Misc. Erotica The Problem With Immortality

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The End of the Road​

"Are you alive?" a soft voice inquired.

"I don't know," said Anson. "Am I?"

"Try opening your eyes."

Anson took this advice. He found himself staring into a face of a man. An old man, with straight white hair.

An old man? No one kept their cosmetic age looking this old. Could this man not be on the regeneration serum?

The old man smiled at him. "I think you are alive."

"And very lucky to be so," said a woman, coming into view. She was old too.

"Can you sit up?" the old man asked.

Anson tried, and winced as he did.

"Careful, Anson Ford," said the man. "I just set your broken leg a few moments ago with a portable bone regenerator."

"You did that?" said Anson. "Thank you."

"Thank the Survey Service," said the old man, bowing theatrically. "Captain Taylor always told me that I was the best field medic he had ever seen."

"You're a retired Survey Service officer?" said Anson. His head was pounding. He touched it. It hurt.

"Careful! You had a nasty concussion when you were ejected from your air car. It's lucky you were alive at all. If it hadn't been that ledge your car landed on, you'd be dead. The rocks and chasms below the Trachsellauenen would have sliced you up like sharp teeth."

"Who... are you? Where am I?"

"My name is Heycom, Anson Ford."

"Heycom....?" said Anson.

"Just Heycom, for now," said Heycom. He gestured to the old lady to his side. "And this is my lovely wife, Abba."

"I always know when I'm about to turn 70," said Abba. "That's when Heycom starts calling me lovely in every sentence." She put a glass of water by his side. "Drink, Mr. Ford."

Anson drank. It hurt when he drank. Everything hurt.

"You... you're both 70 years old?"

"Of course not," said Abba, yanking the glass of water from him. "Heycom is, let me see, 473, and I'm, I must be... 464."

"But you don't look a day over 300, my dear," said Heycom.

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Heycom," said Abba, grinning. "I'll have dinner ready in a few minutes, if you're up for it, Mr. Ford."

"How do you know..."

"We found your identification on you," said Heycom.

"Do you know who I am?" said Anson, looking for some sign of recognition.

"You're Anson Ford. Should that mean something to me?" Heycom said.

Anson was a world famous Fixer. He was used to having everyone recognize his name. But here, in an isolated place like this, maybe it wasn't surprising.

"Where am I?"

"I told you. You're at the Trachsellauenen."

"Trachsellauenen?"

"The beginning of the truly mountainous area at the foot of the Alps just outside of Stechelberg. I and a handful of others choose to live in the wilderness. You were quite lucky, Mr. Ford. What were you doing driving up the Trachsellauenen at speeds like this? Didn't you know that the road ended here?"

"No," said Anson. "I had no idea where I was going."

Heycom gave him an odd look.

"Dinner is ready," said Abba.

Heycom helped Anson get up. He gave him a wooden cane to help him hobble around. "Go easy on the leg for a few days."

Anson looked around the house as he made his way to the dining room. It had shelves which were filled with carvings. All kinds of wood carvings.

"Yours?" he asked.

Heycom smiled. "My pride and joy."

"So you're a retired Survey Service officer who makes wood carvings?"

"I was never actually in the Survey Service for that long. Only about 20 years," said Heycom.

"So what was your main career?" said Anson.

"Time to eat!" said Abba. She ladled out some beef stew over pasta. Anson found he was very hungry. It was delicious.

After he ate, he suddenly found himself sleepy. "I... I have to contact..."

"You have to get some rest, Mr. Ford."

Heycom practically helped him into bed. He was asleep even before Heycom turned away.

The sun was bright the next morning. Anson got up, and using the wooden cane Heycom had given him, hobbled into the backyard. It was as Heycom said; the house was in the middle of nowhere. The backyard led directly to a heavily forested hill that led up into the mountains.

Anson, feeling weary, sank into a reclining lounge chair. His mind went away for a little while.

"Ah, there you are," said Heycom, some time later. He came bearing a tray of cheese, and bread and grapes, and a glass of water. "Breakfast is served."

"Really, Heycom, you don't have to-"

"You're so right, Mr. Ford. It's my house. I choose to," said Heycom. "Humor me, please. It's not often we have guests here."

"I won't be a burden for long," said Anson, as he ate. "Did you recover my comm? If I can make a call-"

"There was no comm. It's probably somewhere down in the bottom of the Trachsellauenen," said Heycom.

"Well, if I could just borrow yours, then."

"I have no comm," said Heycom.

"No comm? How do you... communicate?"

"I have everything I need here. Who would I want to communicate with?"

"Can you take me into town in your air car?"

Heycom slowly smiled, shaking his head.

"No air car?"

"There is a friend of mine, named Mikki, who comes every ten days or so with supplies. You just missed him, a day before you arrived."

"Ten days?"

"More like eight, now. Why, are you in some kind of hurry, Mr. Ford?"

That was an excellent question. Jennifer, the only person he ever truly cared about or loved, was gone, her mind totally erased. Nothing else mattered.

"No... there's nothing at all. Nothing," said Ford.

"Then stay with us for a few days. Abba and I would be glad for the company."

Ford nodded dumbly.

He spent the day like that, just sitting in the lounge chair, facing the hill behind the backyard. He didn't move. He didn't say anything.

In the house, Heycom and Abba talked in the kitchen. "Something ails that boy, and it's not just a car crash," said Abba.

"That's very obvious," said Heycom, as he started to wipe down a countertop.

"You know who he is, of course," said Abba.

"I'm old, Abba. Not senile," said Heycom. "In fact, we actually met once."

"Does he know?"

"No," said Heycom."There's no reason he would."

"We have to help him," said Abba.

"Why?"

She grabbed his arm. "That man out there is Anson Ford. He's the greatest Fixer of modern times. He's taken hundreds of the most difficult cases that no one else could solve, and helped incurable people in the depth of despair. The world owes him a tremendous debt."

"I am not the world," said Heycom, wiping down another countertop.

"You have to help him, Heycom."

"I'm retired," said Heycom.

"That didn't stop you from helping that man at Anders' wedding."

Two weeks ago, Anders had gotten married to Melanthia Odour. For the first time in a very long time, Heycom and Abba had left the Lauterbrunnen Valley to attend the wedding. It was a joyous event for all, especially for the two lovers, who had waited eight years to be together. Finally, they could start a family, and Anders could return to the field he loved, mathematics.

But at the wedding, Heycom had met an obviously depressed man, who had lost his wife in an air car accident. Despite immortality, death still occurred. Heycom had spent some time with the man, and helped him find new perspective.

"I didn't really help that man. I just talked with him for a few minutes."

"All right, Heycom Karlsen. Don't help Anson, one of your fellow Fixers, one of the greatest Fixers of all time. In fact, I have a better idea. Let's call Interlaken General Hospital. I know they'll send an ambulance out here to pick him up. They even have a Soylent Green wing, I hear. In the emotional state this young man is in, I'm sure he'll submit himself to it willingly. Then this problem will be off our hands, and we can all get on with our lives," said Abba. "In fact, I like this idea so much, that I'm going to do it right now. She opened a cabinet, and took out her comm. "Get me Interlaken General-"

Heycom took the comm from her hand, and put it back in the cabinet.

"What?" she inquired.

"Let's not be hasty," said Heycom.

For three days and three nights Anson lay on the recliner. The summer nights were warm and he could sleep outside. He derived some comfort sleeping under stars, just like he and... he and... he started to cry again.

He was doing that a lot. He was sure that Heycom and Abba must have noticed, but they never said anything about it.

Anson didn't see much of Abba, except at meals. She worked a lot in their expansive garden, on one side of the house. Anson had taken a look at it on the first day. It was not a tidy, domestic garden; it was wild, with all kinds of beautiful flowers growing all over the place, in a quite unruly fashion. Bees swarmed everywhere. It was wild and chaotic. He decided he liked it.

But most of the time he spent on the reclining lounge chair. Heycom came over to talk with him, from time to time. He never asked questions. He never asked why Anson was driving so dangerously. He never asked where Anson was going. He never asked why Anson was so obviously emotionally disturbed.

Instead, he just sat there, from time to time, as if he were watching, and waiting. Anson, who was so incredibly self-absorbed, found himself opening up, just a little, and wondering what kind of home he had stumbled into.

"So... if you're 473 years old, you're one of the oldest people on the planet."

"I suppose so, yes," said Heycom. He wore a wide brimmed hat, to shield him from the sun. Anson was seated partially in shade, which helped protect him.

"So... you must have been one of the very first to take the rejuvenation serum."

"Yes," said Heycom. "Abba and I were lucky enough to get it before we died of natural causes."

Anson laughed.

"Did I say something funny?"

"Immortality. It's one of the worst scourges of the human race," said Anson.

"I don't know about that," said Heycom.

"You're not bored? Or restless?"

"Bored? No. Restless? No."

Anson grew interested, despite himself. "Just what have you done with your life? You were a Survey Service officer for many years, and then retired to... this?"

"I was not actually in the Survey Service all that long," said Heycom.

"What did you do after that?"

"Different things," said Heycom, shrugging his shoulders. "But eventually, yes, I came to retire here."

"How long have you been here?"

"Let me see.... I think nearly 190 years."

"190 years? What have you been doing for 190 years?"

"Carving, mostly."

"Carving? What kind of carving?"

"Animals. Lions, tigers, wolves. I give them to children."

"Children in this day and age are interested in wooden carvings?"

"Oh, yes. It's quite a novelty for them. Most have never even seen one, much less held one."

"And what do you get out of this?"

"Nothing," said Heycom. "Just the look on their faces."

"So you've been carving animals for 190 years?"

"No... not always. At one time I did objects, like cars. For many years I did spaceships. Sometimes I did buildings. For a few decades I even made furniture."

"And your wife, Abba?"

"Abba tends her garden."

"And she's been planting the same flowers for 190 years?"

"The same flowers? No... not always the same. Different flowers, at different times."

"But by now you've seen all the kinds of flowers she's ever planted, many times over, right?"

"I suppose so, when you say it like that. But it's always a surprise when she takes me into the garden, and shows me her latest pride and joy, and I share the experience with her. I never know what I'm going to see."

"And the carvings. You've done the same animal carvings for years, right? Over and over, all the same?"

"No... not always," said Heycom. "When I give a carving to a child, each time I see a different expression on each of their faces. A different kind of amazement. A different kind of gratitude."

"And you've lived for hundreds of years... both of you at the age of 70?"

"I am 70, cosmetically. Abba is 68. We have a special arrangement with our geneticist. Our cosmetic age is not arrested, as with most other people. It is allowed to increase naturally, until I reach 72,and Abba reaches 70, then we are rewound, so to speak, to 24 and 22 again."

"Why? Why would you ever want to be middle aged or old?"

Heycom shrugged. "It's a different stage of life, like the seasons. When life is entirely one season, eternally young, you lose your appreciation for it. When it becomes briefer, fleeting, you enjoy it more. And there is something to be said for being older, however briefly. Abba says it makes me look dignified."

"And that's your entire life? She tends her garden, you do your carvings?"

"No... not my entire life. We go into town, sometimes. We watch the young people play soccer. We eat at a marvelous outdoor restaurant in Stechelberg which allows us to see the snow capped Jungfrau. We walk along the path and look at the cows, and the babbling brooks. Sometimes we go in and play cards with the villagers. And sometimes our friends or our son visits us."

"You have a son?"

"Oh yes. He just got married." To the daughter of your client, Francisco Odour, Heycom wanted to say. But he didn't.

"Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"And you've been perfectly satisfied here, alone with your wife, for... nearly 200 years?"

"Longer than that, Mr. Ford. But it has been almost 200 years in this valley, correct. I live in the most beautiful place in the world, Mr. Ford. When the weather modification net was put into place, moderating the winters here, the Lauterbrunnen Valley became ideal year around."

"But it's just the two of you?"

"I love Abba more than life itself. What else could I possibly want? You understand that, don't you Mr. Ford?"

Anson slowly laughed.

"What's so amusing, Mr. Ford?"

Anson had travelled the world looking for the answer to Francisco's Odour's problem. He had let himself be turned into a fish. He had let a monastery abuse him. He had tried a dozen other things, all wild and unusual. And the answer, the answer he was looking for, was here, all along, in a tiny Swiss hamlet, in the home of unassuming, ordinary man. And by totally random chance Anson had found himself here, listening to a man who had found the solution to the problem of immortality. The answer being love. Loving someone, and having them love you. Really love you. And loving whatever you do.

But what use was the answer? It wouldn't help Francisco Odour. And the answer had come too late for Anson. Way too late.

Jennifer!

His face spasmed in pain.

"Are you all right, Mr. Ford? Is your leg hurting you?"

"Yeah, my leg," said Anson, grimacing.

Heycom asked a question of his own, for the first time. "If you don't mind my saying so, you seem troubled, Mr. Ford."

Anson couldn't talk to him about the real reason. It was simply too painful. Instead, he said, "I... I have a puzzle I've been trying so hard to solve for the past year and a half."

"And have you solved it?" Heycom asked.

"I thought it was unsolvable," said Anson. He looked past Heycom, at the distant figure of Abba, who was working in the garden, wearing a wide brimmed hat.

"And now?"

"And now I don't know. Now it really doesn't matter," said Anson. He turned his attention to Heycom and looked at him, really looked at him. "Have we met before?"

"It's certainly possible," said Heycom. "We both have led long lives. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. There's just something about you... your manner... something I find, vaguely familiar."

Heycom put an arm on his shoulder as he got up. "I'm just a friendly ear in the wilderness. Nothing more. Rest up, Mr. Ford. Mikki will be here to take you home in another five days."

"Five days. Five hundred days. None of it matters," Anson muttered, as Heycom walked away.

For the next three days, Anson sat in that chair, only leaving for meals and bathroom breaks. From time to time he could hear himself moaning, "Jennifer", as if someone else were doing it. For a while he wondered if Heycom and Abba could hear him. Then he stopped caring.

He had lost the love of his life. What was left? What was left to live for?

The past.

Anson thought of Jennifer. Starting the morning of the fourth day, he went into an almost self-hypnotic state, thinking of nothing but Jennifer.

There was the time when they were sitting in comfortable chairs, staring out the bay window of their mountaintop cabin in Colorado Springs. There was a storm outside. Anson and Jennifer sat next to each other. His leg brushed her legs, and her eyes turned to look at him. She smiled at him. She reached out and took his hand with hers. It meant so much to him. Just the smile, the gesture, the touching. It wasn't wild, intimate, passionate sex. It was just being together, knowing she was there, knowing she enjoyed sharing this experience with him, knowing she loved him.

As they sat there, watching the rain pour down, Anson enjoyed being dry, and warm, and next to the one he loved. There was nothing remarkable, or special, about their time together; it was simply one of many, many times they spent together, in silence, enjoying each other's presence. And after that, whenever it rained really hard, he thought of Jennifer.

Then there was the time when they were out shopping for dresses. It was so hard to buy clothes for Jennifer because she was so particular, and never thought she looked good in anything. Anson, on the other hand, loved nearly everything she tried on. She was always so happy when Anson complimented whatever she was trying on, because she knew that he was really complimenting her. But she still was rarely satisfied enough to buy anything. That often led to mock fights which ended in kisses and laughter, and Anson accompanying her to the dressing room to convince her that yes, in fact, the low cut red dress really was attractive to him.

There was the time they went to the doctor with Judy when she was 12 because they thought Judy might have contracted Mars Plague (she didn't). Jennifer's face was etched in stone. She was seriously worried, and looked like she was about to cry. And then Anson reached out, and grabbed her hand, tightly, and she turned to look at him, with those deep, blue eyes, and something in her melted, and he could see her shoulders relax, if only fractionally.

There was the time when Anson had just gotten an award for... for something. It didn't matter what. What was important was Jennifer's reaction. She was so proud of him. She stared at him, from across the living room, and then she started walking to him, her hips moving sinuously, one leg crossed in front of the other. The way she walked like that was so incredibly erotic. He loved the way her tight pants grabbed her thighs and her groin with every step. And then she sat down on his lap, and he felt the warmth of her on his thighs, and she put her arms around him, and she stared at him, with those brilliant blue eyes, and smiled at him, just smiled at him, for the longest moment, and Anson felt like the luckiest man in the world.

For three days and three nights Anson lay on the reclining chair, thinking of Jennifer. During the day he day dreamed of Jennifer. During the night he simply dreamed of her. His night dreams were more erotic. She was kissing him, making love to him, tenderly touching him, arousing him. And he was doing the same, making love to her, making her groan with pleasure, making her back arch and her head tilt backwards as she cried out his name. He remembered touching her arms, her legs, her thighs, her knees, her feet, her face, her head, her hair, her lips, her back, everything about her. Everything was so perfect.

Abba watched him worriedly. "That boy is sick," she said again.

"Yes," said Heycom. "And we don't have the means to cure him."

She looked up at him.

"Even I can't help him," said Heycom. "If he is to be helped, it will have to come from somewhere else."

Anson continued to daydream about Jennifer. In his increasingly fragile mental state, he became convinced that Jennifer was there, in the backyard, with him. He looked up at the wooded hill behind the house. He imagined Jennifer, hiding behind a tree, wearing a brilliant white sun dress, just hiding there, watching him.

But of course Anson knew that Jennifer could not be there. Jennifer had no idea where he was. In fact, by now, Jennifer certainly had no idea even who he was. Oh, she would learn that she had been married to him for 311 years; and she would perhaps puzzle over that, for a time, but there would be no memories, no feelings attached.

The thought of it made him weep.

He remembered the time when his parents died, in an air car crash. He hadn't cried in such a long time. Ashamed, he went to the bedroom and closed the door behind him. But Jennifer was not far behind, she took him in his arms. "My love," she said, hugging him. He felt the warmth of her body against his. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, taking his face in her hands. "Anson, I'm so tremendously sorry." And then she kissed him, passionately, and while it still hurt, it was like a huge layer of regret, sadness, and remorse had been stripped away. He always loved her for that moment.

He remembered the time when he was having trouble with a case, and he talked about it with Jennifer while she was cooking dinner, and she laughed and said the problem was so simple. Jennifer was so naive! So he asked her what the solution was, and she told him, and he thought about it, and realized that she was completely right. She looked at him as that dawned in his eyes, and he saw the pleasure in hers as he realized that he appreciated how brilliant she was.

There was the time, many times, when Jennifer played the piano, or the cello, or many other instruments for him. She was so beautiful as she played, so focused on her instrument, and somehow that focus, that dedication, made her so much more sexy in his eyes. She would stare at sheet music with intense concentration, working to perfectly do justice to each note. And then this woman, this tremendously talented and beautiful thing, would produce a masterpiece out of her slender fingertips.

Anson remembered the time when they were just sitting in the living room and he was watching Jennifer read a datapad. That's all; just reading a datapad. She was wearing an ordinary white top and tight pants. She looked beautiful. Her hair was perfectly combed, her eyes were focused on the datapad, focused, concentrating, her slender arms at her side. There was nothing at all remarkable about that moment, and yet Anson remembered it, and treasured it, because it was one of those moments when he simply paused everything around him and realized once again, how lucky he was to have such a wonderful woman at his side.

He remembered the time he went ballroom dancing with Jennifer. She was dressed in the most beautiful dress! It was a replica of a 18th century gown worn by royalty. With her hair up, and her bosom jutting out, as those dresses tended to do, she looked like a princess. As Anson danced with her, he started to melt just from her smile. He loved watching her legs, how gracefully they moved when they peeked out of her dress. He loved holding her in his arms. He never wanted to let go. He felt like the luckiest man in the world.

Anson remembered when he got down on his knees and begged Jennifer to marry him. It had been the happiest moment of his life when she said yes. It was more important than being a Fixer. More important than anything.

And he had thrown it all away.

Anson tossed and turned on the third night, the third night since he had started daydreaming about Jennifer, and the seventh since he had arrived here. In a day or two Mikki would arrive to take him away, and he would have to make some decisions about what to do.

He felt warmth on him, and he dreamed that morning had come. And when he looked up at the sun, he saw Jennifer, in a brilliant white dress, perfectly framed in it.

"You are the sun," Anson whispered, in his dream. "You are my sun. You are my stars. You are everything."

She smiled at him, as if she could hear him.

Anson absorbed her warmth, her radiance. He craved it more than anything. He never wanted it to end.

At that moment he decided. He knew what he had to do.

He would enter the Dreamscape.

In the Dreamscape, he could be with Jennifer every minute of every day. Not the Jennifer whose memory of him had been wiped, but the Jennifer of the past, the Jennifer who he loved and who loved him. He could relive all of his memories of her.

His physical body would begin to rot, and decay, but he would have at least five good years in the Dreamscape. And they said that five years in the Dreamscape felt like 50 years or a 100. It was good enough for a lifetime.

"I'm coming.... I'm coming to join you, Jennifer," Anson whispered, in his dream.

But then the Jennifer in his dream, the Jennifer framed by the rising sun, shook her head. "No! No, Anson! You can't!" She started to cry.

"But I want to be with you. This is the only way I can have you," said Anson, in his dream.

"That's not true, Anson. You can have me now."

"You're gone, Jennifer. You're not really here." It pained him to say that. It really did.

"Open your eyes, my love."

"Jennifer-"

"Open them now!"
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