The Big Trip Up Yonder

The Big Trip Up Yonder is a satirical science-fiction short story by Kurt Vonnegut first published in 1954. It was later reprinted under the title Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

In a future transformed by a cheap anti-aging drug, people hardly die—and the world groans under the weight of the living. In a cramped city apartment, a sprawling clan endures overcrowding, scarcity, and the tyranny of longevity, with one domineering elder controlling space, resources, and hope through his ever-changing will.

Petty grievances escalate into a farce of inheritance, bureaucracy, and survival. When the household’s fragile order cracks—triggered by a sudden disappearance—authority steps in with solutions that are as absurd as the problem, revealing a society where freedom, privacy, and dignity have been traded for endless time.

Vonnegut blends deadpan humor with social critique to explore the unintended consequences of technological “fixes”, the politics of aging and power, and how compassion thins when bodies crowd every room. The result is a brisk, unsettling fable about the price of outliving our world.

"Gramps Ford, his chin resting on his hands, his hands on the crook of his cane, was staring irascibly at the five-foot television screen that dominated the room. On the screen, a news commentator was summarizing the day's happenings. Every thirty seconds or so, Gramps would jab the floor with his cane-tip and shout, 'Hell, we did that a hundred years ago!'"