By Dimiter Zlatkov, April 2017
“Coffee is ready hun.”
“Thanks.”
He liked April, for some reason she stood out. He wondered why he liked her so much. He wondered what it was about her that made him decide to marry again after so many centuries. There was something about her that actually made him feel like life was worth it; she made the waiting bearable.
He wondered what number April was. Seventh? Eighth? He had lost track. He felt bad. She deserved someone better than him, but she was all he had left. He first married her simply as a way to pass time, to see what domestic life was like in the 22nd century. But she grew on him, and he couldn’t really put a finger on why. Maybe it was the memories.
Her sense of humor reminded him of a man he had met in Ancient Rome, one of the better friends he had made in his endless lifetime. They met one day at the baths. He missed the way people lived in that era. He remembered how they would waste away the days discussing philosophy, politics, the joys of life. They could talk for hours on end.
The joys of life, he thought.
Her laugh reminded him of the way his brother used to laugh, back when they were kids, playing together, fighting together. Life was simple back then. Life was happy. He loved life as a kid in ancient Mesopotamia. He remembered how their mother used to tell them stories when they were little, before they started working in the fields. He wondered what kinds of stories he would tell his child if he had one now.
But most importantly, her eyes reminded him of his son. They were the same seemingly endless deep blue eyes. Even though he had lived such a long life, he had only ever had one child. He had him with his first wife, back when he had no idea what his life would be, back when he was just a normal person. They were his first and last family. Maybe losing them was just too much for him to ever let it happen again.
April made him think of the past, a time when he had things left to do, left to experience, before every day melded into one and the years just passed on by without significance. She was an escape, an escape to a world where happiness was not just a memory, but real. It seemed as if his whole life was just one large escape, an escape from boredom.
He had led a happy life for a while, back when the world was yet undiscovered and new experiences were left to be had. He would often reminisce about when he spent years and years exploring the world, and the seemingly endless opportunities it held. But as time went on, as centuries passed and eras came and went, it seemed as if every experience lost significance. Even though he had achieved more in his life than anyone could ever think of, he never felt content; he still felt insignificant. He always had to be doing something, he had to have some goal that kept him going, some idea of making an impact on the world. He felt that if he didn’t, he was a waste. He thought about how he didn’t deserve the ‘gift’ that he had. He wished it were someone else. He wished he could die.
It wasn’t until the 20th century when monotony really took over. He had seen all there was to see, done all there was to do. He needed to go somewhere else, he needed to find something new. During the early 1960’s, at the height of the space race, it came to him. He had to leave Earth. He joined NASA and began research on a way to leave this planet. He worked as long as he could until he had to quit to reduce suspicion about his age, then he would re-apply under a new identity to continue working. He got very close in his 70 years working there. Just ten more years and I’ll have it all figured out, he had thought at the time.
But, there are some things that even an immortal man can’t predict. Right as he started making advancements on his theory, NASA was abolished. He had thought about going back into politics and becoming a president again, but it was too much effort. All the bureaucracy and lies he would have to go through, he just didn’t have the motivation anymore. Even if he were president, his ideas were against popular opinion and NASA would just be abolished again as soon as he lost power. He had lost hope; it seemed at this point that every time he got close to having a purpose in his life it all went down the drain. He decided he would settle down again and see what a normal life would be like for a change. Normal seemed like the only thing he couldn’t achieve. All he could do now was wait.
He hated waiting.
It had been almost a century since he had lost his job. A century of lacking all the motivation and hope which he once had. A century of a life diminished to nothing but waiting, sitting at home watching TV, letting the days just pass on by. A century lacking novelty. A century of what seemed to be the continuation of one miniscule day. A miniscule day that contributed as a tiny speck to his infinite lifetime. A day where the only thing that kept him going was constant reminiscence of the past. Reminisce over the days when there was novelty, when there was excitement, and hope, when life still had value.
But today, even though he was unaware of it, today there was hope.
He got up from the table and poured himself some coffee.
“Show the news,” he grumbled to the TV.
“Of course, sir,” it replied.
He sat down and started watching the same way he would any other day. April was sitting next to him, slowly sipping on her coffee. The President was on the screen. He was about to make an announcement.
“My fellow Americans, Today I am proud to announce that the United State of America is going to re-establish its prowess in technology, I am going to refund the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in a new effort for space exploration and interplanetary travel.”
It took a few seconds for it to hit him.
Escape.
***
Authors Note:
My short story explores and builds off the ideas found in Bernard Williams’ article The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality (1973) and Aaron Smuts’ Immortality and Significance (2011). I specifically focus on the ideas of pervasive boredom due to the fulfillment of all categorical desires and the loss of a feeling of significance behind one’s actions under immortal conditions. In my story, the main character has lived long enough on Earth that he has exhausted all his possible categorical desires. He longs for novelty and realizes that his only option is to leave Earth in search of a new planet, where he hopes to find new experiences and form new desires. His immortality has also caused him to lose the feeling of significance behind his achievements. Because he has infinite time to complete his desires, he does not feel as if there is any real importance to accomplishments. The only happiness he experiences in his current stage of life is when he reminisces over the past, to when he still had desires and new experiences in his life.
Smuts, A. (2011). Immortality and significance. Philosophy and Literature, 35(1), 134-149.
Williams, B. (1973). The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality,” in Williams. Problems of the Self: Philosophical Papers 1956, 72, 82.