The Number Games

I’ve never attempted to write fiction, but I want to try my hand at it. Dystopian fiction, to be precise. I understand that stuff sells.

And I would base it on the excellent material at my fingertips.

 

My book is set in a world where all men and women are expected to marry at exactly the ages of 23 and 19, respectively — no older, no younger! Anyone who does not adhere will forever serve as an example to those that come after them, of the terrible cost of taking time to develop oneself, hold out for the right one, or not managing to force the universe to give you something on demand.

 

There will, naturally, be some who cannot meet this requirement, ten percent of women each year to be exact. Therefore, each year, the bride-class and their families and friends participate in the Number Games. It is a heart-stopping display of might, wit, and cunning, and only the worthiest will prevail. Each young woman in search of a husband musters her weaponry of choice, her team of scouts and guards, her powers of enchantment and magnetism. Each team scours the arena until it has secured a man for her to marry, leaving nothing unharmed in its way, not excepting the young woman herself.

 

But there is unrest in the land. The Council is losing control over its subjects. The underground is growing. Men and women defy the Established Order set forth by the Council and proceed to marry when and whom they please, brazenly and without fear. Fewer citizens than ever before are tuning in to watch the Number Games. It is rumored that one woman has married a man six years younger than her. Another has left the country and married an Australian she met on her travels. These men and women, and others like them, are spoken of in the marketplace, in the schoolyard, over coffee in living rooms across the land. Every day, more and more examples of such defiance appear in the media channels of the underground.

 

The Council’s data is flawed. Projection of the future has become impossible. Something must be done.

 

Reader, the shidduch crisis hype is only good as material for a dystopian novel. If reality means anything to you, this non-data cannot. I don’t know any other way to put it.

Keep rolling your eyes, my friend.

And happy Tu B’Shvat!