Indignitas

With another financial meltdown in full swing, unable to support state pensions and elderly care, the government introduces the Voluntary Euthanasia Scheme. Parents over a certain age can choose to terminate their lives in return for free healthcare, a free education and a start on the housing ladder for their children. Fair exchange? TV ads and glossy brochures promote the euthanasia clinics popping up on every high street, as convenient as coffee shops. There's even a 2-for-1 offer should both parents elect to terminate together. Terrific value. With three kids to provide for and recently made redundant again, PHILIP FOSTER is backed into a financial corner. Knowing his family would stop him, Philip secretly visits the bleak, soulless Freedom Clinic - all stainless steel and fluorescent lighting. The flowers are as plastic as DR MORT'S smile as she efficiently processes Philip, recording his preferences for the funeral. Seemingly devoid of any warmth and humanity, Dr Mort is cool and distant, providing logical but infuriating answers to Philip's moral objections. Indignitas takes us through dystopian nightmares, futuristic visions and agonising moral dilemmas. As Philip looks back on his life and contemplates his death he is angered by the warped morals of the lawmakers. He does, however, find fragments of wry humour reflecting on the absurdity of life and inevitability of death. Will he finally experience the comforting peace of a loving father's ultimate sacrifice for his children or rail against the dystopian machine?