Editor: The choice of the individual often impacts only themselves; however, at key times it
impacts the entire species, the entire biosphere, in fact the entire everything.
I am the thinking, breathing City that humans built. Once I would have said that I was the living City that humans built, but I am no more living than the humans who built me. In biological terms, one characteristic of living organisms is that they reproduce. The humans who built me gave up this ability and I—their only child—never achieved it.
And now I am empty, abandoned. Waiting.
To combat my loneliness, I replay the sounds and sensations of humans within me, of life, for lack of a better word. The lonely pad-pad-pad of slippers on warm, living stone rings in my memory as a ghost bell, tolling extinction.
I cannot die. In this, I suppose I am better than my makers. I long for the return of the living humans, and thus a return of purpose.
I am waiting.
* * *
“You’re about to burst at the seams.” Dori laughed as she slinked into the brightness of the lab. “You asked me to come. Why don’t you quit trying to be so nonchalant and just tell me.”
Roth grinned, then threw his arms out and spun on the tile floor. His lab coat danced around his large frame like a wind-whipped victory banner at a parade. Dori leaned against a computer casing, hands on her large, bony hips, smiling at his youthful display.
He hugged himself. “I found it,” he said, almost whispering.
“You found . . .?” Dori's eyes widened as her hands dropped to her sides.
“I FOUND IT!” Roth yelled as he jumped and bounded across the floor. He threw his arms around Dori and they danced in a circle, kissing and laughing, ignoring their strict rule against intimacy at the lab. The surrounding computer banks hummed in what Roth imagined was quiet disapproval. He pulled Dori by the hand toward the lone terminal, then bounced up to sit on the white metal desktop beside the colorful screen.
“I’ve run all the tests umpteen times—you know me—and,” he tapped the data on the screen, “I’ve isolated the gerontological clock.” Roth’s hands squirmed against each other as he fought to keep silent for even a moment. Dori paged through the information.
Unable to stay quiet, Roth continued. “I’ve done the gene manipulation on our mice, and they’re not aging! Their bodies reach that miraculous plateau between puberty and decline, and keep right on ticking.”
Dori’s face flashed red, then blue, as she paged through the screens.
“Rather than DNA-RNA disintegration and the normal increase in cell decrepitude, the mice stay young,” he said. He threw his head back and laughed as he pounded his heels against the metal drawers.
Dori, ever sedate, put her hands across his lower legs to stop the hollow banging.
“What about this?” she asked, pointing to the screen.
“Yeah, I haven’t figured that out yet. It seems that if we don’t age, we turn off the need to reproduce. No need for it from a species survival standpoint, I guess. I’m sure there’s a way around that.” He squeezed her shoulder before leaping off the cabinet and saying, “I love the sweet taste of success!”
“God, Roth, are you sure? You found it?” For an instant, he thought fear shimmered through her sudden tears, but then she smiled, and blinked, and the tears cascaded away. “Of course you are,” she said. She wiped her cheeks on the sleeve of her coat and with a smile nodded toward the door. “Come on. Let’s go see your immortal mice.”
* * *
As I breathe—as I beg prayer-like for the return of the living humans—I prepare. I continue to inhibit the weeds from my sidewalks and entice the grass to my lawns. From bare interior walls, I create living sculpture. I flex my muscles and keep floors and furnishings supple. I recycle, refresh, and regenerate gastronomic masterpieces, hoping for the day humankind will again applaud my culinary efforts. The moving walkways ripple in long, slow waves as though the warm surface still gently propelled residents between the living houses they once inhabited.
I replay the lives I remember. In the silence it sounds like the dead, rising to join me in my keening.
I am waiting.
* * *
“Congratulations!” The word was delivered with a venomous cloud of cigar smoke.
Roth rolled his eyes at Dori who was checking their coats across the small, crowded hall, before turning and offering his hand to the speaker. “Thank you, Dean.” He concentrated on not using the planetary CEO’s nickname.
Dean “the Bean” Lankford ignored Roth’s proffered hand. Instead, he threw his hands in the air—unwittingly dumping a cube of gray ash into the elaborate hairdo of a passing woman—tilted forward at the waist, and bent his gaunt upper frame into a back-pounding embrace. Roth’s embarrassed grin slid over the tall man’s bony shoulder as he imagined the spectacle they made.
Lankford straightened, replaced the cigar between moist lips and scanned the room, obviously reveling in his position at Roth’s side, drinking in the envy of others. He pulled Roth under his arm, as a father would, and spoke around the thick cylinder at his lips.
“You are brilliant, my dear boy, just brilliant.” His eyes did not leave the crowd as he pulled Roth toward the immense dining room.
“Yes, I am, rather,” he answered, making an effort to imitate Lankford’s crisp Brit accent. A joyous laugh tumbled from Roth and seemed to be carried on the crowd. As the pair pushed through the multitude into the open-air grandeur of the dining hall, a light piano concerto began and swept through the room. The ebullience of the crowd lifted Roth and made him feel drunk, shatterproof. This—all this—was for Roth.
He stood with a swarm of well-wishers and rubber-neckers when he next caught sight of Dori. His beautiful Dori. In her long, black sequined gown, one spaghetti strap perched ready to slip off her shoulder, she seemed entranced by something Thom, from bioengineering, was telling her. Just before Roth looked away, Dori faced him and winked. Today, Roth thought as he shook another congratulatory palm, right now, I am standing on the pinnacle. Dori and me, on top of the world.
Two hours later, Dori squeezed Roth’s hand under the dinner table. She leaned toward him and whispered through a stale smile, responding to his earlier question with one of her own. “Why do you think they look so covetous? You’ve offered them immortality. What a stupid question.”
“Mr. Fogle,” began the greasy, dark-haired man across the table from them, “how does it feel to be the savior of mankind?” His short, polished fingernail gleamed as he stroked his thin mustache and smiled a closed-mouth smile.
Roth had lost his earlier energy and couldn’t remember his name. Dori leaned in and hissed, “An equally stupid question.”
Roth smiled as he answered. “I’m not sure I would classify myself as a savior . . .” He flicked his wrist and trailed off, worn down and unsure of what else to say. The perfection of the small man’s straight part as it crept through his black hair kept drawing Roth’s eye.
“Why not?” the man asked. “After all, every person in this room will live forever—barring accident and disease, of course—thanks to you.” The man’s smile showed a row of small discolored teeth before his lips closed over them again. Roth forced himself to smile. An uneasy prickling that had been growing in him all evening brought him close to squirming in his seat. He answered after a pause.
“Certainly some people will choose fertility and the figurative immortality achieved through children, over their own personal . . . longevity.” He forced himself to meet the irritating man’s eye, daring him to disagree, and suddenly terrified he would. The man’s black eyes locked with Roth’s and the warm buzz of a thousand people conversing dimmed to nothing. Roth clenched his fists under the table.
“Yes, certainly, some will,” the small man answered after a moment, flicking his eyes to his spotless plate, then to the people seated to either side of him. His greasy, toothless smile flickered on and off, on and off.
“I will,” said Dori into the near silence. Her hand squeezed Roth’s under the table.
“Bravo!” said Lankford and raised his glass again to Dori, flashing her a smile that seemed a mingling of embarrassment and thankfulness.
Roth couldn’t decide if he was made more uncomfortable by the fact that no one except Dori had spoken in support of reproduction or that she had mentioned her desire for children again.
* * *
I wish I could say I recalled a child being born. I have often dreamt of the event. Mother is supported on my spongy flooring as I curve and mold myself to her needs. With the final release of fluids, it is I who cradle the babe in the warm folds of my body, and I who suck away the blood and waters. With a rolling ripple, I deliver the child to Mother, and support them, and warm them.
I have dreamt it, but—old as I am—I was not yet born when humans still reproduced on this planet. In reviewing the histories, I have learned of my own birth. I have read that with Roth’s gift of immortality, humans received the patience that leads to the power of creation. And in a burst of ingenuity spurred by the image of luxurious living for the immeasurable span of eternity, man created the living City, the City that serves.
But immortality came with the sacrifice of fertility. Thus, when the few humans who chose fertility left this planet, they left only the walking, talking dead. I hope through the slowly passing time for the return of the living.
I am waiting.
* * *
Roth sprawled over the bed, cheek pressed against Dori's naked breast. The afternoon sun slashed into the small room and across his face. He squinted to watch the dust motes as they spiraled and floated down toward the bed. The breeze from the window wafted across them, carrying the rich smell of their exertions back to him.
“Roth . . .?” Dori spoke, and he mistook the hesitancy in her voice for the muzzy aftereffects of their lovemaking. He smiled and licked at the small beads of sweat on his upper lip.
“Roth, please,” she continued, voice cracking, “let’s at least talk about children.”
“Dori, stop.” He pulled away from her seducing softness, angry she would try getting to him this way.
She blurted her words, desperation lacing her voice. “But if you wanted, we could just store your sperm for the future. It doesn’t have to be now . . .”
“Stop it!” He spat the words as he rolled from the bed and spun to face her.
A storm-cloud tear rolled down Dori’s face and fell to her chest. “But you’re urging everyone toward fertility—stressing its importance to the human race! I don’t understand why—”
“And I don’t understand you. Why in the hell would we want children?” Roth yanked on his bathrobe in small, jerky motions.
“I want children . . .”
“Dammit, that's not rational. Why would you prematurely interrupt a promising career at the height of our success? We have so much work before the Board will even consider—”
“Then do it," she interrupted. "Choose immortality. But give me our child before you do.” She reached toward Roth with pleading hands.
“And watch you both grow old and die? I want you with me always—together we can change the world." A niggling interior voice called him selfish, reminding him of a recent similar accusation from Dori. He pushed the thought away. "I won’t talk about this again!” He gathered his clothes and left the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
He could hear Dori’s sobs through the door and stood frozen, remembering their last argument on this subject. Dori had accused him of narcissism and refused to see that it was not immortality he wanted, per se, but all the scientific advances he could achieve with a limitless lifespan ahead of him. Ahead of them.
With a sigh, he dressed and left their apartment for the unquestioning sterility of the lab.
* * *
The humans of Roth’s time, for the most part, were self-centered and chose not to understand the importance of reproduction and renewal, even while touting its necessity. Most chose immortality. In the beginning, the immortals watched in horror as the fertile grew old, as the old died. Even the few children born to these fertile humans did not alleviate their horror. From my review of the histories, I believe the children exacerbated it, leaving the immortals with the impression of the young feeding on the old. I believe, too, the immortals were perhaps ashamed of their choice.
Now, like a woman who dreams of children but can bear none, I ache hollowly at the emptiness of my womb, at the utter lack of someone to nurture, someone for whom I can provide comfort.
I often wish I could weep.
Instead, I am waiting.
* * *
“But Your Honors, you don’t understand!” Roth forced himself to remain seated, willed his hands not to pound the table on either side of the microphones. Even in his terror, Roth remained aware of the audience—present and telecast—and of the importance of his argument. He took a deep breath.
“Have any of the members of this distinguished panel looked at the figures provided?”
Only one of the ten stone-like faces seated behind the high wooden panel broke, and only long enough to spit an outraged, “Now see here!” before Roth continued.
“Because if you had, I know you wouldn’t have come to the decision you have.” He reached for the AV control, knowing that with every bit of information he thrust on this unwilling committee might come the one bit that made the difference. The one piece of information that let them live. The statistic that let humankind survive.
He flashed the first tri-D graph into the vast space in the center of the room.
“As you can see,” he tried to keep the emotion from his voice, knowing how this committee would react if they smelled blood, “even the most favorably skewed statistics show that humankind will eventually die out without a given level of new births.” There was no room for argument. The committee, faced with the facts, must see the truth.
Ten frozen faces deflected his pleas. He half expected to hear his words return as echo. He flashed the next image.
“Even using the lowest possible rates for cell mutation and assuming minimal deaths from accident . . .”
“We have seen all the figures.” The voice licked out as ice.
Roth turned from the image to the panel, heart beating in his ears. It can’t be over.
“I repeat, we have seen all the figures.” It was a small, rather shriveled man at the center of the panel who spoke. “We have only one question for you.”
“What is it?” Roth clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering.
“Would you choose to die?” The question came with a slash of smile.
“I beg your pardon?” He clasped his hands under the table and shivered in the sudden chill.
The white robed figure leaned toward him. “For the record, Dr. Fogle, we note that you chose to live. We note that you, Dr. Fogle, chose immortality over fertility.”
“I . . .” Roth stood, his chair falling backwards to the thick carpet with a quiet thunk.
“You are one of the greatest minds alive. You have given mankind the greatest of gifts. Would you deny the rationality of choosing as you did, to take advantage of it?” The words taunted Roth with their similitude to those he had used in his arguments with Dori. The shrunken man pressed forward into Roth’s silence, then leaned back in his chair with an air of finality. “Our decision is for the public good.”
“Each person has a right to make their own choice,” he pled. “Each person . . .” Like Dori. Dori made her choice and I disagreed with it, wanted to force her . . . Now I argue in her behalf.
“It is for the public good,” repeated the man. “We cannot allow a person to choose death over life. We cannot condone virtual suicide.” The man stood, accentuating the smallness of his stature. He
appeared to be waiting for a capitulation. Roth could not speak past the closure of his throat. He watched as the gavel was raised and smashed down with a self-righteous vigor. “And now,” the wizened man said, “it is law.”
Roth remained frozen at the table until long after the panel and audience had left. The hum of the equipment went on as the lights died into darkness.
Dori will be one of those who leaves the planet with her children rather than be forced. Her children, not mine. I wish they would let me go with them. I don’t think I have the courage to stay and watch the destruction I have wrought.
When Roth finally moved, it was with a bone-weariness far beyond his now forever-static youth.
* * *
I am waiting. The sun rises and sets again.
In my dreams, Dori’s descendants return from their wanderings and, as visiting relatives are wont to do, shower me with gifts: with the gift of their presence, their children, their life.
Until then, I cradle and nourish the only child I can know. I feed my hope.
I am waiting.
Ricky’s Journey
Richard A. Shury
Editor: In a crisis, why do we always return home even when there is no chance of respite?
“Shit!”
Ricky pulled his hand away from the edge of the can, removed his glove, and stuck his finger into his mouth. The blood tasted odd, mixed with the flavour of cold baked beans. He rummaged with his free hand, pulling out a bottle of antiseptic, and squeezed the last of it on to his finger. It stung a little, but he was used to pain. In his backpack he also had some bandages; he wrapped his finger and stuffed his hands back into old gloves.
A length of duct tape repaired the glove. Ricky had to grin, seeing the beat-up old things he’d worn for so long. The silver tape covered two other fingers, and one palm.
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