fiction

The black Lincoln drifted down the tree-lined avenue, chrome wheel trims reflecting the low evening sun. Across from me in the back Cindy, my wife of 27 years, sobbed and sniffed. Shafts of dusty sunshine swept across our faces in neat golden oblongs.

I leant over to try to catch her black gloved hand, to comfort her, but she moved it sharply away, preferring the damp ball of tissue on her lap. I leant forward and turned to her, trying to catch her eye from under the veil, but she was too quick and turned away to the window. Her teardrop pearl earring shook. Was it the movement of the car or her shaking? It was probably a bit of both.

Funerals, I hate funerals, particularly my own. I had been to dozens in this lifespan and it seems my own is the worst of the lot. I sighed as I sank back into the tan-coloured seat, cupping me like a baseball glove. I let out a weary sigh and the seat hugged me tighter, letting out a breath of cool, scented air to soothe me. It was good I went for the emotionally intelligent seating. 

I stole a glance in the chauffeur’s rear view mirror and saw Cindy staring straight out of her window. In some ways I was flattered, but it also seemed overly dramatic. It was just one lifespan and I had more than fulfilled my 25-year marriage contract, throwing in more than a decade of extra years purely out of goodwill. Her complaints had no logical or legal grounds whatsoever.

It was proving to be a tense end to an otherwise enjoyable lifespan. My biological age was 65, but a few judicious physical upgrades meant I kept the physique and appearance of a 25-year-old in prime condition. And Cindy could pass for 28, despite having a biological age of 83. It was only her enormous bank of subconscious worldly wisdom that gave the game away about her age. We joked about me being her “toyboy”. We’d learned that word on the couch 30 years ago watching TV shows from the 1980s, when death and ageing were still a thing.

There was still something endlessly fascinating about looking back on the days before universal immortality. Life was so raw back then. It was so binary, you were alive or dead, no middle ground. This rawness seemed to mean that people cared more, about life and for one another. Now people tend to just drift along, not caring so much about each other as they seemed to in the old TV films. Lifespan these days was mostly about finding something to do.

It was 397 years ago now, but everyone alive now had also been around at Year Zero, the start of mandatory gene-renewal. We were no spring chickens at the time. I was 65 and Cindy 83. Can you imagine our relief? It is a shame we could not live with that feeling of thankfulness imprinted on us, so we could enjoy every moment of every lifespan. But that is not the way it worked. The only way to stay fresh is to have our minds wiped at the end of each lifespan. Lifespans had to be kept distinct from one another or chronic fatigue was likely to set in. We are just not able to stay interested forever. 

 So in each lifespan we dropped into, in whatever role we were given, we began as a whole separate new person, with a completely new narrative. It was like being an actor cast in a completely different Netflix series but with absolutely no conscious memory of our previous roles. We were stuck with what we were given. The only thing we can do, other than play along, is call time and schedule an end to our lifespan as I had done.

Cindy was sniffing again. If I had known she was going to take my dying as badly as this I would have been more careful about telling her. It was so, well, “immature”, if I can say that of someone who is 479, if you add her biological age to the age since Year Zero.

There was simply no need for this kind of melodrama. Why get sentimental about any one particular lifespan, especially when it is not your own? It makes no sense. Controlling your lifespan length is a personal choice. That is the way I rationalised Kevin, our grown up son, deciding abruptly to end lifespan three years ago. It was a bitter blow to our self-confidence as parents, but we had to respect his decision. Kevin had a biological age of 52 at Year Zero and he had been through as many lifespans as anyone. So I guessed he had developed lifespan fatigue.

Cindy never really accepted it. And, to be truthful, I never felt as fully connected to this lifespan after. It is as if being made nominally responsible for someone else made me value my own lifespan more. Once that responsibility ended, my own lifespan seemed to lack something. Meaning, I guess.

When a romantic partner chooses to throw in the towel you could marry someone else, or enjoy being single for as long as you want, or you could call it quits yourself. But, reading around told me it was common for people to become very emotional about partners dying. Sometimes they were sad and shocked, sometimes a bit relieved. Maybe this is a flaw in humans even scientific progress will not let us escape?

With people living for as long as they want, funerals are often an alternative to divorce. Rather than go through the aggravation of breaking up with a contracted lifespan-partner people will simply pull the plug on their whole lifespan instead. That way they avoid the awkwardness of being around bumping into an ex partner for years. It is a neat solution all round. This is not the case here. I just needed a change of lifespan scenario, not a way to escape Cindy. In an ideal world she could come with me to the next lifespan, but that is not the way it works.

For my part I had done my best to make the whole announcement of my death as light and breezy as possible. People can tell when someone’s given their notice. There is a different energy around them. And I never believed in letting an issue like this become an elephant in the room. She was bound to notice I was acting differently. If something threatens to become an awkward, unspoken issue, just get it out right away, that’s what I say.

There was no better way to do this, in my experience, than to slip the information into conversation while doing something else. It was a method I had used on several occasions already. I had announced to my business partner that I had bankrupted our company while we were on a rollercoaster. He had shouted and punched me a few times, but that was all. 

And I told Cindy that our son Kevin had registered himself dead while I was crouched under the kitchen counter unblocking the sink. She had gone to stand in the garden for a few hours and did not speak to anyone for a few weeks. I dread to think what would have happened if I had not broken the news so well. Tennis, I had thought. I would tell her I was booked in to expire while we were playing tennis. We first met at the tennis club, so it had a certain symmetry.

 So, a fortnight ago, me and Cindy were at the tennis club about to play our weekly game. They had invented far better games now, but we did it for the deep retro. Maybe we both liked tennis before Year Zero? Deep retro was also the reason I was in my traditional collared white tennis shirt, shorter-than-necessary shorts and headband. Cindy had on her kitschy pink crop-top and tennis skirt and yellow plastic sun visor. 

“I will miss those body parts,” I thought.

“Hey, Cindy, let’s play a game,” I said with all the casual good nature I am known for. I walked back to the service line. I bounced the ball three times and served her a high-kicking one to her forehand. She was not quite ready and sliced it into the net. 

“15-love,” I said, then went back and bounced the ball. There was no time like the present, “I’m going to a funeral in a couple of weeks. It should be fun.”.

“Really?” Cindy said.

I served and Cindy sprinted to retrieve it, taking it on the rise at shoulder height while running full speed, producing a topspin drive down the line.

“Fifteen-all.”

“Whose funeral? Not Ernie?”

“Ernie?… No, no!” I shouted, serving another.

She scramble to retrieve the ball as it landed close inside the baseline, as it spat viscously forward low and fast. She struck it long to the backhand. I sensed her pink outline ready bobbing at the net to take a volley, so I looped a lob. 

“No, it’s not Ernie.”

“Whose then?” she said, while dashing back and making a sliced backhand landing mid-court. It lacked serious power and spin, giving me options. I drew my racket back as if to drive, then chipped a drop shot over the net with heavy backspin.

“It’s mine!” I shouted triumphantly as the ball dropped over the net. She did not move an inch. The ball bounced twice and rolled off. I started walking back to the service line. When I turned round she was standing staring, her mouth wide open. 

“30-15,” I said.

She stopped where she was, silent for maybe a minute. Then she let out a roar and started bashing her racket against the court, before throwing it over the perimeter fence, where it landed on top of a bush and stayed there. She started walking off. This is the kind of closure you get when you refuse to allow an elephant into a room.

“What?” I shouted after her. “What’s wrong, Cindy? Cindy? For God’s sake, Cindy!”

Clearly she could have taken the news better. And her mood did not improve in the weeks after either. None of my many attempts to lighten her spirits had worked. In fact they seemed to have the opposite effect.

This was not what I had in mind. I had pictured a real up-beat send off, with lots of parties, funny speeches telling people how great it was to know me, lots of booze and, in an ideal world, marathon farewell sex with Cindy. But, no, none of that materialised. 

She barely stopped crying all week and was generally morbid and resentful. Most of the time, like now, she would not even look me in the eye, let alone anything else. A scowl would be a step forward.

With all this weeping going on I began to get morbid too and eventually reconciled myself to having a thoroughly miserable farewell. Why do people have to take it so personally? My wish to move on to another life was about me and my feelings about this life and no judgement on anyone else, least of all Cindy. Truthfully she was one thing which made me want to carry on. I told her so.

“I was happy with carrying on,” she said, scowling.

“Everyone wants a change at some point. It’s natural.”

“Not me. Not at this point.”

“You just hadn’t reached that point yet. I’m sorry for that, but that’s just the way it goes.”

I told her how I had begun thinking I might have “multiple lifespan fatigue”, like they wrote about in the news. The idea is that having one lifespan after another with the same brain is no good for people. Eventually we start getting fed up with it despite every attempt to wipe our minds. I felt a weariness right from the start of the lifespan, I said.

“Bollocks,” Cindy said. 

The fact I had kept up my enthusiasm for most of this 30-year stint was nothing short of a miracle I would say

I was just thinking this when I heard Cindy leaning forward and talking to the driver.

“Pull over here on the right, Charlie.”

.We were outside the tennis club and before it stopped Cindy had the door open ready to get out.

“You can’t go like this on the way to my funeral.”

She pulled back her veil, looking me in they eye.

“Yes, I can, John. What you have never seemed to realise is that I’ve got lifespan to live too and that, somehow, it was connected to yours,” she patted the roof, slamming the door shut.

“I…,” I said.

I guess that was all there was to say. It was not ideal to have your wife bail on your funeral, but at least she would not bring down the mood.

 I saw Cindy go through the gate of the tennis club and out of sight. I turned and sat back in my seat, which tightened around me, soothing me with a cooling waft of air. I glanced at my watch. In less than hour this lifespan would be wiped. The engine picked up and the oblongs of golden sunlight drifted across the cabin. ■

This is fiction.

“Are you absolutely sure you want to tick this box with a Yes, sir?” said the airline official at the desk, pointing a lacquered fingernail at the tick box on the US Alien Declaration form.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said, looking at her with a well practised nod-frown combination indicating I was as sure as possible.

“You feel comfortable telling US border control that you are affiliated with a Communist organisation?”

“What else can I say? We were a self-declared Communist organisation. We even called ourselves the Croydon College Anarco-communist League. The exact blend of anarchism and communism was never fully defined, but communism was definitely part of it.”

“Do you advocate a totalitarian Communist takeover of the US? Those are the people the US is really not so keen on.”

“We were never that specific, but it is perfectly possible we would support it. Let’s say, we were on the fence.”

“‘On the fence,’ I see. And you are still a member of this Anarco-communist League, sir? If you don’t mind my saying, you seem a little old to be at uni.”

“Oh, I’m not that old. And the truth is I don’t remember leaving or disbanding the organisation. So, I think, technically, I am still a member.”

“What I am saying is that if you were to suddenly realise that you were a lapsed Communist you would not need to declare it to the US authorities.”

  “I still have my membership card somewhere,” I said, reaching for my wallet. I’d really rather play it straight.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Okaaay. Have it your way,” she said, drawing the form away from me, stamping my passport and sliding it into a grey machine which flashed like a mini photocopier. She pushed it back to me across the desk, still warm, my boarding card sandwiched inside it.

“Here we are, sir. Have a nice flight. And good luck,” she said with a glance at the passport.

“Thank you,” I said. 

The “good luck” worried me. But I was also grateful. Nothing bad had happened, nothing at all. Was this a good thing? The idea I had pitched to my editor was to write about what happens if you declare yourself a Communist and tried to enter America. The answer, so far, seemed to be nothing at all. That was probably good for my wellbeing but not good for the story.

“Nothing happened,” was not a good semi-humourous real-life Sunday supplement travel piece. Although I guess I still had the story that the US was now officially open to incursions by self-declared Communists, though that seemed unlikely.

I ignored the many disastrous outcomes that came rushing into my mind as I headed towards security. This could well be the worst story idea I had ever had, I thought. 

— 

“That is without doubt the worst story idea you ever had,” my wife had said after I explained the idea to her. “And God knows you’ve had some shitty ideas over the years,” she added unnecessarily, taking Tom, our two-year-old, from beside me in the spare room.

“Thanks for your support,” I said under my breath. 

“What did you say?” she said, turning to me.

“‘I guess we will see if you’re right,’ I said,” I said.

Jemma scowled and left.

I went back to going through the drawers  in search of my old Anarco-communist membership card. Twenty minutes later I found it, the two sides now coming apart, the glue decomposed, the plastic fogged with age.

I put it back together, sealing my younger self in sticky tape, wondering what the hell had happened to all those years. 

“Please don’t let her be right,” I thought.

—

The same thought crossed my mind now, as I walked to departures, consoling myself with the thought that being ignored was marginally better than being told to go home immediately. 

I could already squeeze a few paragraphs out of it, with a bit of extraneous background, so, technically, it already wasn’t the worst idea I’d had.

On the downside there was the fact that I was a self-declared Communist on route to America. That thought played on my mind as I went through security. 

But apparently my revolutionary intentions had not been logged with staff.

As I waited in the departure lounge at Gate 53 for my flight, the 22.30 for New York JFK. I pulled my passport out of my cabin bag and opened it at the visa page. There was a visa for the US, and beside it a small circular red dot.

I ran my thumb over it. It was slightly raised, like a waxy polythene seal. I tried to get my nail underneath it, but it was bonded tight to the paper. Maybe it had a microphone or transmitter in it, I thought.

I looked up and saw the woman next to me was watching me from the corner of her eye. 

“I told them I was a Communist,” I told her, smiling.

She turned away and put in her earbuds and busied herself with her phone. She clearly did not want to associate with a Communist.

“Now that was embarrassing,” a lady was thinking as I caught her watching.

I put in my earbuds too. 21.43, in 47 minutes we’d be on the plane.  There was no going back. 

I pulled out my phone and started a heavy session of Candy Crush.

—

It must have been very annoying for the woman who blanked me in the departure lounge to find we were seated next to each other. 

That’d teach her, I thought. But she did a very good job of ignoring the lesson. She kept her earbuds in and slept, or pretended to, stirring only to raise a finger to a passing steward for a glass of water.

I didn’t sleep a wink. I was too anxious.

I watched Die Hards one and two, drank a Pepsi, played Candy Crush and ate a pizza slice.

I was a Communist revolutionary, with totalitarian leanings, but nobody could accuse me of being rigidly doctrinaire in my tastes.

—

The world was dark but JFK was an oasis of light as we touched down.

At the point the rubber hit the tarmac, and the seat jolted me, it all seemed to get real. A self-confessed Communist about to set foot in an enormous capitalist airport, all for the sake of a story he might sell for a pitiful amount of money.

 Not only that I had a mysterious red dot on my passport that I couldn’t explain. Not even the woman next to me could explain it. And now we were getting off the plane, already. 

It felt like I was being pushed ever closer to an enormous, immovable legal wall, with potentially uncomfortable consequences.  The anxiety took on physical form. My chest grew tight while my stomach felt like I had ingested a bowling ball. I was told the toilets were not available on the ground.

 That could be awkward. There would surely be cavity searches ahead. And there would be bright lights shone in the eyes, and hooded helicopter rides to god knows where for days of waterboarding and white noise. 

I had very little to say about our communist league, it was a long time ago now. We were probably the best Communist league at pub quizzes, largely thanks to Joe’s memory for football. That was about it. I hoped that this would be enough for them.

There was no mistaking it. I was feeling anxious, which manifested itself in being excessively polite, letting people past, helping them down with their bags. There was something soothing about it and I was certainly in no hurry to reach border control. 

I sat back in my seat, pulled out the passport and ran my thumb over the red dot, in case it might help. Time passed.

“You will have to leave the plane now, sir,” said a voice, the calm-as-you-like-twenty-something American air steward. 

He had none of the aggressive edge you get on Ryanair. I looked up and the last passenger was making their way off. 

“Of course, yes,” I said and took my bag as he walked behind me, discreetly escorting me off, while sweeping the cabin for left rubbish.

—  

Once off the plane I got to the bottom of the stairway. There my legs were unwilling to take me any further and put me in a sitting position on the bottom step.

“You cannot sit down there, sir,” I was told in no uncertain terms by a very large security man, with a side arm.

“Of course,” I said. “I’m just feeling a little under the weather.”

“I am sorry to hear that, sir. Just make your way to the terminal,” said the mountainous man before following me uncomfortably close behind. 

I opened my phone as we walked, the sound of aeroplanes taking off, engines roaring, the yellow-orange flashing light from the baggage waggons. It was very late in the UK. I found Jemma in my WhatsApp and recorded a voicemail.

“I’m just off the plane in New York. I just wanted to say, yes, you were right, it was the most stupid idea I ever had. Lots of love to you and to Tom,” I said and walked on, tears forming in my eyes.

The most stupid idea ever had.

—

When I made it to the security desk, I felt quite sure I was pale with fear.

The border officer looked at me directly from under the peak of his officer’s hat and asked me sternly why I was travelling to the US? 

I said I was there for work. I had a story to research. I said I was going to be there for a night and fly back tomorrow afternoon. This made him suspicious. I had gone from feeling terrified to feeling ridiculous.

“You are coming to New York for 18 hours?”

“Yes, it is just a quick fact-finding mission.”

“A fact finding mission? How many facts can you find in 18 hours.”

“A few. It’s just to confirm a few things,” I replied weakly.

He pored over my documents, feeling every page of my battered passport, examining it with a magnifier and running his thumb over the strange red seal.  He put it under a scanner, then turned to his computer. I felt a bead of sweat drip from my armpit.

After what seemed like a year he put the passport on the counter in front of me. It must be a test. I did not grab it and run off as I desperately wanted to. As I inched my hand near to it the border officer raised his head and said.

“One last thing, sir. Your US Alien Registration form is incomplete.” 

He laid down the same form as I was shown back in London. I looked it over. It was mine, only all the boxes were ticked “no” this time. I was no longer declaring myself a Communist.

“You just need to sign it,” he said, placing a ballpoint beside the form.

I signed. ■

This is fiction.

Scientists are trialling a suite of life-affirming placebo dangers to perk up listless middle-life men.

A disproportionate number of men around 50 try to rekindle the devil-may-care attitude of their youth by taking risks which lead to harm.

Motorbike accidents among middle-aged men rose by nearly two thirds in the years since 2013 thanks to this phenomenon, for example.

“We can now treat men going through this common ‘kamikaze phase’,” says Dr Tracey Compton of MomentoMori. “A wake up call is all that is needed to restore balance.

Forcing people to confront their mortality rather than maintaining a state of denial has been found to reduce people’s appetite for risk taking, Dr Compton explains.

To deliver this jolt Dr Compton’s clinic offers patients a range of worrisome medical adventures. “We do everything from heart palpitation to testicular cancer. ”

“I was absolutely bricking it,” says Eric, who was given the impression he had a dangerously clogged carotid artery as part of secret 56th birthday gift from wife Jane.

“I was quite peeved when the wife first told me it was a wind up, but I was so relieved I wasn’t dying I forgave her,” says Eric, who dropped paragliding for gardening.

Relatives can choose from a range of placebo health crises, all guaranteed reminders that life is short enough as it is, without finding new ways to end it early.

“A convincing simulation of impending doom takes patients on a journey, leading most to the firm conclusion that they probably best playing safe,” said Dr Compton.

The cutting edge technique has caused some rifts, she admits, when patients are not as understanding about the well-meaning prank as Eric.

“The strange thing is that we have also had several repeat customers,” says Dr Compton. Eric told Untrue he would be keen to repeat the experience.

“I can’t say I enjoyed the experience, exactly, but I did come out feeling more alive than before.” ■