Luke Alden - Happy Birthday Eternity

My name is Ellis Jackson. Im 2038 years old. I didnt meet the love of my life until I turned 578. Her name is Evaline. She has pale skin and collagen injected lips. Like everyone else that lives forever, most of her body is fake.

I love Evaline even though I barely remember why. I just know that I do. Im relying on the fact that Ive said it so many times that there must have once been a reason for my love.

But isnt that how we always go through life? Relying on our words to justify our actions? Whatever happened to justifying our words with our actions?

Im going to die.

Whats that supposed to mean?

It means Im going to die.

You mean youre going to kill yourself?

No, Im dying.

I dont understand.

Im going to die.

When?

Within the next fifty years

A pause. A breath. A nervous twisting of nervous fingers. This is how the moment goes. This is how my wife tells me that shes going to die. Im incapable of processing this information.

Im not sure how I should react to this.

And then its silence.

Silence like you see in the movies. The silence you get after a crucial plot point is revealed. The silence that allows the viewing audience to breathe and digest the emotions that theyre being fed.

Again.

A pause. A breath. A nervous twisting of nervous fingers.

Evaline looks into my eyes. She says that Im the chorus to her verse. Me. Ellis Jackson. A 2038 year old narcissist who still jerks off into the toilet because he cant get any action from the verse to his chorus.

Shes going to die.

Death is not a part of my reality.

We were supposed to live forever.

We were supposed to coast along, stuck in our ancient routines. Because when natural death stops existing, when the only way that we can die is from the unexpected, from a suicide or from an accident, theres not a lot that motivates us to stay away from routine.

And so we do this little dance where we have no motivation, where human achievement becomes a thing of the past. We have forever to get things done; why rush?

But now Evaline is going to die.

Now Evaline is going to die and all that I can wonder is what this means for me.

Is a song still a song if there arent any verses?

Im biting my lip. Im furrowing my brow. Im trying to wrap my brain around that which does not exist within my already established reality.

So she asks me what we should do.

I dont know. Fix dinner I suppose.

Ok.

The only constant thread throughout the history of humanity is how we stick to routine. Its not a bad thing; its just how we survive. Like wolves that stay in packs, like bears that sleep all winter, our routines are what keep up safe and warm.

So its evening and Im watching television with Evaline and shes smiling and laughing along with the beats of the show and everything is happy and normal except for the fact that shes going to die.

But I still dont know what that means.

So I laugh along with her.

I hold her hand.

Our fingers tangle.

I rub my thumb on her wedding ring. I was once told that the band is supposed to symbolize infinity.

What did people do before forever?

She looks at me and I can feel her eyes running up my skin. Its a good feeling.

And this is how our nights go.

Dinner.

TV.

Laughing.

Etc.

Weve got our routine carefully plotted; an intricate storyline where theres forgotten meaning to the actions we repeat.

It all makes sense.

I love her.

I love her because I tell myself that I love her.

She rests her head on my shoulder.

It feels heavier than before. It weights me and pushes me until I feel as if Ill never be able to get up. Im not even sure if I want to.

And I dont know how to conceptualize fifty years. Its a meaningless number. There is no context. The measurement of time through years has essentially been forgotten.

Fifty years.

Death.

Love.

These are the things I never think about.

These are the things that I take for granted.

The only reason Im still alive is because I dont know what death is. Only people in third world countries die. Only poor people that cant afford first world luxuries have to face death.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Here, in my reality, people dont age, people dont die, and people dont get sick.

No one has kids.

No one truly grows.

Were complacent in the fact that the world has marketed, packaged and sold us on eternal life.

I was born in the second generation of the undead. Born to parents who once knew what death was, born to parents who had felt the presence of death in their lives. Born before the government outlawed children as a means to keep the population under control.

During the initial movement of the undead. When it was just emerging, when genes that stopped the aging process were first being isolated, before the endless chemical peels and face lifts that kept our skin from rotting, some people actually wanted to die. They said that it wasnt natural to live forever. They said they wanted to pass on to a greater place. To a heaven. To a nirvana. To a new life.

They couldnt have children because of the new laws.

Without new generations wanting to die, the idea of death eventually just fizzled

No one dies.

Accidents are rare.

Suicide is even rarer. Most people dont even remember what suicide is.

And so we go on living.

Because thats what we know how to do.

We go to our jobs that never end.

We make money to spend on gene therapy and plastic surgery.

Work.

Spend.

Live.

Its a simple formula. Its basic math. Its a testament to humanitys ability to oversimplify. Without death we dont fear, without fear we dont change, without change we simply dig a niche of routine so deeply that well never be able to get out of it. And perhaps thats how things have always been.

But I wouldnt know.

Youd think that eternal life would equate to a search for greater meaning.

A need to perfect things simply because we finally had the time.

Youd think we would accumulate knowledge, ideas, experience.

Of course we dont. Those things may have been novel for the first 200 years, but they got old.

Like a river carving out a path, adventure always gives way to complacency.

And when I was younger, before Id found my routine, before Id found a rhythm to base my life around, Id always assumed that the love of my life would be someone who I would spend eternity caring for, someone that Id never stop being passionate about. I had assumed that itd be like in the books I once read. I had assumed that Id spend years molding every aspect, like the perfect poem, each line painstakingly tended to.

But love isnt about romance.

The words love and routine, theyre interchangeable in my world.

And so now Im living this life. Spending my days with Evaline. We wake. We kiss. We leave. We work. We eat. We watch television. We go to bed. Its natural. Without it wed be lost.

Right now Im at work. In the middle of another meeting for another product thats exactly the same as the last.

Ive got my tie on. Ive got my freshly shaved face and cologne. Ive got my hair gelled and Im flashing my white teeth every time I speak.

Ive had this job for longer than I can remember.

1000 years.

Maybe more.

When something becomes easy I tend to stick with it.

With simplicity comes complacency comes the comfort of routine.

I keep thinking of Evaline.

She is the love of my life.

Shes going to die.