three months of retirement. Three months closer to freedom.

Thankful he still had the memories. He could see his daughter's wedding day in his mind. But the feelings that should have been there left only a gray, empty void.

In the beginning, he could generate high-grade joy every week. A good sunset. A song on the radio. His wife's hand in his. The positive emotions came easily, and he sold them just as easily.

But the math was cruel. The more he sold, the more he was left with only the unsellable emotions. Frustration, anxiety, grief. The low-grade despair of daily existence. It made it harder to generate more sellable ones. They just sat in him, calcifying.

By his forties, it took a month to generate sellable joy. By his fifties, three months. Now, at sixty-seven, the positive emotions were so rare he'd started keeping a journal to track them. March 15: Brief contentment watching birds. Sold—$25.17. June 2: Satisfaction from fixing the sink. Sold—$33.45.

He had planned to retire at fifty-five. Maybe even earlier, he had joked in the beginning. His wife had called him The Comedian when they first met. But now the target kept rising.

But last month, finally, he'd hit it.

One final sale: The bittersweet joy of Eli's school play. James had watched his grandson dressed as a tree, his goofy dance while giggling, and immediately logged it.

The first sunset nearly broke him.

He was on his porch, drinking coffee. Blends of purples and pinks. Birds flying in the distance. Autumn wind on his face, with the crisp smell of apple cider brewing inside.

Everything hit him like a fist. Wonder. Peace.

His hand reached for his phone. Stopped.

No. He was retired. He didn't have to sell anymore.

The emotions stayed. He kept prodding at them mentally, checking. Still there. An hour later, still there.

They just... sat there. Inside him.

He felt nauseous.

That night, he couldn't sleep. The contentment from the sunset sat in his chest like a stone. He was used to anxiety before bed. Preparing for a day of being yelled at by a boss who would then go into the office and buy a half hour of happiness. Or fighting off the panic of bills and another day without his wife.

Now, this peace felt wrong. Suffocating.

At 3 AM, he got up and paced. Checked his phone. It wasn't fresh but it would still be worth something.

No.

He put the phone back down. And went to get a drink. After a bit, he convinced himself he'd done the right thing.

So why did he feel like he was drowning?

"I'm thinking about selling again," James said.

Sarah looked up sharply from her coffee. Sunday morning in the kitchen. It had become a little ritual.

"Dad, we have enough. You don't have to worry about providing any more."

"It's… It's not that." His hands were shaking around his mug. "I just… It's too much. It feels wrong."

The noise of cartoons carried from the living room. Eli's laugh following along. Sarah reached across the table and took his hand.

"It feels wrong because you've never let yourself keep anything. You have to learn, Dad. You have to practice being happy. Not just feeling it. You need to live in it."

"What if I can't?"

"Then you try anyway." She squeezed his hand. Warmth. Connection. "Please. Just... try to keep them. For me."

He nodded. They went back to their coffee, Sarah scrolling through her phone.

"I don't believe it." "What?" James asked, hands still trying to control his shaking coffee mug.

"The new fad is buying negative emotions. Right now, grief is almost as much as some contentment on the open market."

Negative emotions had always been there. Some therapists used them as training tools, a way to understand what their patients were going through. And there were always fringe religions that felt the more pain you took on the higher your place in the afterlife.

James felt something cold in his stomach. "They're buying sadness? On purpose?"

"Some of the rich kids are doing it," Sam said, pulling out an earbud and moving closer to the table. "They buy angst and depression and stuff. Say it makes them feel more authentic." He mimicked an influencer voice: "Premium melancholy. Ethically sourced despair."

He leaned forward. "And if some influencer buys your emotion, thousands of people see your name." He grinned. "Can't wait till I turn eighteen. Gonna sell my first bad day!"

Sarah's face went pale. She opened her mouth, then closed it. What could she say?

James met her eyes across the table. They both knew.

"They have no idea," James said quietly.

"What?" Sam asked.

"What it's like when you can't afford to feel anything else. When sadness isn't authentic, it's just... all you have left."

Sam shrugged and put his earbud back in.

"It's just a fad, Dad. They'll get bored and move on."

But to James it was a mockery. A life selling his joy, his love. People were never satisfied.

Love for his daughter. Anger at rich kids buying negative emotions. All of it churned together.

It felt like drowning. But he didn't sell. It was all his.

Nine months into retirement, James planted tomatoes.

He'd never gardened before. Never had time, never had the sustained interest required. Interest was sellable, and he could always do it later.

But now he bought seeds, planted them in rich soil. And when the first shoots emerged, green and determined, he felt pride.

A mixture of feelings built. Satisfaction at watching the plants grow. Frustration fighting against pests and fungus. Eagerness at tasting his first homegrown tomato.

Emotions could layer. Compound. Create texture.

If it felt this good, what was the birth of Sarah like. The first time he kissed Emily.

Bitterness roiled and threatened to wash the other feelings away. But in the end, that was his as well. His to keep.

He was starting to feel wealthy. Emotionally wealthy. Rich in a way money had never made him.

One year into retirement, James was in his garden when the pain hit.

The tomatoes were fruiting. Heavy red globes among the green. He'd been standing there, hands dirty, picking the first ripe ones and putting them in his basket. The smell of crushed leaves on his fingers. Sun-warmed fruit against his palm. Earth under his knees.

The pain was sudden. A vise around his chest.

As he fell, time slowed. His hand slipped from a ripe tomato, leaving it clinging to the bush.

I needed more time.

All these positive emotions finally in his mind. Finally staying instead of being sold away.

Finally welcomed.

His life flashed before him.

Memories absent the feelings he wished he had.

Sarah's first word. Her face, mouth open in surprise at her own sound. Sold for rent.

Emily’s hand in his on their wedding day. Her smile. The flowers. Sold for student loans.

Forty-two years of moments experienced through glass.

He had one year of real feeling. One against a lifetime.

Contentment drained away. Peace evaporated. The pride from his tomatoes curdled into ash.

One emotion rose sharp and true and devastating: grief.

But even with everything, he would have never sold it. Never given rich brats the satisfaction of taking his grief.

He died with his eyes open, surrounded by tomatoes in a garden he'd never taste, feeling the full weight of his wasted life.

The sadness stayed with him till the end.

And he was still grateful for it.

Sarah found him there, called the ambulance, held his hand as they loaded him into the van. She cried. Real tears. Her tears. She'd never purchased emotions. She'd seen the cost.

Later, cleaning out his apartment, she found his records. A spreadsheet, meticulously kept: every emotion sold, dated, categorized.

Forty-two years of extraction. Forty-two years of choosing later over now.

She sat on his floor, surrounded by these records of absent feeling, and understood for the first time why he'd always seemed so distant. Why he couldn't quite reach her. Why his hugs felt hollow.

He wasn't cold. He was empty. Emptied by choice, by necessity. By a system that made selling yourself feel like responsibility.

Her phone buzzed. A notification from her emotional banking app: Pending sales ready for confirmation. She opened it. Saw her queued transaction: Eli's first steps: Joy (parental), Pride (developmental)—$285.49.

She hovered over "cancel sale." The rent was due. Sam needed braces. Her father's funeral would cost money she didn't have.

She thought about her father's face in the garden. The tomatoes. The year he'd had.

She thought about forty-two years of nothing.

Her finger hesitated.

Then she confirmed the transaction. The emotion drained away, leaving only the memories. Eli's wobbly steps. She could see them perfectly, feel nothing.

Just this one.

She closed the app.