January Thaw: Part One of Five

“I lost my job because I stopped taking anti-aging drugs,” Carolyn said. A head and shoulder image of her grandson stared at her from a computer made to appear like an antique television from the Twentieth Century. She shifted on the edge of her wicker chair as the gap of silence in their conversation lengthened.

Morning had a way of playing up every flaw in the linoleum, washed-out tan with flecks of gold, cracked in places and curling where the living room met a short hall leading into the kitchen. None of the furniture matched though it all certainly did appear well-used. Whoever designed this vacation cottage Carolyn spent almost a quarter of her savings to rent for the month of December had done a good job of making the place seem period. Fortunately the heating and ventilation systems were modern because she had developed an allergy to dust in the past couple years.

Her grandson murmured something and Carolyn realized he had been speaking for some time. She woke from a daydream of the past, so long ago now, where she had taught the boy how to cut up apples. Cutting into grainy, white flesh, the sweet tangy smell as the clear juice ran down one's hand … maybe a little sting if you had a nick on your finger. The apple's way of “shaking hands” she had told the boy when he winced. No matter how much Carolyn tried she could not get used to the fact that she was speaking to a computer-generated version of her grandson that was programmed to respond like him in every way. When was he last time she had seen her grandson in person? Thirty years at least.

Whoever invented these virtual online personalities you could talk with as if they were your relatives should be forced to take a long walk off a short pier. Had a cutesy name like “voping” or some such nonsense. Times were getting so you couldn't speak to a real person anymore. Playing vop-tag was the modern day equivalent to an actual conversation. When was the last time she had spoken with anyone in the family except through these machines? How could the need for human contact, even if just a disembodied voice, seem so superfluous to the young?

“Say again,” she asked the vop.

“I said, 'I see. Why did you stop your anagathic treatments? Are the doctors giving you any problems?'”

“Just that they want me to go back on Eternity. When you get to be my age, you start looking at things a little differently. I've had a good run and now I want to live, grow old and die, like people did a hundred years ago.”

“I see.”

“Can't you say something besides, `I see'?” Carolyn took a deep breath.

“Yes. I can ask two questions for the price of one,” he said. “First, I thought everyone got the drug in utero so they didn't have to worry about taking it later on. I guess that isn't really a question,” and after a pause, “So why did they fire you?”

“I was part of the original group and the oldest subject when the immortality tests started about a hundred years ago. Drug companies thought they were developing a cure for cancer, at least in the beginning. It ended badly because a lot of peopled died before the experiments with fetuses were successful. I was one of the lucky ones. You know, I could be the oldest person in the world.”

Carolyn stopped. Her train of thought was broken by her grandson's chuckle at her use of the anachronism “in the world.” People usually said “in the solar system” now. Or was it “around the sun”?

“Well, at least you can still take the drug and not age, Gram. I know it’s expensive but the Health Service picks up most it don't they? So why'd they fire you?”

“I teach PE and Administration thought my getting older would disturb the children. I don't know why. They only ever saw me online anyway. If I didn't have a union, they probably would have replaced me with a sim by now.”

“People don't waste away right before your eyes, Gram.” He hunched his shoulders and shivered.

Carolyn didn't think of herself as “wasting away.” True, there were crow's feet at the corners of her eyes now and those laugh lines on either side of her mouth had deepened in the five years since she stopped the pills, but Carolyn had always taken care of herself and stayed not simply trim but positively athletic with tennis and golf in the summer and skiing in the winter. She had let her hair go iron-gray with a dusting of white. Yet it was still thick and reached nearly to her low back and the four men, who had come and gone out of her life with the rolling of decades, loved running their hands through her wavy tresses. True, she had worn out three sets of knees and had her left elbow re-grown five years ago but that was wear and not rust. The old girl had a lot of life left in her yet.

“Gram, if you want to, uh … if you decide, you know, they have clinics for that. It's all painless and dignified. They put you in any online world you want and you don't feel a thing,” he said. “I'm not saying you should do that. I think you should go back on Eternity and get some counseling or something; maybe a new job. Do you need money?” Carolyn's grandson gamboled through this last bit and ended with a mirthless, high-pitched laugh.

“Look, I only called to see how you were. I'm not sure how we got onto my problems but you're crazy if you think I want to lie down and die. I'm a hundred and sixty-two years old and with a bit of luck I can easily expect another forty or fifty years with all that doctors can do. Two hundred years of life is enough for anyone to ask.” Carolyn pursed her lips and made an effort to take the ice out of her voice. She was tired. “So tell me what you're doing.”

She listened to the virtual online personality, which was supposed to represent her grandson, drone on about his job as an advertising executive for Pepsi and how they were working on a campaign to gain market share on Titan, which was where his long-time boyfriend lived. Carolyn felt absurd, listening to a computer program confide to her. She resisted a growing urge to say something cruel. Carolyn did not want to hurt the man behind the machine. He was a good boy who programmed his vop to leave short messages most holidays and for her birthday. The rest of her family had drifted away one by one over the space of years, which most people would argue was perfectly reasonable. After all, the younger generations had lives of their own and a normal person would just let it go. Just let go.