Streak’s End

Is “Swami” even a word? Richard sighed in frustration. Wordle must really be running out of decent five-letter candidates to have to resort to that one. No wonder he flamed out again; the New York Times editors were clearly reaching too deep into their Scrabble dictionary. Yesterday it was “Nymph” and the day before was some other Arabic-origin word he couldn’t remember that first broke his streak, adding up to three days of failure. Sad to see the Times losing the plot, but I guess all good things must come to an end. It just wasn’t fun anymore. Connections was really getting obscure, too. And it had been weeks since he had broken 40 seconds on the mini crossword.

Richard switched tabs to check the stock market in his Vanguard account, but it had logged him out. For some reason the password in his password manager wasn’t working, and after three failed tries it told him he had to call customer service to get it reset. It was turning into that kind of morning.

Cynthia came over to his chair in the living room with a cup of tea for him. Normally, he and his wife did their own things in the morning. Ever since they became empty-nesters twelve years ago, shortly after he’d retired, they’d settled into a daily routine that started with doing the daily games, checking the markets and news and then getting dressed in mid-morning for chores and going to the gym. It was unusual for Cynthia to come see him so early, and the cup of tea suggested a talk.

“Richard, I got a notification today from Veritas,” she began with a concerned look on her face. “You remember when you retired and we made our living wills? Given how we had seen our parents struggle with dementia at the end of their life and how hard it was on them and the rest of the family, we decided that we didn’t want to go out that way?”

Richard did remember that they had written up and signed an agreement. Along with the normal will and organ donor things, he and Cynthia had agreed that neither wanted to die like their parents. If dementia did start with either of them, they wanted to end things on their own terms before it got too bad. Rather than making it a judgement call for one or the other of them or asking a doctor to make the decision, which they typically wouldn’t do on liability grounds, they’d heard about a new service that Veritas offered to monitor a series of secret cognitive biomarkers, all scientifically proven to be good proxies for cognitive health, on their behalf.

If that panel of biomarkers dropped below a certain threshold for long enough, Veritas was empowered to trigger a legal transfer of power of attorney to the next of kin. At that point, the next of kin could initiate an assisted suicide process, sparing the afflicted the long suffering of dementia and the rest of the family the agony of watching it happen and taking care of them, possibly for decades.

“Veritas says that you’ve failed Wordle three days in a row, Connections twice and that your crossword score has been consistently falling for nearly a year,” Cynthia said gently.

“Yeah, the Times has really lost the plot on their games,” Richard replied. “Given how many subscribers they have, you’d think they’d bring in some better editors.”

“That’s not it, Richard,” Cynthia said quietly. It was never good when she used his name. “There’s nothing wrong with the Times; it’s you.”

“What do you mean?”

“The kids and I have noticed that you’ve been getting more forgetful, not remembering conversations we had earlier in the day. We chalked it up to the normal slowing down, but then you forgot where you parked the car twice….”

“I’m fine,” Richard snapped. “Why are you all picking on me?”

“We’re not, Richard,” Cynthia reached out to hold his hand. “That’s why we signed up for Veritas. We wanted an independent assessment. They say that you’re exhibiting the signs of level 3 dementia. We didn’t want to believe it, but this is a clinical diagnosis. You are in decline, and it’s only going to get worse. You wanted to know if and when it happened to you, so you could retain your dignity before it was too late.”

“I’m afraid that day has come. According to the terms of your will, I, as your next of kin with power of attorney, am instructed to make arrangements for a graceful exit. It’s what you wanted.”

“Wait, you’re going to have me killed because I broke my Wordle streak?” Richard laughed. “You must be joking.”

“It’s not just that. Veritas has been tracking dozens of other interactions with your phone, your laptop, even the car. The signs have been clear for a while, but they didn’t unblind the contributing data sources until the metrics were two standard deviations below threshold for six weeks. And it’s accelerating, Richard. You must have felt that something was off yourself.”

“Yes, I’ve been feeling a bit tired,” Richard acknowledged. “But surely there’s something we can do about that – shouldn’t I see a neurologist and get a second opinion?”

“Veritas has a staff of neurologists who make up these tests. It’s much more holistic and reliable than just walking into an office and taking a quiz. And you yourself chose to use Veritas rather than what you called ‘Big Neuro’, the industry that you thought would just choose to medicate and institutionalize you as long as possible for maximum profit.”

“But isn’t there some appeals process? I don’t want to die!”

“You said you’d say that, and I don’t blame you. I don’t want you to die either. But what we’re looking at is a fate worse than death. And we both agreed we don’t want that even more.”

“Richard, this breaks my heart,” she continued, now holding both his hands in hers. “But whether you remember it or not, this is what you wanted when you were of sound mind. Now, as painful as it is to realize, you’re not anymore. That’s why we set this up back then. You’re going to transition peacefully and without pain. We’ll remember you at your best.”

Then the doorbell rang. There was a private ambulance outside.