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Springy story review: "Torching the Dusties" by Margaret Atwood

Why it springs to mind: Relevant thoughts about how we view aging and how we treat the aged in our society. In this story, young people protest the existence of old people in an assisted living facility for taking up resources. Not far from the callous viewpoint of people sometimes expressed in the national news.
Where read: The last story in Stone Mattress: Nine Tales (2014) a collection by Margaret Atwood
Summary: Wilma and her boyfriend Tobias escape an assisted living facility, Ambrosia Manor, that has come under attack by protestors carrying signs that say "Time to Go" and "Our Turn" who think the old people are just taking up space and resources.
Memorable: the delightful use of Charles Bonnet Syndrome as a character trait for Wilma
Quotes: 
"We have to be kind to one another in here, she tells herself. We're all we have left."  
"According to Tobias, women hang around longer because they're less capable of indignation and better at being humiliated, for what is old age but one long string of indignities? What person of integrity would put up with it?"

Personal attachment: As a former hospice volunteer, I'm very interested in explorations of how we treat and view aging in our society. I've also written fantasy stories about little "pocket people," so I enjoyed this story's use of visions of tiny dancing people. I also loved reading the sympathetic point of view of an aged woman.
Pairs well with: Ninni Holmqvist's novel The Unit, a dystopian future in which single people of a certain age are expected to leave society for the unit where they must donate their organs or participate in experiments for the good of society, Leonora Carrington's The Hearing Trumpet, a novel about a feisty older woman, and the novelette "Lady Astronaut of Mars," by Mary Robinette Kowal another story with an older female protagonist
About the author: Margaret Atwood - fabulous, thoughtful and relevant - so many memorable stories that speak to society - what a gem! See my review of her MaddAddam Trilogy at EcoLitBooks.

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