Sci-Fi Story I Wrote

A/N: This is a story I wrote for English class, but when I realized we had to read it aloud to the class... well read it and you'll understand.

Immortality’s Science

December, 2012, man trespassed on God’s territory. Man, with his technology and science have made immortality possible.

The uproar at this was insane, especially from Rome and Greece, where it is populated with mostly religious people. The Pope threatened the government with letters, assemblies and protests. Undaunted, America did nothing to stop the growing prowess of science.

One wishing to become immortal is subjected to an injection. This vial of this sacred liquid is stored many miles beneath sea level, in an iron prison with a hundred guards, bullet proof metal, countless layers of thick iron, and laser sensors, all to protect this elixir of immortality.

It spreads quickly throughout your body in a matter of seconds. Inside this liquid are specialized stem cells that multiply and rest in the most important organs. At the slightest tear or rip, the stem cells go to work and repair the fault. It can even remake an entire organ before any blood is lost. Also, within this vial is a drug that targets platelets, and speeds it up at unimaginable rates, resulting in almost instantaneous healing.

Age is the deterioration of tissue. The moment you inject the fluid into your veins, that is the last moment of time your body will endure. Then, you are truly immortal.

It cost exactly 5 billion dollars. No checks. No credit card. Only 5 billion dollars in cold, hard cash. Few can afford such a rate, but it was worth it, or so most thought.

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My name is James Lexington the VI. I made history, as the first immortal man. All my life I had been dreading death. Death was the end of happiness, as I always say. I am 39 years old, and forever shall be.

It has been exactly a hundred years since my injection. I still remember the cold seeping into my veins, the tingling feeling I felt as the drugs began to do their work. Sometimes, it is frightening to look into the mirror after a century and seeing the same face as a hundred years ago. There were so many times have I had to remind myself that this was not a mistake. I have grown tired of journalists and writers trying to get interviews from me, the world’s first immortal. At first I gladly supplied whatever they needed, but after a hundred years, I hear the same questions batter my ears over and over again; I grow bored.

The reason to live has disappeared for me. Novelty is the spice of life, but now I have seen and heard everything. Now, I just sit in my couch, old, ripped and falling apart and read books. I read a book a day. There are more than a million books in the world I am happy to say, so I have not yet finished them all, although I highly suspect one of these days I will.

Books are my safeguard. When I have nothing else to do, I read. I immerse myself in books, savoring their adventure. So many books! I can never read all of them in my lifetime, I hear myself think sometimes. Then I remember who I am. An immortal.

I thought living forever would be an asset. I have done everything I wanted to do. I feel that I have lived my part in this world, and yet I have more time. I have become an artist, a writer, a scientist, an architect, a mathematician, a historian, and everything else. I have written novels I have never published. I designed buildings never built. I have done the work of many men’s lifetimes. I just have too much time.

They say time is money. Is it possible to have too much money? My net worth has risen grossly, becoming even greater than before, especially since I am now so famous. I have donated a very generous amount to each and every charity I can think of.

I live alone, in a small town in the Idaho. I go on a brisk jog every morning to the market, to buy breakfast and groceries. I return home, and read for the rest of the day. I try to cut off all relationships because I know I will visit all of their graves on day.

The only acquaintances I keep nowadays are other rich men who have suffered the same fate as me. Sam Worthington, another immortal sends me letters all the time and I to him. One bright outlook on my day is a quotidian packet from him in the mailbox. I can spend as much as an hour reading an essay-like letter from Sam. He was a best-selling author in his youth, and still enjoys writing. I keep all of Mr. Worthington’s letters, which has taken up two rooms of bookshelves now; he never writes about the same topic, which I find amazing. I write back, also long, tortuous essays about our predicament or the meaning of life, which has now become a burden.

I am unwed. My ring finger is as empty as the branches of a maple tree in the winter, cold and bare. If my soulmate was somewhere on the world, she would be long dead by now, for I have outlived her before I knew her.

I offered a middle-classed friend an injection quite a while before, so we can both live peacefully together. He declined. I was bewildered at this reply, and pursued it further. He said that life was meant to end one day, and elongating it would only cause suffering. I did not understand it until now.

A/N: It has no plot. None at all. Its mostly some random philosophy that I have no idea what is either. Blah.