Twenty years ago, they told us we had ten years until our hearts failed. Many called the lifesaving operation a miracle. I still have the headline stuffed in my bookshelf: “Miraculous medical breakthrough saves lost generation.” They were calling it the Second Chance Procedure. Everyone marveled and watched and cheered as they rolled us out of the hospital, metal implants still hot in our chests. We were the spark of hope the world needed so desperately. The generation born into pollution, overpopulation, and disease, condemned to an early death. Yet, despite it all, we survived. We became normal. Our novelty wore off, and now we’re in our thirties, lives shaped by that single day.

Fran grunted through the back window, signaling the end of my break, her voice harsh as the cigarette she sucked on.

I lifted myself off a rotted bench in the back alley between the sub-shop and the barber’s, stretched my sore, crooked back, grabbed my worn broom, and walked through the narrow ally to the storefront. A train rattled across the rusty bridge overhead, shaking tiny rocks and flecks of trash onto the walkway like dirty snow. I rubbed the lump in my chest with my knuckles and returned to work. Under the alternating neon sign of a plump Italian man eating a meatball sub, I swept rubble off the walkway.

Across the block, in the shadow of the train bridge, squatted a row of congested shops and restaurants. Many remained empty. Their rooves drooped low like heavy-brimmed hats, boarded and empty, but others, similar to Fran’s, pulsed cheap neon greetings into the evening gloom. Around the collection of buildings slumped figures that wiped filth from the poorly tended entryways and smoked cigarettes on the curb. Very few spoke.

All of us worked jobs like these. It was all we were qualified for, and our employers knew it. At this point, we’ve all probably worked the same jobs. I imagined it was the same in other cities like New York or Chicago. Probably. I’d never have the money to find out, and what would I do with that information? Get another job at another sub shop? I could barely afford my apartment as is. Hell, most of us just slept right under the train bridge until the police stomped us out like roaches.

You see, when you’re told you only have ten years to spend your life, things like school, a job, and raising a family fall from your priorities. Those are things for people with full lives. Why would we try to apply to colleges or even finish high school? We had plenty of support too. Everyone wanted to be there for the lost generation, to show they cared, and wanted to help make our short lives enjoyable—at least until our short lives ended up being not so short.

Suddenly those that worked so hard to make sure we enjoyed our few years not only stopped caring but became upset they cared at all. As if we didn’t deserve all their attention. Like they cashed their checks and found us empty. We were just going to die just like any normal person.

Over the next hour, the usual patrons stumbled drunk into Fran’s. Beer musk and ripe vodka covered the customers like an unwashed coat, and stale cigarette smoke followed the cohort like a cloud of mosquitos. I picked up their butts and mopped their discolored spit, and cleaned tables smeared with grease and cheese.

Sixteen years ago, they took us to “Pearls of the Caribbean.” A resort on the Gulf Coast with the clearest water in Mexico. Mothers and fathers cried on free resort towels as we splashed in crystal shallows. I had my first kiss with a girl named Rosaline on our second night there during high tide. Our chaperones took a picture and posted it all over social media. We spent the next four days collecting sand dollars and sunburns while a chattering sea of cameras snapped pictures from the dunes.

I emptied a dustpan full of ash, wrappers, and peanut shells into the back dumpster, careful not to cut myself on the broken handle. Down the alley, I saw Maryanne. She worked at Fran’s a year before I did and now cleaned the hair off Tito’s barbershop floor. She didn’t look as I turned away. Both of us were stuck in memories.

When most kids were in school, they took us to Disney World. We rode the teacups, and ate funnel cakes, and laughed at the characters, and screamed on the rollercoasters. I made plenty of friends back then: Danny, Ryan, Melanie. They took us camping on a week-long trip to Yellowstone. We ate s’mores under the stars and told ghost stories while our parents drafted eulogies in the waning firelight.

I don’t know where Ryan or Melanie went, but last I heard, Danny worked at a gas station a few miles out of the city, pumping fuel into sports cars and minivans. We all had bills and debts and a hell of a lot to worry about. None of us could ever hope to regain the life we had as kids. Things only worsened when shortly after our twenty-first birthdays, we learned that The Second Chance Procedure wasn’t free.

Yeah, after we failed at joining a society that pretended to care, the doctors decided that the thousands of free treatments cost them too much. That they needed the money to make sure this type of thing didn’t happen again. We did have the rest of our lives to pay for it, after all. They say we should be thankful.

I remember the time they brought us tubing down the Swiss Alps and snorkeling in Australia. We saw London, Paris, and Tokyo. We got to experience more in those ten years than anything I could ever hope for today. Some folk born normal never left their city. Maybe it’s only fair that we spend the rest of our lives in alleys and gas stations and barbershops. Maybe this isn’t so much of a second chance as it is payment for everything we got to see. But those were never things we asked for.

My shift ended at 10:00 p.m., but like every day, Fran had me stay till midnight. The shop needed extra cleaning when we were understaffed, and we were always understaffed. Only me and the cook worked here, and I didn’t even know his full name—Marcus, something. He worked late too, past one a.m. every day.

After closing, a herd of us trudged down paths under the bridges. Like a tide of mud, slow and tired, we worked our way back to our apartments and shacks in staggering shifts. Few of us spoke. We only reminded each other what we didn’t have anymore.

They told us we were healed. That we were now like everyone else and that we should act like it. I’m not so sure about that. We were brought up like spoiled children and dropped on the street once our novelty vanished. We were no longer special and left worse than normal. All we had were metal hearts and a lack of the real world. None of us chose this.

The future didn’t matter until suddenly it did.

I unlocked my apartment door, and on half-functioning autopilot, marched down my uneven hallway to my musty room and collapsed on my yellow, sweat-stained comforter. Claws skittered over the scratched wood floors and down the dark hall. Outside, a police siren blared into the night, like a sick wolf howling at the hidden moon. I pulled my lamp string and snaped on the dim orange light. It buzzed against the green walls of my small room.

On my side, I stared at my bookshelf. It slumped to the right with the few books I owned leaning against each other like malnourished children. I owned a torn dictionary, a dark-yellowed phone book, and one color-washed copy of Frankenstein that I never read. Beneath the dictionary, an old, faded news headline peaked out like a periscope, its white corner a pinpoint in the grime. My mother had printed it for me on the day after the procedure. I couldn’t see the headline, but I didn’t need to.

“Miraculous medical breakthrough saves lost generation.” I pulled the blankets over my legs and looked to the ceiling.

They were right about one thing. We really were lost.