A short story.

3013

Dear Ones, 

I can still remember the day we learned how to live forever. The memory is always before me. I’m sure that men and women today would consider my memory prehistoric. Strangest to me is the fact that most of the children today will never understand life like we did all those years ago. How many of us who remember those days remain? It is hard to know. We have become the minority, a species stuck in limbo. 

In the prehistoric era, I worked at an emerging technologies company, a small operation whose name has escaped me for some time now. It was company culture to spend the first hours of the workday chatting about, visiting with coworkers, reading the news. I did not participate much. Company culture always seemed to be an excuse for the popular and mighty to make more money doing less work. I was neither popular nor mighty, I had nothing to contribute.

Father taught me that work was about work. The value of having a job was found in doing it well. He loved people, and never denied that socializing was a great part of the job, but he saw more to the equation. After he passed, I found the social aspect of work all the more challenging. I could not help but feel an incredible sense of guilt compounding upon every second I wasted. Mother took a quite different approach. On my way to work I would often get a call from her.

“That is what work is for!” she would exclaim, “you will talk to people today.”

“Yes, Mother.” I replied. 

That particular day, there was no shortage of opportunity to connect with others in the office. 

“Have you heard?”

“Have you seen? I never thought this day would come!” 

The Mighty and Popular were scurrying about the common spaces with a particular urgency, speaking quicker than usual. 

“What is going on?” I asked. 

“You are going to want to see for yourself,” my coworker replied, motioning for me to open my computer. I can still see the headline in my mind. Bold, stretching across the screen: 

“BIOS INC. SOLVES HUMAN AGING, PLANS TO GO PUBLIC.” 

In primary school I had learned about major historical events, things that changed the ebb and flow of history. The founding of America as a sovereign nation, the World Wars, the advent of the internet, all had inspired me as a child. Never had I thought I would live to see a day that would make such mountains resemble molehills. I felt no inspiration. Aging was no more - and BIOS was not ending wrinkles or skin blemishes. Death itself had been reduced to an equation. Solved. 

Within months, Bios had released their proof of concept studies and went public. They labeled their product with some long, elaborate name which has long since been forgotten. Our world quickly named it “the Pinch.” Within a decade BIOS was the most valuable company on earth. Thirty years after launch they had changed the trajectory of the human race. There was no amount of money that the rich were unwilling to fork over for the treatment. There was nothing that the poor were unwilling to do to get the money required for the treatment. Afterall, death was the last problem to be solved. We conquered evolution, conquered physical limitations. With time, we had overcome the limits of physics, disease. Food scarcity, water shortage, overpopulation, all of these things were problems that had been solved in the years before I was born. Death remained the sole conqueror of the human race. The last thing that stood between us and the perfect life. 

The world took time to process through the implications of such a development. My mind often drifts back to memories of Father. What would he have thought about all of this? He was a real man. Not the sort of person that is blown about by the notions of others. He was the sort of person that, after having one conversation with him, you knew he was solid. Not in any physical sense; in stature he was rather short and scrawny, but his soul had texture to it. You knew he was a person of substance. I remember him taking me to church when I was a child. I do not recall any of the lessons, or sermons, or people. What I do recall, however, is the way Father would sing. Frequently I would look at him during the service and see tears running down his face.

“Why are you sad?” I would ask. 

“These are not tears of sadness, my son,” he would reply. I was too timid to ask another question.

Mother never shared such religious sympathies. For as long as I can remember, the two were never similar in that regard. By the time I was a teenager I had decided that I could not share in Father’s religious nature either. The worship, the people, the trust, all of it terrified me. 

Though I had diverged from Father in this way, years after his death I could not help but wonder what he would have thought of the treatment. I wished with all my heart he had lasted a few more years. Given just a few more moments, perhaps he could have been the first in line, even a trial patient. The day that BIOS opened up to the public I was possessed by this sadness that I could scarcely describe. The rest of the world celebrated. I remained inside, reminiscing about memories of Father. Why was I downcast? I did not have time to wonder. Mother visited me with more news. 

3013.2

“You’ve seen the news I assume.” Mother asked. 

“Yes, I’m not sure there are many who haven’t.” I replied. Conversations with Mother were always interesting. During my time at college, when I started meeting women myself, I often wondered how on earth my parents had ended up together. Father was consistently kind, Mother was consistently… intense. 

“I am getting the pinch,” she said. 

“The pinch?” I asked. 

“Yes, the pinch, that is what everyone is calling it. I thought you said you had seen the news?”

“I did, I just didn’t know tha-”

“You need to get out more,” mother interrupted, “be more social. I know the lingo better than you. That is sad.”

“When are you getting it?” I asked, brushing off the dig. 

“The earliest available appointment is in March, two months or so.” 

I took a deep breath.

“I made the appointment for two. You are coming with me.”

My breath left me all at once. “I did not give you permission to do that, Mother.” I said, allowing some of my annoyance to show. 

“And you did not give me permission to give birth to you, but here you are.” She replied with a determined tone. 

“I do not want it.” I said with a fire that surprised me. I had not thought those words, but there they were. Silence overtook the room. Nothing, no response - I have no idea how long that lasted. But, with every added second of silence from Mother, I felt my confidence fading. Where did that response come from?

“You don’t want it?” Mother asked in a low, gravely voice, “and what is this about?”

I had no idea what to say in response. “It scares me,” I muttered. 

“Avoiding death scares you? No. Death is what scares you, that is exactly why I have made you an appointment. This is the single greatest breakthrough of our species, and you are afraid? How pitiful,” she said, with a scoff. Now it was my turn to perpetuate the silence. Internally, I was aware that I scarcely knew the answers to Mother’s intrusive questions. Why was I afraid? Shouldn’t I be more afraid of death?

“What is this really about?” Mother barked. A well of truth bubbled up inside of me, perhaps spurred on by the nature of the conversation, perhaps because of what I had been thinking about for the entire day. 

“Father!” I cried.

“Father? What does he have to do with this?” 

“How would he feel?” 

“He is dead, he doesn’t feel anything.” Mother snapped. She knew she’d stepped out of bounds.  “I’m sorry,” she said in a softer tone, “Father did what he thought was best.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, a kettle of unidentifiable feelings seething beneath the surface. 

“We all do what we have to do to survive. We rarely agree on what it takes to survive, what to do. Your Father had his methods, and I had mine - but regardless, I should not have spoken about him like that.”

“Survival? Why are we talking about survival now?” I asked, wondering exactly where the conversation was going. 

“You know exactly what I mean.” Mother said, a tinge of frost creeping back into her voice. “Surviving this life. Your fears, anxiety, your failures, they will all kill you if you let them. We all have to come up with a way to cope - your Father chose religion, I chose other methods.” Her words had a knockback effect - I had seen Mother rant countless times, but this was different, more candid and piercing. All of a sudden it dawned on me, a feeling I had only felt a handful of times: Mother was being honest. 

“If it is about survival, then, why are you so bitter towards Father’s choices? I asked.

“Father and I simply did not agree,” she replied, “if you want me to be candid, I always thought that religion, like your Father’s, was just a way to deal with fear of death. Nothing true about it, just a good pill.”

“But why would that make you bitter?” I wondered. Mother took a moment before letting out a long sigh.

“I suppose watching the man I loved devote his whole life to something so silly and temporary made me angry.” I thought for a few moments how Father would feel about that word “temporary.” It seems a tad ironic to me. I did not comprehend much of his beliefs, but I knew he would not have seen his convictions as bearing such a label. 

“Father did not see his religion as temporary,” I said, offering a counterpoint not because of my own personal conviction but out of curiosity. Mother was now gazing out of my apartment window; something had softened her. 

“Of course not, they never do,” she said. “But don’t you see?” Her attention was now entirely on me once again, “It was temporary. Religion had one purpose, and now it has none. For all of human history we have been afraid of death, so we spawned religion, some vision of life after death. We have no need for such things now. I promise you, in the next hundred years, religion will be an advent of the past.” With this, Mother began to gather her things. At the door she turned back to deliver one final thought. 

“I do not understand you, child,” her voice was uncharacteristically unsteady, “you have the chance at a nearly perfect life, right in front of you, and you’re afraid? All the time you could ever want, you could see the world, every single part of it. There is no one you could not make friends with, make love with if you wanted to. No movie you could not see, food you could not eat. You have everything you want within your grasp.” A single tear streaked down from her eye. Surprised at her own emotion, Mother quickly wiped the tear away and gathered herself. 

“Do not be such a fool” she huffed, slamming the door on her way out. 

Still to this day I am not sure if it was because of her tears or her words, but I was swayed. 

3042

The Pinch did not take more than half an hour. The early years were a bit of a haze - I still felt the drag of time and it was hard to sense what had truly changed. Thirty years passed without much thought. The world had never been in such a revel. Humanity eliminated its greatest fear. For many years there was hardly anything which could get people’s spirits down, myself included. Who cares if the decades slip away? They were no longer finite. 

Some things remained the same. I continued working for my firm, and all of my time off I dedicated to travel, entertainment, and the like. One trip in particular juts out in my mind. Taking Mother’s advice, I booked a ticket to see the Merry Isles - a longtime dream destination of mine. Postcards hailed the Isles as one of the must see wonders of our world. What a place it was. Sprawling beaches, water like crystal and that beach-city temperate weather that never gets overly hot or cold. The Isles were relatively remote, with thin bridges connecting the archipelago to the mainland. The bridges arched high into the sky, and the hotels incorporated the natural flora into their exterior plating - both works of art in their own right. The result was a stirring mix of modern architecture and terrestrial beauty. 

Stepping out of their humble airport, I hailed a cab. It was a long and somewhat tedious drive to my hotel, but I didn’t mind. I can still remember looking out the windows of the cab, stirred within by the way mankind had worked together with the earth to create this place which oozed serenity scarcely found in daily life. En route to my lodging we had to drive through various cities - well, perhaps town is the more appropriate term. In these towns, I could not help but notice the lack of development. There were no large buildings, no manufactured markets. “In this day and age?” I thought to myself. Driving a bit further we passed a group of these small rectangular buildings about the size of the average living room. Each one was made with an amalgamation of stones and some sort of pitch, plain on the outside, with a central opening about the size of a small adult. This opening was covered with a loose cloth. I puzzled for a bit, wondering what purpose these hovels served - burial sites perhaps? Then to my amazement (or perhaps my shock) three young children, grinning ear to ear, blew through the cloth of one hovel and ran furiously about after one another before eventually disappearing into one of the other small buildings. Homes! These were houses, not burial sites.

As we continued on, I saw more of these homes grouped together at various points down the road. Some of the homes had people standing outside. One group in particular was hunched together around a table playing some sort of a game. The men were shirtless, and their shorts were ragged. The women wore dresses. As our car passed them the entire group turned and gave a cheer, waving as we went by! 

I spent the rest of my time in the car reflecting. Here in the Isles, I had already seen two things which I’d never seen before. Never had I seen such poverty, a standard of living that frightened me. It pained me to see such conditions. The postcards had surely left this part of the Isles out of sight. At the very same time, never had I seen such joy. I only saw flashes - the children running about and the jovial shout from the crowd on the side of the road - but they were brilliant flashes nonetheless. 

I arrived at the hotel in quite a pensive mood. I felt my  thoughts hanging over me, like a doom. Resolved to alleviate my pensive mind, I went straight to my room, showered, and slept. When I awoke the next day, my cloud was gone, much to my delight. I spent the rest of my time in the Isles enjoying the crystal water, and breathtaking atmosphere. I thought to myself “Mother was right, I must see every part of the world if they are half as beautiful as this.” But on the last day of my trip, just before I was to head home, the doom returned. I thought again of my time in the cab. All at once, I decided I must see more. So, near the middle of the day, I left the hotel premises and ventured into the nearby village. 

The entire place was empty - not a soul to be seen. The few stands selling merchandise were entirely unmanned. No children in the streets, no groups of people playing games. I wandered about for a bit feeling extremely uncomfortable both by the silence and the setting. Then, just as I was about to head back to my suite, a loud sound rang out through the entire village. I looked around to find the source of the noise and I saw a bell, swinging back and forth in a steeple just across the way. All at once, the building upon which the steeple rested had its doors flung open and droves of people started flooding out. Men, women and children all were making their way out of the building. I instantly noticed that the entire group was well dressed, relatively speaking. The men were wearing ratty button-up shirts, most of them slightly discolored. The women wore floral dresses and shoes - the men were totally barefooted. All at once it struck me - the entire village had been at church. 

I had not even realized that it was a Sunday. Unexpectedly, a wave of emotion crashed over me. Torrents of feeling and memories seemed to well up from some undiscovered source in my soul. One moment I was standing there looking at the chapel, and the next I was raptured up into my own mind, overwhelmed by thoughts of Father, and memories I had of sitting in church with him. These memories were quickly interrupted by an approaching local. 

“Where you from, sir?” The man asked. As I came out of my daze, I couldn't help but notice the peculiarities of the man’s face: sprawling freckles, a pair of missing teeth, numerous sunspots, and bright white eyebrows so bushy you would almost have to assume that they were artificial - unlikely in such a place. His voice was light and carried an accent which I could not place. His eyes, framed by those magnanimous brows, bore a look of sincere kindness.

“From the mainland,” I stammered. 

“Oh, very good,” He replied, “and what has brought you round?”

“Ah, holiday. I’ve wanted to see the Merry Isles since I was a boy - you live in such a beautiful place.” I cringed inside as the words fumbled out; I sounded like the typical tourist bothering a nice old man. 

“Yes, it is quite the destination,” he said with a slight chuckle. “I had figured you were here for that, I was more wondering what has brought you here?” I felt blood rushing to my face. 

“Oh, yes. I wanted to see more of the area.” This was not the whole truth, but I could not find the courage to ask the real question I had in mind. 

“Well, we are glad to have you here. It’s just, we don’t get many visitors like you - so I was curious” the man replied with a charitable smile. 

“What is it like, living like this? I asked. The man instantly cocked his head to the side, and I knew I had made a mistake. 

“Like this?” He asked, “what do you mean?”

“Oh - I only mean, life here seems rather different from my own back on the mainland. I’m just curious to hear what that must be like for you all” I said, trying to recover.

“You mean, what is it like living poor, is that right?” The man asked. He saw right through me. But, his response carried no twinge of aggression or insult. He asked this question truly, sincerely, and did not seem to be bothered. 

“No- I mean, I was really more asking-”

“It's alright,” the man gently interjected, “we know we are poor.” I suddenly felt at a loss for words. Why did I come here? To insult a poor local man on his way home from church? I had felt like a tourist before - but now I felt like a fool. I stood there, shifting back and forth a bit, contemplating how I was to escape this conversation. Cut the ties, say sorry, and get back to the hotel as quickly as possible. But then the man continued on.

“So what is it like living poor? This is a good question.” As he said this, he sat back on his heels and began stroking his chin in thought. “As a lad, you do not think much of it at all. In fact, poorness is not a real idea to you. It’s more round the middle years that it begins hitting you back. Hard to eat, hard to feed, hard to work. People die, family die.” The man paused here, clearly stirred up by some thought. “But the hardest part of being poor is being old!” He said, letting out a deep laugh before sobering up and finishing, in a solemn tone, “When you get old, you see your family and your friends around you suffering, and you want to help, but you cannot. This is the hardest part of being poor.”

“You are getting older?” I asked, totally confounded. It had only been a decade or so, and I had genuinely forgotten (or perhaps blocked out) the fact that people would grow older and die. “Why have you and your people not gotten the pinch?

“Oh, we heard of that some many years ago, but our resources are not like this.” He said with a humble smile. 

It took me a moment to process all this information. For the last decade I had been under the impression that the world’s problems had been solved. The illusion was so strong I had not even considered that people on the earth still grew old. I myself had not aged a day since my procedure. I had always rationalized my lifestyle, my travel, with the logic that the problems of earth had been solved - there was no one else to help. That is what all the companies had been saying, anyways. 

“What on earth keeps you going?” I asked, too baffled to consider whether or not I was being polite anymore. The man stroked his chin again, and sat thinking to himself for some time, one hand fondling a wood cross necklace, before looking at me with his tender eyes and saying: 

“One day, I will have eternity. Things will be better then.”

His words were like an arrow to my soul. How was it that I could enjoy the vast privileges of my life while this man, and his family, wasted away? It was at that very moment that I resolved to go home and work harder than I ever had before. I thought to myself “I will make a way for his dream of eternity to be realized.”

It took centuries for me to comprehend the magnitude of my misunderstanding. 

3080

I returned from that holiday pregnant with ambition. Most people return from their vacation relaxed and reluctant - but coming home filled me with a vigor of the likes which I had never previously possessed. If I was to continue living into perpetuity, I resolved to live with means, so that a holiday might not be sullied by its own end, and that I might be able to help those who had less achieve a better life. 

I cannot say I was motivated out of compassion, in truth it was more like guilt. In seeing those people, the life that they lived, I carried a massive weight upon my shoulders. If I was going to live this privileged life, an immortal life, I felt compelled by their poverty to use some chunk of my never-ending time to bring parity between our two worlds. Perhaps that would put me at ease. The decades slipped by. 

I started a company and discovered that I was rather good at business. Sales came easy, with enough time. Perhaps it was the directness of Mother in me, but I found a way to convince people they needed what I had to sell. Interestingly, in the decades immediately after the Pinch became a worldwide offering, gross domestic product rose year over year at rates that had previously been unfathomable. All of this made for ideal conditions in the marketplace. 

I built my business around travel. Brokering places to stay, flight details, whatever I could get my hands on. Quickly, I realized that demand was outpacing our ability to sell. Places which had once been forgotten or regarded as rather “drab” were now being sought out, perhaps in part due to boredom. Customers no longer carried a sense of budget or prioritization - they simply wanted something they had not done before, no matter how mundane that thing may be. So, we capitalized. 

Within a decade of beginning my new venture I was making more money in a single year than I had in my entire lifetime. Though my true goal was to help people like the ones in the Merry Isles, generating this kind of revenue did have some pleasant side-effects. I no longer reported to anyone, made my own schedule, and essentially did as I pleased. I gave to the poor, in keeping with my original mission. I must confess this felt rather good. Seeing my own work benefit people who could not help themselves brough levity to that pesky burden which so often sat squarely on my shoulders. 

By this time, distributors could purchase the materials needed to administer the Pinch at their own discretion. These Assemblies were by no means cheap, but they allowed the Pinch to reach farther across the world. Forty years after visiting the Merry Isles I shipped enough Assemblies to the village for everyone to receive the treatment. Had I taken too long? Would any of them be alive to receive my gift? Better late than not at all, I reasoned. When I received confirmation that the shipment had arrived in the Isles a wave of satisfaction and accomplishment came over me. I was proud. There was something within me that knew Father would have been pleased with what I had done. Giving was something he encouraged. I felt lighter. 

It did not last. A month later I woke up in the middle of the night, shaken by a thought. I was struck - or blindsided rather - by the stunning realization that I was going to be working forever. I had started my business with a goal in mind. Those goals gave me a sense of control, lordship, and direction. But having realized my aspiration, the tables suddenly turned and I was no longer in the driving seat. 

If I am to live on, with no end in sight, I am a slave to my life. What, really, am I working for? My dreams had been fulfilled, my family provided for, my ego validated. What else is there to do? In this sea of ambiguity I felt chained to my work, no longer working towards an end, but simply working so that I did not need to sit still. Like a shark which always has to keep moving forward, I realized that night that I was now damned to work for an eternity, journeying towards nothing, solely so that I did not collapse in on myself for lack of purpose. 

Like cancer, the thought grew stronger. 

I had no one over me any longer, no structure to conform to, no authorities to whom I reported - and yet something within me missed such things. I fought to ignore this notion, but that night there was no escaping it. Honestly, I yearned for the days in which I was guided, when I was not my own master. Something within me recoiled at the notion of lording over my estate for the next thousand years. But who was the lord, and who was the estate? In the light of an eternal existence such distinctions became strangely blurred.

The cancer only worsened in the morning when I woke up to a correspondence from my executive assistant. The packages I had shipped to the Merry Isles had been returned. Not a single vial had been used. To say that I was bewildered would be a gross understatement. Not knowing how to respond, I cornered my assistant on the phone, enraged. He explained to me the situation, and that the package had truly been returned by the rightful recipients. The poor man had done nothing wrong, but that did not stop me from blaming him in the moment - looking back I simply could not comprehend the emotions I felt. Reeling, I continued reading the message he had initially sent me and discovered that the entire shipment had been returned with a note attached. 

“We have no need,” was all it said. The brevity somehow pained me just as much as the content. For the first time in my life I wished for death. 

3111

Depression set in. Business continued on but no achievement pleased me like it did before that night. With every waking day my soul stretched out further and further, getting thinner by the hour. The thought that my joyless work was going to last forever served as a prison. There was no escaping - apart from drastic measures. 

My last resort was turning away from my own life and to the embrace of another. One Summer I met a girl, we courted for some amount of time before declaring ourselves a pair. This had become quite fashionable. I still do remember the days in which people would get “married.” But, once everyone learned they could live forever an eternal commitment of matrimony seemed rather implausible. So, we came together as “pairs.” When Ruby and I got together we agreed that fifty or so years would be reasonable. 

Our time together was amicable. She respected me, and I her. I enjoyed her company well enough, but I never loved her as I thought I might. Our eternal world conditioned us to preserve a certain sort of distance between people, lest they begin to tell you what you can or cannot do. As a result, I enjoyed Ruby, but I knew in my heart she was there to serve a purpose. Undoubtedly, she felt the same. 

On a short holiday out of the city, Ruby and I reconnected by chance with one of my old business associates. We got to chatting and eventually made arrangements for dinner with him and his partner. 

“Good to see you both! Has it been twenty years?” my former associate asked as we settled into the table. 

“That sounds about right,” Ruby replied with a smile. 

“Well, fill us in! How’s life?” He asked. 

“Life is good,” I lied with a smile. “Staying busy, business is still good, focusing more on direct to consumer markets now.” The table smiled and nodded along, patiently waiting for me to continue. 

“Yep.” I didn’t know what more to add. 

“Twenty years man, gonna need a bit more from you than that!” my associate and his partner chuckled.

“Of course,” I said with a light laugh, “it has been a long time… Where to start…” I sat back in my seat for a moment of introspection. That moment turned into minutes - I was at a loss. Ruby put her hand on my arm, trying to draw me back into the conversation. 

“I’m sorry,” I said, disguising my uncomfortability with a chuckle. “I’m not entirely sure how to answer that - so much has happened.” This was true, in a sense. But how was it that so much could have transpired, and yet none of it felt substantive? 

“We went last year to the Andes; trip of our lives!” Ruby saved me. She carried on the conversation. I tried to crawl out of my own head and participate but could not find a way out. I was briefly aware of the words being said, and every couple minutes or so my associate would glance leerily in my direction.

I eventually came out of my strange stupor to find the table talking about an old friend. 

“Did you all hear about Daniel?” my associate asked. 

“No, what happened?” I asked. 

“Welcome back,” Ruby said, rubbing me on the back. 

“Sorry” I said sheepishly, “Had a bit of a moment there.”

“You remember Daniel, right?” he asked. 

“Yes, of course.”

“He always struck me as a funny guy, jovial, and whatever, right? You will never guess what happened to him.”

I remembered Daniel. He worked with us some years ago in sales. He was jovial, had a great sense of humor, but I also remembered him being serious at times and asking good questions. I liked him. 

“What!? Quit the suspense!” Ruby barked. 

“He killed himself.” 

“Shut UP!” She said, pressing her hand against mine with an almost bemused expression, like the kind of face one makes when the news reports a celebrity scandal. 

“Serious!” my associate replied. 

“That’s terrible…” I said. 

“Do you know why? It was depression wasn’t it?” Ruby asked, almost too intrigued, I thought. My associate’s partner chimed in. 

“That’s the most scandalous part, Ruby, he left a note saying that he had lived enough,” she said. Ruby didn’t reply, she just put her hand over her mouth, concealing a scandalous expression. 

“Can you believe that?” My associate started, “All that money to get the Pinch, the whole world at his fingertips, and he decides he has had enough. Ungrateful, that's what it is. 

“So ungrateful.” Ruby replied. 

The drive home from dinner was pensive. Ruby broke the silence. 

“Can you believe Daniel would do that?” I didn’t feel much like talking. 

“No,” I lied, again. 

“Enough! He had enough of life. I mean, that is just pretentious, we all live full lives.” I gave an acknowledging grunt in response. Ruby quieted down the rest of the drive. But, when I glanced her way, I saw her looking out the window tapping one hand vigorously on the armrest of the car. I had seen her do that once before. During one of our holidays, the last day if I remember correctly, there was a girl that had been flirting with me at the bar. I told Ruby about it, and never reciprocated; I only ever thought it was amusing. The next day as we took a car to the airport she had tapped on the armrest just like that. 

She was envious.

3312

Enough of my history has been recounted. I am not writing so that my story is celebrated. You see, dear children, I’m writing because some things have changed and I need you to be aware of the world into which you step. People will likely speak rather ill of me in a few years. When I’m gone, I want you to understand why I’ve made my choices, so that you do not easily commit my sins in your own lifetime, however long you choose for that to be. 

But, that is really the main reason I have laid out parts of my history this way. I want to persuade you not to live forever. In fact, I want you to consider not extending your life at all. This is social suicide, I know. But dear children, living three centuries like I have is a suicide of its own. I doubtless will be in the minority position. Most of the people you and I know will carry on an indeterminable amount of time, but this is my conviction: everyone who takes the Pinch will choose to give up its advantages eventually. For some souls that have been hardened, they may last millenia. But for those of us, like myself, who cannot deny the realities of our lives, the Pinch has quickly proved to be a mirage. It promised to be a deep well of living water, but upon reception turned out to be an endless poison. 

Before the change, all my soul did was grow thinner by the day, with a life of nothing but meaningless achievement. But perhaps even still you are not swayed, likely because you have not tasted it for yourselves yet (or maybe some of you have.) The emptiness of a life forever bound to this broken world has not touched you yet because you are young. Do you want proof that such things will come, and they cannot be escaped? 

Years after that dinner I reached my breaking point. My life continued on, and I continued to succeed. My business was strong, I had traveled the world, I did as I wished, and I had someone to share it with - and everyday my depression deepened. In the scope of eternity, even good things cease to satisfy. Innately pure things like friendship, generosity, and hard work all lost their traction - as if my soul had simply been stripped of its tread over time. I was not a delinquent, sullying my life and squandering what I had worked for. And yet, everyday I suffered the sentence of a meaningless life. 

One day, the pressure finally broke me. 

I was walking down the street in the city to meet with a client. I rounded the corner, and right in front of me on the way to our locale, were the doors of a church. Droves of people streamed out. 

I didn’t even know it was Sunday. 

Immediately I was raptured up into a faint memory. I was back in the Merry Isles - how long had it been now? The natural beauty of that place, and the stench of rejection remained with me. I stood there for a moment, trying to comprehend why exactly I was so moved, or surprised. Angry? 

I waded through the river of congregants to make my way inside the Church. Some hundred years ago churches seemed to just fade out of existence. Maybe it was just my consciousness. Regardless, organized religions stopped using words like “church” as they became increasingly unreliable to the population - stained with ancient memories of a darker era. And yet, as I made my way to the gaping front door, the sign overhead boldly read: 

“CHRISTIAN CHURCH”

That was it. No frills, no “assembly” or “gathering".” The straightforwardness of it all made me even more uneasy. Inside was no less soothing. Right here in the heart of the city, this church must have been the most plain building I had ever stepped into. The interior consisted of one large main room with chairs and a small pulpit, I believe it is called, at the front of the hall. There must have been two hundred people in the room. 

Suddenly I realized that it was not the physical building which was fraying my nerves. It was the people. They were still here. The service, if they still call it that, had ended, but here they were. Had these men and women no places to go, things to do? The obligation of my own business meeting came to mind, but all at once I dismissed it. Something within me knew I had to stay. 

Not only were people still there, they were happy. They were smiling at one another. Everyone does that, I suppose, but you can always tell when something lives on the surface and when it comes from deep within. These people were smiling, laughing, from the deep. Admittedly, not all were jovial. I spotted, in the corner, a small group huddled around a young woman who was sobbing uncontrollably. Each person in the group took a turn wrapping the woman into a tight hug. I looked away, uncomfortable in every part of my being. 

Overcome with sudden exhaustion, I collapsed into one of the nearby seats and threw my head into my hands. I rocked back and forth. I don’t know why, but there was no controlling it. I thought these things had gone extinct. Mother’s shrill voice rang in my ear, followed by flowing memories of Father. I don’t know which is worse. People begin approaching me, touching me lightly on the shoulder, asking me questions which I paid no mind to. I am in another place now. 

Mother’s voice is eventually drowned out by my new reality. I looked up to see that I was in a different church, and indeed a different year. Long ago, with Father. He paid no mind to me at all. His eyes were closed, his hands raised. I was not his concern, and yet this did not concern me. Something within me found solace in the fact that I was not his whole world - his soul was truly of a different kind. A loud “AMEN” resounded about the room, and Father opened his eyes. Smiling, he looked down at me with those tender eyes of his. Tears streamed down his face. 

“Why are you sad?” my child-self asked. I had never seen Mother cry. She always scolded me for my tears.

“These are not tears of sadness, my son,” he replied. 

I snapped back into the real world. What I would have given to stay wrapped up in that dream. The temple of my soul was collapsing. The very existence of this church was doing something within. It should not have been there. We do not die anymore. Death is an artifact of history, not a present reality. The opiate of religion may have been needed for a time, like for Father when he was sick, but its time had ended. 

The currents of my soul were churning. The memories of Father were all too sweet to be real. My conversations with Mother shatter them. I think myself the fool for becoming such a sap. But my rationale does not rescue me from my hole. The pain of the Isles, turned their nose and scoffed at my generosity! They will get what they deserve! Their note was burned into my mind. My depression. Long nights. Long flights. Pointless vacations. When was the last time I laughed? Why did Daniel do it? I cannot cry in front of Ruby. I think she secretly hates me. I am a slave - my business is my master. I am chained to eternity, I will die in eternity - all for nothin-

I snapped. 

“Why are you here?!” I shouted at those who surrounded me. . 

The entire group recoiled at once, shocked. They looked at me with wide eyes, like I might have lurched forward at any moment. 

“Why are you here?” I seethed. One man steps forward, the leader. 

“Hey, everything is going to be okay - do you know where you are right now?”

“I’m not high.” I barked back. Where did all of this come from? I seemed to be speaking out a deep well which finally spewed forth at the surface. The pressure of eternity cracking my soul. 

“Okay, okay,” he calmed me with his hands, “what is it that you are asking, sir?” he asked with a careful but kind tone. 

I sob. I could not stop myself. The group comforted me until I was coherent again. 

“How can we help you, sir?”

“Why are you here?” I whimpered. 

“Well, what exactly do you mean by that?” the leader kindly replied. I gathered myself, and regained my composure. 

“Why do all of this? I motioned around to the church hall. “Why do you keep all this up, why pretend?” The leader gave a slight nod of understanding, and let out a small sigh. He discreetly motioned for the rest of the group to give us space. He sat down across from me. 

“You mean, church, right? Christianity? He asked. 

“Yes.”

“You mentioned something about the Pinch. Death. Why believe in Christ when we no longer need to die? Is that what you are asking?” I nod in the affirmative. “You and the rest of the world” the man replies with a smile. “Religion is hope - that’s what you’ve been taught, right?”

My terse stare is enough of an answer. 

“See, for some, that is certainly the function of religion. I cannot deny it. The thoughtless among us always tend to give off a bad look. But, dear friend,” he looks directly into my eyes, his soft voice unescapable, “true religion is not about hope. Hope is only a product, a fruit. Christianity lives on because it is true.” 

“True; that’s a word I have not heard in a while,” I remarked. The kind man gave a light chuckle and nodded in agreement. Suddenly I thought of Father, his death. 

“Did you all get the Pinch?” I asked. 

“We did not,” he answered. Firm, but somehow approachable. 

“How on earth can you live, knowing you will die? Isn’t it terrible?” I asked, forgetting that I once lived under such fear some centuries ago. The man gave a slight smile, and I swear I saw a spark in his eyes, gleaming as it ran from one pupil to the other. 

“You see…” 

At his response, something shattered and a brilliant light was scattered within. I was never the same. 

Dear Ones, shortly after my conversion I had my Pinch removed. It can in fact be undone, for the few who choose such. That was some time ago. Perhaps now you will understand. For the second time in my life, I have an end. I am quite old now, what a thought! I’ve come to see beauty in that. I have tasted all this life has to offer. Unending days burn bright, but their light grows pale. Why codify my story? Because I pray it is a story that you learn from. 

I’ve rambled on long enough now. I shall end it at this and hope it is enough. I love you all dearly. There is more to this life than living. I hope one day you join me.