An audio book.
One night, all people over 22 years old received a 3" by 6" wooden box with a thread in it and a message saying "this is the measure of your life". After some research people realised the length represented their life-span. God? Magic? Aliens? a prank? Some people don't open their box. Some are upset when their significant other opens their box alone.
Nina (29), an editor, has been with Mora (29) for 2 years. Nina's string is twice the length of Mora's.
Ben and Mora meet at a support group held in a school. Ben finds notes and replies to them. Ben's relationship broke up when he discovered his expectancy was far shorter than his partner's.
Amy, Nina's sister, is a teacher. She doesn't look at her string. Hank is a doctor.
Antony is a presidential candidate. Should candidates be required to reveal their string lengths? His nephew Jack is a soldier. Short-stringers aren't allowed to go into combat. Jack is a long-stringer but doesn't like fighting so swaps his string with Xavier who wants to fight. Antony uses his nephew's situation as a campaigning tactic. Jack reveals to the press that he's a long-stringer
North Korea has one policy on whether people should reveal their string length, the USA another. In the States, short-stringers aren't trusted to go to war, and candidate presidents need to reveal their fate. But apparently it's easy to swap boxes, etc., though the strings themselves are indestructable.
Nina and Mora holiday in Italy, proposing in Verona. Amy and Ben meet while looking after their flat. Ben realises that Amy's the person he's been exchanging notes with. Amy doesn't agree with her sister's short+long string marriage. Knowing that Ben is short string she's wary of going out with him. But she marries him. They die in the same accident and Nina adopts their children.
The premise has plot loop-holes, but it offers opportunities for dilemmas and dramas. Kamikazi short stringers; short stringers hurrying to get pregnant; long stringers who think they're invulnerable (but they may be in a coma most of their life). Feels rather simplistic all the same.
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