Human beings unlock skills as they grow up, walking, taking, etc. You are the oldest person in the history of the world, and today you unlock a skill no one ever had.
No one really predicted the speed at which medical advances would happen. If I remember correctly, I was in my late sixties and had just been diagnosed with a nasty case of lung cancer. Way too many smokes in my youth, you know? Well, I just got lucky. The week after my diagnosis, some young upstart from the city was all over national TV raving about this new super drug that he’d developed. I figured I might be in with a shot with this one, so there I go, off to another young upstart in the form of my doctor and I bored the bones off him until he made some calls and prescribed me with the mother of all gobstoppers. Formaltin they called it. Stupid name if you ask me. It came not in a little bottle with a twisty cap, but in a vast blister pack. These suckers must have been about an inch long and half an inch wide. Twice a day with meals, my doctor had said, so I did my due diligence, knowing that either these worked or I ended up in the ground.
I reckon you know where this ends up. They worked. Miraculously in fact. My doctors face when I came in for a checkup was quite the picture. The man must have been hundreds of thousands in debt and some twenty-two year old amateur chemist cures cancer in his spare time. I just told him to get used to young people taking over and left him to it. I hadn’t been able to breath that well in years.
This is where I get even luckier I suppose. Soon after these drugs came out, the reports of side-effects started appearing. I won’t go into details but suffice it to say that every person who had taken Formaltin ended up with a bad case of stuff coming out of places it shouldn’t and then death. All except me. They couldn’t work it out of course, I just kept on living. Eighty, ninety, one-hundred (the letter from the Queen was nice, I must admit) and I kept on going.
Eventually, my doctors got old and died, but I was still there. I was practically frozen at the same health I was when I was in my sixties. For a time I was a medical marvel, but now they just check up on me every five to ten years and otherwise they just let me be. There’s no point in worrying about an old timer like me. I just think they don’t like my stories.
Now the next bit came as a bit of a surprise. They say there’s a bunch of things people learn as they get older. You start pretty simple I guess. Walking, talking, running, swimming. Whatever. Eventually you get into your teens and you develop independence and then I guess it ends there. You live your life and then you die and I’d say you should be happy with that. The problem I have is that I didn’t die. I just kept going and at the ripe old age of two hundred, I hit the next phase of human learning.
I’m not sure what to call it, but I can see the good in people. I know what you’re thinking - ok granddad you’ve given up that hard exterior and in your wisdom you can see that people are fundamentally good and want to help people. Well all I can say is that’s bullshit and you’re about 150 years away from knowing what you’re talking about.
I can see the good in people. When I meet a person I can immediately see the battle going on inside them between good and evil. It’s like all the stupid story books. Good is the light of the sun and evil is the darkness of night, but I could physically see it emanating from people. No one is pure good or pure bad, as far as I can tell but it usually leans one way or another. You may be pleased to know that people do tend to lean on the good side. We’re all social creatures, right? We’ve got to work together and part of that means being good to each other and working for the future. I figure that’s what it’s about anyway, I haven’t exactly had anyone around to discuss it with.
The curse of it really is I can’t see the good or bad in myself. I always thought I did a good job of life, I mean I didn’t hurt anyone did I? I know that my daughter always had a hard time of what I did to myself after the cancer, and I cannot describe the pain I felt when she passed. Christ no one ever prepares you for losing a child. The second time was just as bad, and he was definitely a good one. I didn’t need two-hundred years of human development to know that. He was just a good person.
I guess that’s why I decided to end things on my own terms. I wasn’t immune to death, just to dying I reckon. It was quick and easy when it came down to it. I’d lived enough lives for five men, so I figured that was enough. And now here I find myself standing in front of the gates themselves telling yet another young upstart that I’m a good person and deserve to be let in. So how about it? Do I deserve to see my children? My wife? My dogs?
“I know your pain” the tall man said, looking carefully down on the elderly gentleman. “This too happened to me. I can see the good and the bad but I think that’s why I was chosen. It is time for you to take over, I think.”
“Take over?” Peter said, chuckling to himself.
“Of course. I can’t think of a better man for the job.”