by J W Rocque
“I"ve always liked you, Eustace.”
“I still love you, Vicar. Goodbye… and I thank you for your confidence regarding what I just divulged of my chance association with Gerasimos.”
“On my word… I will utter nothing concerning that. Your teachings to the youth regarding your philosophy, however, I must correct.”
“Understood, Vicar. It"s been seven years in one place… about as long as I should stay in any oneplace. I"ve spent practically the last century moving around England. I"ve never been to the New World. Perhaps it"s time. Their Civil War has been over for years now. I try to avoid times and places of war, you know. It will be good to reach another continent with the simple joy that I have found in the teachings of Jesus. Perhaps I will discover that one kindred spirit I seek in the form of a woman.” From his pocket, he pulled out the tiny flask of elixir. “America is brimming with diverse people. Perhaps she is waiting there for me.”
Michael extended his hand. “I suppose I shall be on to my eternal reward the next time you return to England.”
Eustacegrasped Michael"s hand firmly. “I suppose you shall, Vicar. Hopefully you will not have succeeded in having me blacklisted in future generations.”
Michael sighed. “You know that I have a duty to uphold for the Church of England, as well as the universal church.”
“I know that you believe that you are doing your duty. I can only take solace in knowing that if I do return, my message will remain the same though the name behind the message will be different.”
August, 1972 “Thanks so much for letting m e have as much time as I needed, Evan. I know you wanted to move on quickly,” said Michelle as the train pulled out of Providence Station.
“I didn"t really want to move on, Michelle. I like Riverside. I wish I had been born just a few years before you… right in Riverside. Life would be so much simpler. We wouldn"t have had to tell your parents that we were just taking a short vacation.” Evan paused. “You know they will probably think we"re dead after so much time goes by, don"t you?”
“Not if I send them cards with notes in them.”
“With no return addresses and no mention of where we are? Wouldn"t that be rather suspicious?”
Michelle sighed. “I suppose it would be.”
“I"m not against sending them anonymous gifts. It would
not verify that we are alive, but it would give them some hope.” Michelle nodded thoughtfully. “Do you really wish you were born around 1950? That would make you four years older than me.”
Evan smiled. “Yeah, I would have liked that. I wouldn"t be taking you away from your family and we would all be living a normal life.”
“So you mean without the elixir?”
“Had I been born in 1950 in the town of Riverside, I would have had no elixir, unless you know of any eccentric alchemists trying to preserve youth on the East Bay?”
“No,” Michelle giggled. “I do not.”
“Yes, Michelle. I would gladly give up my… our… for lack of a better word… immortality… to just settle down with you. I never desired it, you know. Even when the old man asked me to be the tester for it, I didn"t think it would work. I thought I was helping a scientist try to perfect something. At most, I hoped it would maybe benefit me somewhat… but certainly not do what it did.”
“That"s sweet. You wished we could be normal, yet you gave me the elixir so we could always be together.”
“The ironic thing is that had I not taken the elixir, we would have never met. I call that fate. I was meant to meet you, and you were meant to show me the kindness that you did. Because I am forever in the physical state that first attracted you, I knew it was somehow right to keep you in the physical state that you were in when we fell in love. Otherwise, if we could have aged together, that would have been fine,too.” Michelle looked out the train window. A tear streamed down her face. “That"s a tear of happiness, I hope?”
“Both happiness and sadness. It"s kind of a sweet combination. I wish we were normal, but I"m also glad that we have forever to be young.”
“As long as we take care of each other, it looks like the old alchemist fixed us up pretty good,” smiled Evan.
“Where are we going?”
“Well, this train will make several stops in Connecticut on its way to Grand Central Station in New York.” Evan thought about the possibilities of running into Bryan or Jean. “We should probably think of a direction we will want to go from there. New York City is rather busy… nothing like Riverside or even Providence. What do you say? South to Florida? Or all the way westward to California?”
“It"s all so much for me to take in. I don"t know if I can just pick a place to go and live.”
“Well… live for the next few years anyway.”
“You should get a car whenever we get where we"re going. That way we can travel easier.”
“I can"t get a license without proper identification, Michelle. I wish I could buy a car and a house for us both, but I can"t. You can buy a car though. I can teach you how to drive. I took some chances driving short trips to do errands for some of the people I have worked for, including the Cacharellis.”
“That sounds good. I hope my legs reach the pedals.”
“You"re not thatshort. We"ll get you a small car and move the seat as far forward as it will go. There are people who are just as tall as you are and they drive. The trick will be getting the people at the registry of motor vehicles to believe you are the person on your birth certificate. Maybe we can try to pull that off this year, but I don"t know about ten years from now. I guess they"ll have to believe it since you have the documentation to back it up, but sooner or later you may need to give up driving. I"ll have to find a good forger someday.”
“I wish we could buy a house.”
“Well, I could give you the cash and you could buy a house… but there"s not much sense in buying a house if we keep having tomove… butwait a minute… the way real estate keeps rising in value, it may be a good idea to keep buying and selling to make a profit.We can spend up to ten years or so in each house.” Evan put his arm around Michelle. “You know… maybe we can have thehouse you always wanted.”
“House-s,” said Michelle as she looked up at him with a twinkle in her pretty green eyes.
VI
December 13, 1983 The phone rang on the desk of Fletcher University Hospital administrator Stuart Williams. “Hello, this is Stu Williams.”
“Mr. Williams, this is Linda Sherman, administrator at Ottawa General Hospital. How are you?”
“Quite well, Linda. You must be calling about the patient we will be receiving tomorrow.”
“Yes. That would be Evan Troy. However, the doctors here would like to run one more series of tests. They think they may be onto something… a breakthrough in the case. We would like to delay the transfer for a couple of days… say Friday?”
“Hmm,” pondered Stuart. “If your doctors are on the verge of a breakthrough, then why do you want us to get him at all?”
“We just want to ensure that we have a plan to fall back on if it doesn"t work. After a few days of not being able to properly diagnose the Troy case, we are leery of putting all our marbles on our doctors" latest hopes for successful treatment.”
“Well… your people do have the advantage of having been working on the case. I will inform the ambulatory service to schedule a Fridaymorning patient transfer… unless you prefer afternoon?”
“No, Friday morning is fine. Tomorrow is Wednesday. If everything goes well and we determine to let the patient remain here, I will call you late Thursdayafternoon.”
“Best of luck to you.”
“Thank you, Stuart. We"ll be talking soon.”
“No, we will not,” said a voice from behind as the phone was returned to its base. “Good job, Mrs. Sherman. Now we only have one more call to make, and then our transport team will do the rest.”
“Hey.” Michelle was tired as she approached Evan"s bed and touche
d his hand. “You hang in there for me, okay?”
Evan smiled. He never could help do anything but smile when Michelle was near, no matter how much pain he suffered. “How are youhanging in?”
“Not bad. Mom"s gone back home. I think she"ll be okay. It"s good that everything is out in the open.”
“As long as your folks don"t put everything further out in the open for the world to consume. I may not make it, but your life could bequite compromised.”
“I think Mom knows well enough not to do that. I"m not sure about Dad. He said something on the phone that upset Mom. I think he blames everything on you.”
“And well he should. It isall my fault… last I checked.”
Michelle cupped both her hands aroundEvan"s hand. “I"ve got some news that might make you want to hope that the next hospital helpsget you all better quickly.”
“The only inspiration I need to give me hope for this deterioration to end is knowing that if it does end, you will not spend eternity alone.”
Michelle grinned. “I"m going to have a baby.”
Evan stared at her, trying to figure it all out. “Michelle, we"ve always used protection. How…?”
“Why ask how? I"m going to have your baby, Evan.”
“Did they tell you how long you"ve been… pregnant?”
“About two weeks. I know we"ve been using protection because you were afraid of what might happen if we ever conceived, butnow that I"m pregnant we can"t worry about that.”
“Michelle…”
“Yes?”
“You didn"t get pregnant two weeks ago.”
“You think they"re wrong?”
“No… that is to say… I think that you have a fetus that appears to the doctors to be two weeks along… but in real time it has been growing inside you for eleven… almost twelve… years.”
“Huh?”
“Michelle… there was only one time we made love with no protection… on your eighteenth birthday… after I told you about the elixir. It was an emotional moment… remember? You… wanted me to make love to you… and all I wanted to do was satisfy you. You had gone through so much ribbing at school… I wanted to do whatever you wanted me to do for you.I didn"t think of getting protection… I hadn"t planned on… We were supposed to go out to dinner… but you asked me to… oh God, I love you.”
“It was wonderful, Evan. So you think…?”
“I"m almost certain. It makes sense, butif I"m right… do you want to know the best part?”
“What?”
“Well… if you have life growinginside you… aging… then it follows that you, too, are aging. And if you are aging, then Imust be aging.”
“But you and I don"t age, Evan.”
“Oh yes… if I"m correct, then yes we do. Our little baby has grown what humanity considers two weeks… when we know that it has been about six hundred weeks, if my math is correct. The ratio is about three hundred to one… so we physically age about one year for every three hundred years. Michelle, that would mean that I have aged roughly close to eight years since I drank the elixir.”
“But you said that you didn"t age.”
“I didn"t think I did because it took place so slowly. I could have been around seventeen when I agreed to be a subject for Gerasimos… that was the name of the alchemist. Today that would put me around the equivalent of a twenty-five year old man.” Evan pondered some more figures in his head. “As for you… you drank the elixir around two hundred months ago, so you would have aged about… twenty days.” He chuckled. “Tell me, do you feel twenty days older since I made you that ice cream soda?”
Michelle got lost in the mathematics of it. “So you think this isgood? You"re not disappointed that you have aged eight years?”
“No, not at all. Michelle, when I thought I may be dying, all I could think of was how you would end up alone, trapped inside a body that would never age, unlike anybody else in the world. Now I can die knowing that you will eventually join me in eternity. Not only that, but death is no longer a devastating thought to me. When you have something that you feel you cannot lose, it"s depressing to face the possibility of losing it. But now I know I never possessed something that I could hold onto forever, so I have nothing to lose. Neither do you.”
“That"s getting too deep for me.”
Evan shrugged, and then grimaced as a sharp pain went through his thigh. “I"ve had many centuries to hone my philosophical thought, my love. You"ve had but twenty-nine years.”
“I don"t want to live forever if it"s without you.”
“Precisely what I was getting at, Michelle. Neither would I want to do the same without your company. You will now forever be the company I keep, even into eternity. Now if you don"t mind wheeling me around in a wheelchair for another fifteen millennia, we can hope that the doctors at Fletcher can patch me up. Then we can enjoy our child together.”
“Evan?”
“Yes, my love?”
“When will the babybe born?”
“My God… you"re going to go through quite a number of obstetricians, aren"t you? Believe me.I don"t think you really want to know the answer to that question.Let"s just hope that a lot of progress is made concerning childbirth in the next couple of centuries.” Evan sighed. “All the more reason for me to cooperate with the doctors. I must be there for you… andthe child.”
April, 1959
“Hey, stranger.” The voice was soft and gentle, yet startled Eric as he walked out of the jazz club.
“Jean! What are you doing out this time of night?” “I was waiting for you.”
“You knew I was in there? Why… you could have come
inside and joined us. Bryan"s still in there.”
“I"m not much into that music. I like the old jazz but not so
much the new stuff.”
“Ah, yes. You like Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. So
do I, but there"s a lot to say for Coltrane and Miles too. Besides,
it"s the company you"re with, right?”
“I"m just not into it. I just wanted to see you.”
Eric had been thinking a lot about Jean lately. Though his
head told him that Jean could never be completely comfortable
with him, his heart would sometimes wonder if she would come
around. Jean was over forty years old now, and sometimes her
face looked even older when she was nervous and frightened. This
night she was calm, which made her look somewhat younger and
very becoming to Eric. “You always liked the quiet places.
Would you like to go elsewhere? Oh, but it is late, isn"t it? Maybe
we could just walk slowly and grab a coffee on the way.” “That sounds nice.” Eric and Jean started toward Jean"s
section of the city. Jean tried to search for the next words she
wanted to say. “Eric… I just want to tell you that I"m sorry for
acting like a fool sometimes.”
“What do you mean, Jean?”
“You know. One minute I"m interested in you and the next
I"m running away. You"ve been such a good friend, and…” “Jean, don"t be concerned. I understand. We will always
be friends.”
Jean hesitated.“I never understood what you saw in an old
lady like me.”
“Old lady? Why… you"re not much older than I am.” Jean gave a quizzical look. “Oh,right. Let"s see. When
you arrived in New York, you claimed to be thirty years old. That
would make you thirtysix now, wouldn"t it?”
Eric quickly recalled his initial conversation with Bryan at
the train station, which he needed to adhere to during his entire
stay in New York. He kept on using the gray dye on his temples
for six years now, but would sometimes let on that the gray was
real and the brown was coloring he used for the theater. “Sssh…
don"t talk so lou
d, Jean. Nobody knows that I color my hair
brown.”
“So that"s it, huh? Maybe I should do the same.” “What… and ruin your natural beauty?”
“Still… you look like a kidto me.” Eric felt awkward so he
said nothing. He was saved when Jean broke the silence. “But I
like you anyway.”
“Can I buy the coffee, Jean?”
“I was going to see if you wanted to come to my apartment.
I made some cookies and was planning on putting on a pot of
coffee.”
“Mmm… cookies. Sounds great.” Eric thought about the
little vial hidden well back in his room back at his apartment.
What a gift it would be for Jean to never grow a day older from
tonight onward. She seems so free tonight, and she does look nice.
Eric found it humorous that even if Jean were to be given
Gerasimos" elixir, she would still always look older than he. “It"s the least I could do, Eric… especially after years of
leading you on.”
“Huh?” Eric was lost in his thoughts about talking to Jean
about the elixir and momentarily thought she was responding to his
thoughts. Then he realized she was referring to the cookie
invitation. “Jean… are you saying that… your inhibitions are
behind you?”
Jean looked up at Eric"s soulful eyes. “Maybe, and I have
you to thank for that. Mr. Townsend, I think I have you all figured
out.”
“You do?”
“Mm-hmm. You are my angel sent from God. That
explains why you don"t get any older.”
Eric tried to determine if Jean was joking by looking at her
face. “I am your angel? I must say that I have never been accused