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A sharply satirical near-future tale depicts a society that has eradicated disease and old age but strictly controls population by requiring a volunteer death for every birth. A middle-aged man waits in a hospital as his wife delivers triplets, confronting the legal and moral demand that three people must agree to die for the infants to live. The waiting-room scenes mix bureaucratic cheer, public art celebrating orderly life, and officials who facilitate painless state euthanasia. The story examines themes of choice, the commodification of human life, and the cost of engineered harmony through dark humor and moral irony.