Warhaven
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- Joined
- Jun 6, 2006
- Messages
- 13
Didn't get any comments on my last one, so hopefully this won't be as boring for you all. I apologize. Anyway, Lifeline is a short story I wrote some time ago that I've been considering extending into a full novel. There are a few footnotes which I'll include as quoted text in the story.
*** NOTICE ***
This is a full short story, so it's fairly long. Just FYI.
**************
----------
Wham! The loud buzz of consciousness hummed in the back of Gregory Vaughn’s head, his shortly cropped brown hair sticky and matted. He had the slight inkling that he was supposed to be somewhere, but at the moment, he had no idea where he was. From the sound of it, it would appear something rather eventful just happened. There was a lot of shouting, and a person crying – a woman perhaps? The sobs were so frantic it could be just about anyone.
Gregg tried to move, but his legs didn't respond. He tried opening his eyes, but they didn't respond either. A distant and far away voice shouted excitedly from the darkness, “I found a live one! Get that hammer over here!” Gregg vaguely began to wonder who the shouting man was, when the unmistakable popping sound of a pneumatic hammer began pounding his head.
Gregg’s body vibrated painfully as the hammer thumped and thumped again, an enormous headache forming on both sides of his head. The man with the hammer must have been thinking along the same wavelength as Gregg, because just as Gregg was about to tell the man off for making such a racket, the excruciating noise suddenly stopped. A few moments later Gregg’s body started floating upwards. He was weightless, a balloon set loose upon the sky. It was the most peculiar feeling he had ever felt. It was as though someone grabbed him under the arms and flung him effortlessly into the air.
As Gregg hovered, feeling quite content, he managed to open an eye a crack. Bright points of light danced across his vision. Blue and red, it would seem. “Fourth of July?” he wondered to himself. “No, that can’t be it. It’s only February. Yes, February the 19th. It had to be. I have a board meeting to-” then it hit him, the memories exploding into his head like an enraged bull. Gregg’s brain tried desperately to keep up, to comprehend everything that had happened: the car veering into oncoming traffic, the moment of impact, the noise, the pain, and everything happening in the blink of an eye. It was a collage of chaos, noise, and bright lights, and it was all too much. Mercifully and always waiting, the impenetrable darkness of unconsciousness crept over his vision; and without a second thought, Gregg succumbed to the pain-free blackness.
“Mr. Vaughn?” a distant and gentle voice said. “Mr. Vaughn, are you awake?”
Gregg slowly blinked his eyes open and turned his head to the source of the voice, immediately wishing he hadn’t. There wasn’t an inch on his body that didn’t hurt, even his eyes, which strained to take in the view. A woman with short, curly, black hair stood next to him, wearing a pale green outfit. She had startling green eyes that matched the outfit perfectly, accompanied by a very pleasing face. Another dose of pain spanned the length of Gregg’s body, moving in slow waves from head to toe.
“Morphine,” Gregg mumbled.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Vaughn, but you’ve already been given the allotted limit,” the woman said. She turned her head and said off to the side, “Doctor, he’s awake.”
Another person stepped into view, replacing the woman. This one was male, very tall – over six feet to Gregg’s best estimate – and also wearing a green outfit, though it was spattered with red. Not nearly as pleasant looking as the first, Gregg thought to himself. The tall man leaned over, his dark-skinned face accompanied by an impressive mustache.
“Mr. Vaughn, I am Doctor Chiranjeev. Do you know where you are?” the man said with a deep voice and a thick accent.
Gregg tried to speak, but nothing came out. He tried again, and managed something that sounded like, “Spittle.”
“You are in Saint Andrew’s,” the deep voice said again. “You were in a car accident, Mr. Vaughn.”
Images of the accident, most of them blurred, out of focus, and moving very quickly, bombarded Gregg’s head again. It wasn’t nearly as bad or as painful this time, either as a result of the morphine or because this was the second time around. He wasn’t quite sure which.
Gregg blinked again. His eyes hurt tremendously, the pain suddenly exacerbated by a bright light shining into Gregg’s eyes. The light lingered for a few a moments, followed by Doctor Chiranjeev nodding and pocketing a small flashlight.
“He will be all right with a bit of rest. He is all yours, nurse.”
The pleasant looking woman nodded, took hold of the bed, and began wheeling it out of the room.
“You’re a lucky one,” she said, looking down over his head as she pushed the bed down a white-lit hallway. “Your spinal column was severed in four different places.”
Gregg’s eyes widened, and the nurse laughed.
“Not to worry. We were able to repair the damage with stem cell applications. You’ll be up and about in no time, Mr. Vaughn.”
The nurse wheeled the bed into a well-lit room, next to a window that spanned the entire width of the wall. Gregg, gritting his teeth, turned his head toward the window and looked out at the vast landscape. The sun was just starting to set. Amber hues brushed the bottoms of distant clouds as if trying desperately to hold onto them, if only to keep the sun afloat for a few more moments.
The nurse gazed for a while at the setting sun, then said, “If you need anything Mr. Vaughn, just push the button on the left side of your bed. I'll check in on you in a few hours. Sweet dreams.”
The nurse quietly left, leaving Gregg alone with his thoughts. He slowly looked down at the nightstand next to his bed. The oranges and reds of the afternoon sun bathed a medical magazine, which lay opened to colorfully animated advertisement. The magazine was a weak old, dated February 8th, 2257. He craned his neck a bit farther to get a better look at the ad. It depicted an elderly woman pouring a bucket of water over her head. As the water cascaded down her body, the wrinkles adorning her wise features disappeared, replaced by smooth skin and a firm bosom. The woman shook the water from her hair and smiled as misty words puffed into existence above her head, “Eternal youth can be yours. Ask your doctor about anti-aging treatments.”
Suddenly, Gregg felt very mortal. He had nearly died mere hours earlier, and thoughts of being surrounded by people he barely knew, singing somber songs over a white casket, seeped into his mind for the first time. “Has anything really changed, though?” he thought to himself. “So I didn't die in the car accident. So what? I’m still going to get old, and I’m still going to face the inevitable again.” Gregg looked down at his side, where his right arm should have been. He raised his other arm painfully and rubbed his face. He could feel sutures lining his right eyebrow and all the way down to his jaw line.
Heaving a big sigh, he felt his toe give a comforting twitch beneath his bed covers. “I don’t have to die,” he mumbled to himself, thinking of the elderly woman turned youthful beauty. Gregg's head suddenly gave a rebellious stab of pain in response to all of his thinking, and he shut his eyes tightly in an attempt to stem the pain. Several moments passed, and the sharp stabs turned into slow waves. Gregg's toe twitched again, and a strange tingling began creeping up his leg as feeling started to return. He gave another sigh, though this one being a sigh of relief. Then, satisfied that the doctors and nurses had done their jobs, he allowed himself to drift off into unconsciousness once more.
The nurse was right. It hadn’t taken Gregg more than a couple of weeks for his body to readjust to the new spinal tissue. The brain and body worked remarkably fast, even for a man passing forty-five years of age. Nurse Jennings, as her name turned out to be, helped Gregg every step of the way. First the water tank, then crutches, and now a simple leg brace. In a few more days, he wouldn’t need any supports whatsoever.
Gregg lay on his stomach as the nurse massaged the length of his back. The ad from the magazine had become very prominent in Gregg’s mind during the course of his rehabilitation. Gregg finally decided to broach the subject.
“You know, I saw an ad the other day. It was about those anti-aging treatments. Does St. Andrew’s administer them?”
He could sense the nurse nodding.
“Indeed we do. I take it you were thinking of undergoing treatment?”
Gregg nodded, and he could tell the nurse was smiling.
“Most people who go through a life-altering event such as yours start considering it. Nearly every patient I’ve treated has wanted it shortly after recovery, but you must realize it’s a huge commitment. Plus,” she paused for a moment as she worked intensely on a particular back muscle, “you’re not guaranteed the treatment. It’s not a simple matter of having enough money. You have to see financial advisors, change your tax status, your citizenship status, wave your right to have children, pass an initial and yearly psych-examinations, et cetera. It’s a very lengthy expensive process.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. Quite a few first gens(1) sort of…lost it,” Gregg said offhandedly.
“Roll over please,” Nurse Jennings said, and Gregg did as he was told.
She started working on the sides of his neck, and the shoulder muscle near the remaining right arm.
“The human brain wasn’t designed to run that long,” Nurse Jennings said simply. “One lifetime is enough to make some people lose it. Give them three or four lifetimes, and well, you do the math. That’s why after the second gens, they formed the ICC(2).”
Gregg lay quiet for some time, as Nurse Jennings worked his other muscles. He thought back to the car accident, what could have been, and what doesn’t have to be. The nurse respectfully remained quiet, letting Gregg roll this information around in his head.
“I think I’m going to do it,” Gregg said. “There’s so much more I’d like to do. So many things I haven’t done. I just never had the time to do them. Strange, it took a car accident for me to realize that.”
Nurse Jennings smiled politely. She had such a pleasant face, Gregg thought to himself again.
“How long have you been a nurse, Ms. Jennings?” Gregg continued after a few moments of silence.
“Oh, not nearly long enough, and God willing, a while longer. It’s sort of my passion, you know? Although, It’s kind of funny, because I’m actually the senior staff member here. I’m not really a nurse.”
“Senior staff member?” he repeated. That meant she had at least three doctorates.
“Yup,” she said plainly. “I’m retired, actually. Eighty years, almost to this day. I just do massage therapy now, and rehabilitation.”
Gregg stared at her in bewilderment.
“You didn’t see that one coming, did you?” she mused.
“I had no idea,” Gregg said, still in awe. She doesn’t look much older than twenty-five!
“Whelp, we’re all done here,” Nurse Jennings said suddenly. “You’re free to go, but I have a couple last-minute notes to give you.” Gregg leaned up and swung his legs off to the side. “The stiffness and the phantom pains in your right shoulder are going to be around for a while.” Gregg moved the stump that was his right arm, and winced.
“It’ll be about nine months before the replacement arm has finished maturing,” she explained. “Then we’ll start stem treatments to regrow the nerves on the end there,” she said, pointing to the lump of flesh that still remained on Gregg’s shoulder.
“When that’s finished we’ll do the final graft, reattaching the mature arm, and then several more treatments to attach the nerves in the graft to the rest of the body. In the mean time, we’ll prescribe you some pain medication to help dull the pain.”
Gregg nodded appreciatively, “Thank you, Nurse.”
“Do you have any questions?” she asked.
“Just one. Did you ever have any doubts?”
Nurse Jennings smiled, “None whatsoever, but if you have any yourself, I suggest wholeheartedly that you don’t go through with the treatment. However, I’m not a psychiatrist, and it’s not my place to give advice on such matters.” She paused for a while and smiled pleasantly again. “Good luck, Mr. Vaughn.”
“Thanks,” he said again simply.
As he headed for the door to gather his belongings, Nurse Jennings waved goodbye, her young portrait of a face adorning a smile.
“Incredible,” he said to himself, and waved back.
It had occurred to Gregg that he had never driven with only one arm. The company had been gracious enough to loan him a car for a while, but Gregg found himself standing there, looking at the car with an uneasy feeling. No sense in fretting over it, he thought to himself, and clambered into the car. Turning the ignition, the car gave a low hum and readily displayed all the widgets and dials that accompanied the newer cars.
“Self-navigation system,” Gregg said aloud in amusement. “They must’ve heard what happened back at the office.” Gregg looked the car over more thoroughly and noticed it was also equipped for use on the mag rail(3) system. He never had a car this fancy. Gregg fumbled with a few widgets and buttons, voiced in his home address to the car’s navigation system, and then said simply to the air, “Home.”
As the car sped off of its own accord, he began pondering what his life would be like one hundred and fifty years from now. That is of course, assuming he went through with the life-extension. He’d have to watch his friends grow old and die while he stayed young himself. Would it be difficult to make new friends? To watch them grow old and die as well? Would he marry? What would he do with all of this newly-found time?
A log house of questions quickly piled up, and Gregg began to fully realized the difficulties with living an extraordinarily long time. “The human brain wasn’t designed to run that long,” she had said. Gregg leaned his head back against the headrest of his car seat. “Would it be better than dying a sick, old man, though?” he asked himself as the car eased it self into queue for the mag rail.
“Please place head firmly against the headrest of your vehicle’s seat, and arms at your sides during acceleration. Failure to comply may result in serious injury,” an automated voice said over his car speaker.
Gregg did as he was told, and moments later he was thrust into the back of his seat as the vehicle accelerated rapidly. The scenery whizzed by him in a blur of colors, and Gregg wondered if his memories would do the same after several hundred years.
As the vehicle neared the exit point for his home, a strange feeling of dread came over Gregg. Gregg didn’t want the car to exit the mag rail. He didn’t want it to stop. He wanted to keep going on and on forever; but the inevitable, he knew, would come. Indeed, the car slowed, and exited the mag rail system. He could have told the car to keep going, of course. Given it a new destination. He had the ability to take control of his destiny, and to go wherever he wanted.
His thoughts went back to the car accident. There would be accidents, of course,
things that were beyond his control, but there was one aspect of his life that he would at least have control over. He didn’t have to stop at the age of ninety, or a hundred, or even a hundred and twenty. Like the mag rail system, he had the choice to keep going.
Gregg was awakened from his thoughts as the car rumbled into the driveway of his home. The car gave a shuddering jolt as the ignition stopped, and Gregg sat for a moment, staring at the electronic console and listening to the silence. After a long moment’s pause, he at last turned his head to the tree in his front yard. It was alive, vibrant with green leaves and strong roots. He looked down at his remaining hand, coarse and textured with age.
“Contact Nurse Jennings. St. Andrews Hospital. Los Angeles, California,” he said to the air. A simple tone beeped, and after several tones had passed, the young face of Nurse Jennings appeared on the windshield.
“Hello, Mr. Vaughnn,” she said with a smile. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, of course,” Gregg said, and he took in a deep breath of air. Nurse Jennings raised an eyebrow. “I’ve thought it over,” he said. “I want to go through with it, all of it. The good and the bad.”
Nurse Jennings’ usual smile waned, and she looked more serious.
“You’re sure? You’re absolutely sure? There’s no turning back once you’ve committed.”
“I know,” Gregg said with understanding. “I know.”
Nurse Jennings looked at Gregg for a long while, as though trying to read his thoughts.
“All right then,” she said after long consideration. “I’ll set you up with an appointment.”
“I guess I’ll see you around then,” he said, smiling at her for the first time. Nurse Jennings returned the smile, and touched the screen on her end.
“I’ll send the information you’ll need, okay?” she said.
“All right,” Gregg replied, and Nurse Jennings released her finger from the screen.
The windshield went clear again. After a few moments of recollection, Gregg opened the door to his car. A rush of clean air flooded in, filling him with vigor. He stood up and looked around at a neighborhood teaming with life. Dogs barked, children laughed, trees swayed, and birds sang. It was everything he loved and cherished, and now, he wouldn’t miss a single moment.
*** NOTICE ***
This is a full short story, so it's fairly long. Just FYI.
**************
----------
Lifeline
Wham! The loud buzz of consciousness hummed in the back of Gregory Vaughn’s head, his shortly cropped brown hair sticky and matted. He had the slight inkling that he was supposed to be somewhere, but at the moment, he had no idea where he was. From the sound of it, it would appear something rather eventful just happened. There was a lot of shouting, and a person crying – a woman perhaps? The sobs were so frantic it could be just about anyone.
Gregg tried to move, but his legs didn't respond. He tried opening his eyes, but they didn't respond either. A distant and far away voice shouted excitedly from the darkness, “I found a live one! Get that hammer over here!” Gregg vaguely began to wonder who the shouting man was, when the unmistakable popping sound of a pneumatic hammer began pounding his head.
Gregg’s body vibrated painfully as the hammer thumped and thumped again, an enormous headache forming on both sides of his head. The man with the hammer must have been thinking along the same wavelength as Gregg, because just as Gregg was about to tell the man off for making such a racket, the excruciating noise suddenly stopped. A few moments later Gregg’s body started floating upwards. He was weightless, a balloon set loose upon the sky. It was the most peculiar feeling he had ever felt. It was as though someone grabbed him under the arms and flung him effortlessly into the air.
As Gregg hovered, feeling quite content, he managed to open an eye a crack. Bright points of light danced across his vision. Blue and red, it would seem. “Fourth of July?” he wondered to himself. “No, that can’t be it. It’s only February. Yes, February the 19th. It had to be. I have a board meeting to-” then it hit him, the memories exploding into his head like an enraged bull. Gregg’s brain tried desperately to keep up, to comprehend everything that had happened: the car veering into oncoming traffic, the moment of impact, the noise, the pain, and everything happening in the blink of an eye. It was a collage of chaos, noise, and bright lights, and it was all too much. Mercifully and always waiting, the impenetrable darkness of unconsciousness crept over his vision; and without a second thought, Gregg succumbed to the pain-free blackness.
* * *
“Mr. Vaughn?” a distant and gentle voice said. “Mr. Vaughn, are you awake?”
Gregg slowly blinked his eyes open and turned his head to the source of the voice, immediately wishing he hadn’t. There wasn’t an inch on his body that didn’t hurt, even his eyes, which strained to take in the view. A woman with short, curly, black hair stood next to him, wearing a pale green outfit. She had startling green eyes that matched the outfit perfectly, accompanied by a very pleasing face. Another dose of pain spanned the length of Gregg’s body, moving in slow waves from head to toe.
“Morphine,” Gregg mumbled.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Vaughn, but you’ve already been given the allotted limit,” the woman said. She turned her head and said off to the side, “Doctor, he’s awake.”
Another person stepped into view, replacing the woman. This one was male, very tall – over six feet to Gregg’s best estimate – and also wearing a green outfit, though it was spattered with red. Not nearly as pleasant looking as the first, Gregg thought to himself. The tall man leaned over, his dark-skinned face accompanied by an impressive mustache.
“Mr. Vaughn, I am Doctor Chiranjeev. Do you know where you are?” the man said with a deep voice and a thick accent.
Gregg tried to speak, but nothing came out. He tried again, and managed something that sounded like, “Spittle.”
“You are in Saint Andrew’s,” the deep voice said again. “You were in a car accident, Mr. Vaughn.”
Images of the accident, most of them blurred, out of focus, and moving very quickly, bombarded Gregg’s head again. It wasn’t nearly as bad or as painful this time, either as a result of the morphine or because this was the second time around. He wasn’t quite sure which.
Gregg blinked again. His eyes hurt tremendously, the pain suddenly exacerbated by a bright light shining into Gregg’s eyes. The light lingered for a few a moments, followed by Doctor Chiranjeev nodding and pocketing a small flashlight.
“He will be all right with a bit of rest. He is all yours, nurse.”
The pleasant looking woman nodded, took hold of the bed, and began wheeling it out of the room.
“You’re a lucky one,” she said, looking down over his head as she pushed the bed down a white-lit hallway. “Your spinal column was severed in four different places.”
Gregg’s eyes widened, and the nurse laughed.
“Not to worry. We were able to repair the damage with stem cell applications. You’ll be up and about in no time, Mr. Vaughn.”
The nurse wheeled the bed into a well-lit room, next to a window that spanned the entire width of the wall. Gregg, gritting his teeth, turned his head toward the window and looked out at the vast landscape. The sun was just starting to set. Amber hues brushed the bottoms of distant clouds as if trying desperately to hold onto them, if only to keep the sun afloat for a few more moments.
The nurse gazed for a while at the setting sun, then said, “If you need anything Mr. Vaughn, just push the button on the left side of your bed. I'll check in on you in a few hours. Sweet dreams.”
The nurse quietly left, leaving Gregg alone with his thoughts. He slowly looked down at the nightstand next to his bed. The oranges and reds of the afternoon sun bathed a medical magazine, which lay opened to colorfully animated advertisement. The magazine was a weak old, dated February 8th, 2257. He craned his neck a bit farther to get a better look at the ad. It depicted an elderly woman pouring a bucket of water over her head. As the water cascaded down her body, the wrinkles adorning her wise features disappeared, replaced by smooth skin and a firm bosom. The woman shook the water from her hair and smiled as misty words puffed into existence above her head, “Eternal youth can be yours. Ask your doctor about anti-aging treatments.”
Suddenly, Gregg felt very mortal. He had nearly died mere hours earlier, and thoughts of being surrounded by people he barely knew, singing somber songs over a white casket, seeped into his mind for the first time. “Has anything really changed, though?” he thought to himself. “So I didn't die in the car accident. So what? I’m still going to get old, and I’m still going to face the inevitable again.” Gregg looked down at his side, where his right arm should have been. He raised his other arm painfully and rubbed his face. He could feel sutures lining his right eyebrow and all the way down to his jaw line.
Heaving a big sigh, he felt his toe give a comforting twitch beneath his bed covers. “I don’t have to die,” he mumbled to himself, thinking of the elderly woman turned youthful beauty. Gregg's head suddenly gave a rebellious stab of pain in response to all of his thinking, and he shut his eyes tightly in an attempt to stem the pain. Several moments passed, and the sharp stabs turned into slow waves. Gregg's toe twitched again, and a strange tingling began creeping up his leg as feeling started to return. He gave another sigh, though this one being a sigh of relief. Then, satisfied that the doctors and nurses had done their jobs, he allowed himself to drift off into unconsciousness once more.
* * *
The nurse was right. It hadn’t taken Gregg more than a couple of weeks for his body to readjust to the new spinal tissue. The brain and body worked remarkably fast, even for a man passing forty-five years of age. Nurse Jennings, as her name turned out to be, helped Gregg every step of the way. First the water tank, then crutches, and now a simple leg brace. In a few more days, he wouldn’t need any supports whatsoever.
Gregg lay on his stomach as the nurse massaged the length of his back. The ad from the magazine had become very prominent in Gregg’s mind during the course of his rehabilitation. Gregg finally decided to broach the subject.
“You know, I saw an ad the other day. It was about those anti-aging treatments. Does St. Andrew’s administer them?”
He could sense the nurse nodding.
“Indeed we do. I take it you were thinking of undergoing treatment?”
Gregg nodded, and he could tell the nurse was smiling.
“Most people who go through a life-altering event such as yours start considering it. Nearly every patient I’ve treated has wanted it shortly after recovery, but you must realize it’s a huge commitment. Plus,” she paused for a moment as she worked intensely on a particular back muscle, “you’re not guaranteed the treatment. It’s not a simple matter of having enough money. You have to see financial advisors, change your tax status, your citizenship status, wave your right to have children, pass an initial and yearly psych-examinations, et cetera. It’s a very lengthy expensive process.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. Quite a few first gens(1) sort of…lost it,” Gregg said offhandedly.
“Roll over please,” Nurse Jennings said, and Gregg did as he was told.
She started working on the sides of his neck, and the shoulder muscle near the remaining right arm.
“The human brain wasn’t designed to run that long,” Nurse Jennings said simply. “One lifetime is enough to make some people lose it. Give them three or four lifetimes, and well, you do the math. That’s why after the second gens, they formed the ICC(2).”
Gregg lay quiet for some time, as Nurse Jennings worked his other muscles. He thought back to the car accident, what could have been, and what doesn’t have to be. The nurse respectfully remained quiet, letting Gregg roll this information around in his head.
“I think I’m going to do it,” Gregg said. “There’s so much more I’d like to do. So many things I haven’t done. I just never had the time to do them. Strange, it took a car accident for me to realize that.”
Nurse Jennings smiled politely. She had such a pleasant face, Gregg thought to himself again.
“How long have you been a nurse, Ms. Jennings?” Gregg continued after a few moments of silence.
“Oh, not nearly long enough, and God willing, a while longer. It’s sort of my passion, you know? Although, It’s kind of funny, because I’m actually the senior staff member here. I’m not really a nurse.”
“Senior staff member?” he repeated. That meant she had at least three doctorates.
“Yup,” she said plainly. “I’m retired, actually. Eighty years, almost to this day. I just do massage therapy now, and rehabilitation.”
Gregg stared at her in bewilderment.
“You didn’t see that one coming, did you?” she mused.
“I had no idea,” Gregg said, still in awe. She doesn’t look much older than twenty-five!
“Whelp, we’re all done here,” Nurse Jennings said suddenly. “You’re free to go, but I have a couple last-minute notes to give you.” Gregg leaned up and swung his legs off to the side. “The stiffness and the phantom pains in your right shoulder are going to be around for a while.” Gregg moved the stump that was his right arm, and winced.
“It’ll be about nine months before the replacement arm has finished maturing,” she explained. “Then we’ll start stem treatments to regrow the nerves on the end there,” she said, pointing to the lump of flesh that still remained on Gregg’s shoulder.
“When that’s finished we’ll do the final graft, reattaching the mature arm, and then several more treatments to attach the nerves in the graft to the rest of the body. In the mean time, we’ll prescribe you some pain medication to help dull the pain.”
Gregg nodded appreciatively, “Thank you, Nurse.”
“Do you have any questions?” she asked.
“Just one. Did you ever have any doubts?”
Nurse Jennings smiled, “None whatsoever, but if you have any yourself, I suggest wholeheartedly that you don’t go through with the treatment. However, I’m not a psychiatrist, and it’s not my place to give advice on such matters.” She paused for a while and smiled pleasantly again. “Good luck, Mr. Vaughn.”
“Thanks,” he said again simply.
As he headed for the door to gather his belongings, Nurse Jennings waved goodbye, her young portrait of a face adorning a smile.
“Incredible,” he said to himself, and waved back.
* * *
It had occurred to Gregg that he had never driven with only one arm. The company had been gracious enough to loan him a car for a while, but Gregg found himself standing there, looking at the car with an uneasy feeling. No sense in fretting over it, he thought to himself, and clambered into the car. Turning the ignition, the car gave a low hum and readily displayed all the widgets and dials that accompanied the newer cars.
“Self-navigation system,” Gregg said aloud in amusement. “They must’ve heard what happened back at the office.” Gregg looked the car over more thoroughly and noticed it was also equipped for use on the mag rail(3) system. He never had a car this fancy. Gregg fumbled with a few widgets and buttons, voiced in his home address to the car’s navigation system, and then said simply to the air, “Home.”
As the car sped off of its own accord, he began pondering what his life would be like one hundred and fifty years from now. That is of course, assuming he went through with the life-extension. He’d have to watch his friends grow old and die while he stayed young himself. Would it be difficult to make new friends? To watch them grow old and die as well? Would he marry? What would he do with all of this newly-found time?
A log house of questions quickly piled up, and Gregg began to fully realized the difficulties with living an extraordinarily long time. “The human brain wasn’t designed to run that long,” she had said. Gregg leaned his head back against the headrest of his car seat. “Would it be better than dying a sick, old man, though?” he asked himself as the car eased it self into queue for the mag rail.
“Please place head firmly against the headrest of your vehicle’s seat, and arms at your sides during acceleration. Failure to comply may result in serious injury,” an automated voice said over his car speaker.
Gregg did as he was told, and moments later he was thrust into the back of his seat as the vehicle accelerated rapidly. The scenery whizzed by him in a blur of colors, and Gregg wondered if his memories would do the same after several hundred years.
As the vehicle neared the exit point for his home, a strange feeling of dread came over Gregg. Gregg didn’t want the car to exit the mag rail. He didn’t want it to stop. He wanted to keep going on and on forever; but the inevitable, he knew, would come. Indeed, the car slowed, and exited the mag rail system. He could have told the car to keep going, of course. Given it a new destination. He had the ability to take control of his destiny, and to go wherever he wanted.
His thoughts went back to the car accident. There would be accidents, of course,
things that were beyond his control, but there was one aspect of his life that he would at least have control over. He didn’t have to stop at the age of ninety, or a hundred, or even a hundred and twenty. Like the mag rail system, he had the choice to keep going.
Gregg was awakened from his thoughts as the car rumbled into the driveway of his home. The car gave a shuddering jolt as the ignition stopped, and Gregg sat for a moment, staring at the electronic console and listening to the silence. After a long moment’s pause, he at last turned his head to the tree in his front yard. It was alive, vibrant with green leaves and strong roots. He looked down at his remaining hand, coarse and textured with age.
“Contact Nurse Jennings. St. Andrews Hospital. Los Angeles, California,” he said to the air. A simple tone beeped, and after several tones had passed, the young face of Nurse Jennings appeared on the windshield.
“Hello, Mr. Vaughnn,” she said with a smile. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, of course,” Gregg said, and he took in a deep breath of air. Nurse Jennings raised an eyebrow. “I’ve thought it over,” he said. “I want to go through with it, all of it. The good and the bad.”
Nurse Jennings’ usual smile waned, and she looked more serious.
“You’re sure? You’re absolutely sure? There’s no turning back once you’ve committed.”
“I know,” Gregg said with understanding. “I know.”
Nurse Jennings looked at Gregg for a long while, as though trying to read his thoughts.
“All right then,” she said after long consideration. “I’ll set you up with an appointment.”
“I guess I’ll see you around then,” he said, smiling at her for the first time. Nurse Jennings returned the smile, and touched the screen on her end.
“I’ll send the information you’ll need, okay?” she said.
“All right,” Gregg replied, and Nurse Jennings released her finger from the screen.
The windshield went clear again. After a few moments of recollection, Gregg opened the door to his car. A rush of clean air flooded in, filling him with vigor. He stood up and looked around at a neighborhood teaming with life. Dogs barked, children laughed, trees swayed, and birds sang. It was everything he loved and cherished, and now, he wouldn’t miss a single moment.
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