DagmarTheGreat’s Short Story Immortality Challenge: Responses

(Notes: Three of these - Paien’s, TheGraySheep’s, and Fiona’s - appeared in their school’s literary magazine!)

DagmarTheGreat

He sighed and ran his hand through his thinning hair. It had been three months since Ellen died. Most of the time Derek forgot his grief and could sit at peace with the world. But today his mind- as it did when he was alone- wandered. Why did she have to die? She had been healthy, happy, loving- the perfect wife. Why didn't the doctors tell him that the disease would be fatal? What about his own disease? His heart condition? Would he suddenly get sick too? Drop dead without warning?

The hardest part about her death was that he hadn't been there for her. He hadn't held her hand as she died. He had been home and she had died alone in that white, sterile room.

Derek sat with these thoughts troubling him until the doorbell rang. He stood and answered it.

"Hello, is this the residence of Mr. Derek Clum?"

"Yes, that is me," replied Derek, looking closely at the man that dominated his doorstep. He was dressed in a suit and looked almost too perfect to be real. His hair was combed perfectly, his jacket sported no wrinkles, and even his shoes were shined without a speck of dirt to marr them.

"May I come in? I'm from Joneson and Sons' Biological Research department. I am here to give you a chance to participate in a new study."

Derek assented and led the man into the living room.

"We are embarking on a new project involving immortality and we would-"

"Immortality?" he gasped. "But that's impossible!"

The man smiled, one of those annoying, I'm-superior-to-you smiles. "It was impossible. Until now. We are asking the elderly in the area around the research lab to participate in our study. So far, it has been extremely succesful."

The man was gone moments later, leaving Derek with his buisness card, several packets of information, and instructions to call him with an answer within a week.

ONE WEEK LATER

Derek sat down. It was his favorite chair, a birthday gift from Ellen. It was one of those chairs which felt hard and uncomfortable when you first sat down, but later, you'd find yourself settled in with no intention of moving and no recollection of when you became so relaxed. Outside the rain shot down from the sky like bullets and the lightening and thunder cracked across the blue-grey that dominated the stars. He had just turned off the television after watching the news. He could barely hear the reporters warning people about power surges over the violence of the storm outside. He had a chance to live forever, and with that chance he could fufill the dream he and Ellen had when they were young. Together, they had planned to see the world, to go to every continent. Here was a chance, to finally have enough time to see it all. But it would be without her. Besides, was it really Joneson and Son's role to play God? And was there even a God? In a day in which everything could be explained by science, most people dismissed religion. But Derek still belived that there was some supreme being that started it all, and that He would welcome people who had led good lives into an afterlife of some kind...and that would mean he would see his wife again. Once more, the question of the reality of a diety plagued him and he thought for almost another hour before coming to a decision about immortality. He was happy with his choice once he finally made it. Satisfied, he reached for the phone and dialed the number. As the phone rang, thunder exploded overhead. The power lines and telephone poles in front of his house burst into flame and came crashing down onto the pavement. The electricity travled down the wires to his phone. He gasped as the shock hit him, then smiled ironically as he realized what was happening.

TEN MINUTES LATER

The man from Joneson and Sons' came to the door of Mr. Derek Clum and rang the doorbell. There was no answer. He pulled out his cell phone and called the ambulance. When they arrived, the pronounced Derek Clum dead, due to a heart condition, which had been fatally worsened by an electric shock.

"You should have called to accept our offer sooner," murmured the man from Joneson and Sons' as he watched the body being loaded into an ambulance. He looked skyward, despite the rain and sighed. Buttoning his coat up to his chin, he turned, walked towards his car, and disappeared into the rain.

fiona

Title: Her Heaven

“So, what would you give anything in the world to have?”
“I already have what I want; you.”
“No, no, silly – I mean, something you don’t already have. And it doesn’t have to be material, it could be a superpower, like flight, or… or something. What would it be?”
“Well… I suppose immortality would be nice to have…”
“What, living forever?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Wouldn’t it get boring?”
“Imagine what you’d see – the change of an era.”
“I think you can see enough in one lifetime as it is. You’ve got to rest eventually.”
“It’d be fun.”
“Well, you did always have a lot of energy…”
“And what would you want?”
“I…” Pause. A giggle. “…would want to be able to eat the biggest bowl of ice cream and not gain an ounce. On the other hand…” Another pause. “Paradise. You know, that whole cliché. A perfect Heaven.”

~

The leaves rustled in the wind, skimming over the blacktop of the parking lot as if in a wild game of tag. It was the end of autumn, and soon winter snows would cover the leaves’ playing field. ‘Well,’ thought Charlie, ‘That’s just too bad for them.’

The leaves reminded him of better days; his wedding had been during autumn, just when the trees were bursting into brilliant flames of color; a picture of fire that offered beauty but no warmth. A month ago had been his sixtieth anniversary, but it hadn’t mattered. His wife was not there to share it with him.

However, at the moment he was returning to her old job, because after a month of procrastination he figured it was about time to retrieve her anniversary gift. The day she had died, she had told him to come here on their sixtieth anniversary, because she had left something for him. A gift. And he had not given her anything… but what could he do? He hadn’t expected this. And now she was gone. Gone like those leaves, which had drifted away.

He entered the building.

The secretary still remembered his name, even though it’d been years since he’d come here. She knew exactly why he was there, too, and gave him the key to his wife's old office. Her face, as she handed him the key, was an odd expression of confidentiality and curiosity. But she said nothing about what he’d find.

The room was practically empty, aside from a desk with a computer on it, and an espresso machine next to it.

“Hello, Charlie.”

He jumped at the voice. It was his wife’s. His head jerked around; who said that?

“The computer. I knew you’d be shocked.”

She knew him too well. And, judging by her voice, she had recorded this at least ten years ago. What had she been up to here? He knew it was some sort of project, but what had that project been?

“Have a cup of coffee, and sit down. I have a lot to explain to you and you’re going to want to be comfortable. Do not,” insisted his wife’s voice, “drink the coffee yet.”

He got the coffee and sat down.

“Now,” continued the voice, “if you are here than it can only mean one thing. I… I’ve…” the voice faltered slightly, “…died. But I wanted you to have this for your sixtieth anniversary, so I had to make this when I was healthy. I couldn’t wait. And I was excited. Do you remember what I asked you that day at the park? What would you have if you could have anything? No. You don’t. Well I’ll tell you.”

He was sitting on the edge of the seat. What was she talking about? What was he going to get? And why couldn’t he drink his coffee, at least?

“I bet you’re wondering why you can’t drink your coffee yet. Do you remember that project I was working on? Prolonging human life?”

He almost dropped the coffee cup. Instead, he set it down on the table and stared at the computer monitor, which was blank. He could practically feel what was coming next.

“Well, the project was abandoned, because people thought that, at the rate we’re going, life spans are already getting longer, and we don’t need anything to help us. But I’d done so much research already, and I remembered your answer to the question at the park – you said immortality. You said you wanted to live forever. So that is my gift. Drink the coffee.”

The coffee… From what he could put together, the coffee had something in it that would… make him live longer? Maybe even forever? But – how was that possible? It couldn’t be. And when he had answered that question, he thought he had been joking. He thought the whole conversation had been a joke. How could someone live forever? And how on Earth did she expect him to live forever without her? When he thought of all their days together, before she had died, he looked at the future with apprehension and loneliness. To live forever would mean that feeling would never go away. It would mean that he would see the world without her.

The world. He wouldn’t just see the world, he would see time. He would see human life pass before him, change and morph and evolve. He would see generations fade into each other, see just how far humans could go. He would see the universe. He would see it all.

He cried aloud at the difficulty of the situation. His fist hit the table.

“Why do you put this decision on me?”

A pop-up appeared on the computer. It was nothing but a space to type a message. With trembling fingers, he typed his question. The computer answered right away.

“I thought you might say that. You’ve always been the indecisive sort. Perhaps I can help you with the decision. I said that I would want paradise – the perfect Heaven. There are many ways to interpret that, but what it comes down to in the end is happiness. That is paradise. The Garden of Eden is just a metaphor of paradise and happiness. And you have given me that happiness. So don’t worry, I count that as my anniversary present. And I wanted to make sure that you got what you wanted in the end, too. Taking the immortality does not mean you choose life alone. It means you choose my gift, and that means you choose me.”

The voice continued on, but he had already made his decision. His hands fingered the coffee mug. He picked it up and drained it.

})({

She could see him walking through the parking lot, entering the building. She knew that inside he would find the program she had left; the recording. The instructions on what to do with everything on the computer once he had made his decision. But she could not watch him make the decision; she knew what he would choose and that choice displeased her at the same time as making her happy. She wanted his happiness, she wanted to repay him. She felt like she owed him this, so if he did not take it then she would never pay her debt.

So, in her spirit form, she waited in the parking lot, watching the leaves play in the wind. He would live forever, and she would watch him; his guardian angel always by his side.

When he left the building there was a jump in his step; he was happy. It was the happiest she had seen him since… well, since before she got sick. He did not see her; he never did. She didn’t mind. She went back to her home in Heaven, back to paradise.

He was there.

He was there!

“Emma,” he said, smiling. “You knew I’d choose immortality.”

“But… but you’re here. You didn’t. You…”

“I’m right where I’m supposed to be. We both got what we want, didn’t we? Because here is my immortality; you don’t die in Heaven. And here is your Heaven. This is the perfect place for us to be together: the perfect paradise.”

Paien

He chose immortality.

No one seemed to notice either way. He was the sort of man that sat quietly on park benches and fed pigeons, ignored by passersby because he was just like all the other old men that did exactly the same.

But he was special, he told himself. Every now and then there came other birds, little sparrows and the occasional robin redbreast, but he kept to his pigeons in particular- and that was something. He arrived at the park earlier than the rest of the widowers and it made him proud that he was first, and his winged friends were already at his feet by the time the rest of them arrived. That was something too.

He was special.

Miriam had certainly thought so. She had raved about the soups he had made while she was sick, laughed at the jokes he had told while she laid in bed, smiled quietly as he entered the room when it became too taxing for her to speak.

She herself had never been anything special, he thought. It was an odd thought, a special thought that people would not have known how to reply to, if he had ever told them. He hadn’t. And he would never. By all appearances he had loved her more than anything, some said more than life itself, but that wasn’t quite true.

He told himself that he loved her for how she had made him feel. I’m senile, he thought. I will be for eternity. I’m allowed to think horrible things.

As for loving her more than life itself...

It was impossible now, he knew that. There were many regrets but he never thought about them anymore.

Sitting on his park bench, he thought about her a lot. He had met her so many years ago, and they had carried on a flyaway romance that his granddaughters always sighed over wistfully. He had certainly loved her back then- she had been so charming, so pretty. So passionate about everything; their first kiss had nearly knocked him off his feet. She often told him that she loved him so much, it hurt.

He supposed that he had hurt too, at first. But the years desensitized him; it became numb and then he amputated it off of himself in a single clean slice, as if it had been part of him all along. Yet even as decades passed, as he lost hair and grew to increasingly portly proportions, she said it in the same way.

You know, she would say fervently, I love you so much, it hurts sometimes. He would reply the same way, always. And so do I, Mir, so do I. Though secretly he knew that it was only a phantom pain.

But most often he thought of her in that hospital bed, dying slowly and dying passionately. She could not stop herself from caring, she wanted death but was terribly, terribly afraid of it. Don’t let me die like this, she had begged. Her voice had become very soft then, but he could hear the desperation. All I want is to live, I can’t bear this, Sam! Please, please...

He had looked at her queerly then. There she was, bald from therapy and wasting away, the sterile white sheets making her seem so much more fragile than she would have liked, and asking him for something he could not give back to her. He felt a distant pain and focused on it in wonder.

Shh, shh. It’s all right.

Please, Sam, I can’t-!

Shh. Calm down, love. If I could give you my life, I would.

He wasn’t entirely sure if he meant it, but she had smiled weakly then, through her tears.

I’d give you mine, Sam. Would you like to have it?

He had paused for a moment. Sure.

And then he had kissed her forehead, and she died. He wiped the tears from her face, settled her blankets around her methodically, and called for a nurse.

So then there had been two lives tumbling inside him that, together, made infinity. He realized that the pain was gone as he walked back to their home, hands placed uncertainly in his pockets. When he reached the door he had stopped, staring at it for awhile, wondering at the gift that he had never asked to receive.

He was special.

After awhile he turned away from the door and slowly made his way down to the park to feed the pigeons. He pretended as if nothing had ever changed.

But it was all in the little things. He laughed more brightly at jokes, praised so thoroughly that he made everyone blush at least once, and never seemed without a smile.

And he fed the pigeons until the end of time, contemplating love and pain on a park bench.

Galenbrethil

He held the key gently; felt its simple lines as the light, reflective metal lay cool against his palm. And there, in a box by his feet, lay the past. Not a day, a week, or even a million years. This was eternity.

And he had reached the end.

He knew, as a newborn child knows to breathe, that Earth would have no more chances. All that existed now was him, this key, and the past it unlocked.

Immortality no longer lay in the future.

Identity had turned fickle on him. The hopes, joys, anger, and memories of the world were in that box at his feet. And he could have them. Could be them.

But would his own self be lost in the tumult? In the never ending ocean of souls, would he be able to find himself again?

His wife was in there. Somewhere, just below the brass hinges of the lid, lay her intelligence and quick wit in conversation, her perseverance and fierce morality. She had never claimed to know what was right, yet somehow she had always helped him make his way there when he found himself as he was now, wallowing in indecision.

When his grandmother died, someone told him that Death eventually knocks on everybody's door. Innocently, he had asked if it would be terribly impolite to make it wait outside. The adults laughed, as adults do when a child says something they believe to be incredibly stupid, and assured him that, if it was alright for anyone, it would be for him.

Three years later, when he was eight, somebody knocked on the door. When he opened it, Death was standing on the welcome mat. Coldly, he told it to go away.

Death went.

It was another eighty years before it visited again. During the interim, he forgot the incident. His time was spent on normal childhood activities; in college, he studied physics, engineering, and philosophy. During his junior year he became acquainted with a psychology major; within months they were fast friends, within three years, married. Of their children, they had adopted one, and the other two were identical twins. They, in turn, had had children of their own and moved away long ago.

But on Death's second visit, it didn't just take no for an answer. It simply stared at him from the doorframe until his wife came to see what was wrong. And when she arrived, it stretched out a long, youthful arm towards her as she turned to him, whispering, "I have to go, love" before her empty body collapsed.

Then the world ended.

Literally, ended. And he found himself alone, in this almost-world with a key in his hand and a box at his feet, knowing that he could claim the past for himself.

Death was never an option. He could create another eternity alone; add an inch to infinity. But the others were right there... all the people he had ever known and loved, and everyone else besides.

There never really was much of a question as to what he would choose. He shifted the key in his palm, placed it in his fingers and ran his thumb along the edge. Then, swiftly, he knelt down, placed the key in the lock, and turned.

The first thing to grab his notice after he opened the box was a note written in an elegant hand.

"Thank you for opening the door".

The second was his wife, greeting him with a fond memory. A summer day; backs leaned against a maple trunk with a cool breeze occasionally wafting through, tossing a few sheets of paper into a gentle dance through the air…

Meanwhile, life went on as it always had as Death kept on knocking on doors. And a little girl attended her grandparent's funeral and wished that she could live forever.

TheGraySheep

Running

"One Smirnoff’s. Straight up."

The bartender appraised him slowly, taking in the immaculate uniform, the neatly brushed and oiled hair, his bearing- the details that irrevocably labeled him a soldier. He pulled out a glass and behind wiping it. "You been here a long time."

The man avoided the accusing eye of the bartender. "An hour."

"Try three." Silence. "Every day, too. For the past fourteen years- maybe longer. You pick that stool over there and get a Smirnoff’s. Straight up, every day." He leaned his head on his hand. "Then you go to the tables and roll snake eyes every time. Every god damn day."

"Am I gonna get my drink or not?"

"No." The bartender walked away, still wiping his glass. "Everyday," he muttered for the last time.

~

Sure, he had wondered if it was worth it. He was exhausted; his bones ached. His thoughts plagued him; the never-ending torrent of guilt-laden emotions that assailed his senses like an onslaught of bullets. He was bleeding through countless gaping holes as his weary heart pumped out the restless rhythm of his life.

It hadn’t been like this before.

Once, there was an omnipresent thrill that set his whole being on fire. His gun and its power sustained him as he kept running, running, avoiding iron that darted about him in a tumult of malignant confusion. And suddenly, there was no glory, no dignity, no nationalism even. The human carcasses were only a bleak reminder; it was an epiphany that gave him no solace.

No comfort. No respite. No rest. Especially now that the whole ordeal was over. I guess there’s no more reason to keep running anymore, his bunkmate, Jim, said as he polished his rifle that day. They had tamed him, sprinkled ptomaine over his individuality, until he was another drop in a cesspool of humanity. That's how the sergeants like it best, Jim had remarked. He missed the uniformity so much that the bartender had recognized and remembered him by his predictable ensemble, putting his hat just-so on his neatly parted hair.

It was a charade. Like going through the motions in training.

But every day he ran a wet comb through his hair the same way, because it was the way she had liked it. He hated romantics, though. And so did she.

"I hate romantics. They think their sweet with all their crap," she had scoffed. "Don’t you give me that, too. This isn’t forever. I’ll see you again after this is all over."

"Then we’ll get married."

"Sure we will." She took a long drag from her cigarette. "And you’ll buy me a ring even bigger than the one that what’s-her-name who serves the drinks' carts around."

"Much bigger. That dame won't be able to show her face." And they had kissed. He remembered how short it was, so momentary, so transient as the details of her face slipped away and evanesced into insubstantial, intangible blackness. Leaving a residue of her sweet, melodic voice that serenaded him to sleep.

Memories were like sand to his ageing mind, the tighter he tried to grasp them, to contain them in the flesh walls of his hands, the faster they escaped. He watched as her truck rolled away, until her waving kercheif was only a quivering dot and the bold letters ‘U.S.O’ were all that could be seen. Then she was gone.

There was always a telegram wasn’t there? But it was Jim who told him one day- heard it from his cronies-, Those Germans don’t leave no survivors.

That was when he started running like a madman.

Until he got here. He was poised at a dilemma and his hand was on a bottle. Silly really, but in his self-induced drunkenness he half believed it- "Immortality in a Bottle: the Elixir of Life." And Jim knew nothing save that it had just appeared on his bunk one day. You cut a deal with The Man Up There? he had joked.

And now- was it really fourteen years later?- here was that same, yet opened, bottle. He placed it in front of him and began unscrewing the cap with his weakened hands.

The bartender reached out and stopped him. "You don’t need immortality." He laughed, "You wouldn’t even know what to do with it once you had it." He walked away whistling.

And there was her pledge, so carelessly spoken, I’ll see you again after this is all over, but it sustained him. He pulled out a wrinkled fiver and slapped it on the table. He hadn't even drunk anything.

His aged hand hesitated over the bottle, but reached for his hat instead, which he put on his head at a jaunty angle. He recognized the barman’s tune.

"Oh, won't you come home, baby? Won't you come home? I miss ya all day long…"

WINNER: (none)