Athanasia
—
Don’t Kill the Messenger

I can see my reflection in the glossy smears of fresh blood. But I hate it, my reflection. Wiping off the knife, the blood is gone, but my reflection is still there in the cold, polished metal. I can wipe away the evidence of my crime. But I can’t erase the injustice echoing back at me in every reflection I see, in every face I pass that dares to make eye contact; I see it in their reactions.

Confirmation. I am right. I am just.

Immortality is not permanent.

No one is permanent.

I can’t look at his face, though. It would feel too much like murder, and we can’t have that lingering over us now, can we? No, because this is not murder. This is activism. Art. I’m not killing people. I’m killing an insidious, narcissistic disease. And if that means some people must die, so be it. Ideas are infectious. And this idea is an epidemic. Caught simply from seeing it. Often on first contact. It has a half-life of forever. So a lot of people will need to die.

As I sheath the knife my hand cramps. Arthritis. This damn 72-year old carcass of mine is not worth keeping around. But I have no choice. And that’s the problem. Their problem. It’s not my fault Athanasia™ was delayed two decades. If they’d delivered on their promise I’d still be a handsome 50-ish man, strong, wealthy, sought after. I reserved my spot. Paid the price. And what did they deliver? A twenty-two-year-late package of pills. And a promise of life, as a forever-fossil. Not even a We’re sorry, Mr. Trent, about the extra 22 years you will have to carry with you, forever. We’re sorry we missed our deadline. What about my ever-approaching deadline!

The opportunity of a lifetime they advertised. What a sadistic pun. They left me with two terrible choices: die like an animal, or live forever from this moment forward as a withered, crippled shell of my former glorious self.

Not happening.

I found a third way.

When I am done they won’t fear death; they will fear deathlessness. I will expose it for the insipid, weak, narcissistic disease that it is. I am not murdering immortals; I am killing immortality itself. They will fear it. They will fear me. The immortal reverser. Ha. Now that’s a clever pun. When I am finished the very idea of deathlessness will be vanquished. Death will have its final say.

Don’t shoot the messenger :)