Joe Weis (NBC):
In the end the president had no choice but to legalize the cure. Those who would criticize him for his handling of the entire situation need to step back for a moment and consider the issue this president was facing. This is a problem unlike anything any leader of any kind has ever faced. Did we really expect this man to handle the issue of the cure perfectly when it stands poised to tip the entire planet on its axis? His first instinct—the correct instinct—was to be cautious with it for as long as possible. Well, turns out three years was as long as possible. He bravely admitted it was a mistake on his part to stall, but he didn’t need to apologize for it. Those three years of waiting allowed him time to decide how to best regulate the cure in a sensible manner. The president spoke of a grim reality that will soon descend upon us all. Well, it seems he is one of the few people out there who has tried to envision what that reality will look like and how we will deal with it. His words were hopeful last night, but the concern in his eyes was unmistakable. He is bracing himself for what’s ahead, and he wants us to do likewise. Because the floodgates are open now. The floodgates are wide open.
After the president’s speech last night, I took a long walk uptown. The barricades had been taken down and the protesters had dissipated. The entire city seemed to breathe again. Everyone was smiling. Happy. Possibly drunk. The honeymoon was in full swing.
I walked by the UN building: no longer besieged. I walked by the posters on First Avenue. There were no anti-cure messages there this time. Just a bunch of Pepsi ads. I walked by the doctor’s apartment building and the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. Everything felt normal. Everything felt the way it should be. The world was functional again.
But deep in my marrow, I know it won’t stay that way.
DATE MODIFIED:
8/15/2019, 10:21 A.M.
II
SPREAD: JUNE 2029
(TEN YEARS LATER)
Photo No. 3,650
I took my picture again this morning. Still the same. The nose. The eyes. The brow. The chin. Nothing has sagged. No creases have formed. I scrolled through the “Face” folder in my library to compare it with the other pictures. There’s no real variation, except when I get a haircut. That’s the only time there’s any noticeable difference. My hair gets a little bit longer and a little bit longer; then I get it cut and the image resets, like one of those antique typewriters that slides back into place whenever you hit the carriage return. Though the hair gets longer, not a whisper of it gets grayer.
One day I drew a star on my cheek, just to mix things up. You can see it fade over the course of a week or so. Everyone at work looked at me like I was an unruly toddler after I did that. I’ve tried to keep the same expression throughout the photos, as a control mechanism. But there are some photos where I couldn’t hide my mood. The ones where I’m hungover are fairly easy to detect. I don’t look happy to have my picture taken, even though I’m the pushy fella who’s insisting it be done.
So there are some slight differences there, but the fundamental aspects of my face are identical from each day to the next. If you made a flip-book of it, it would be the most boring film imaginable. The only exciting part is when the star pops up. I haven’t changed. I haven’t grown. The supposed character that aging features provide has not been bestowed upon me. You wouldn’t know that I’ve lived ten years between the first photo and the last. All 3,650 pictures could—if not for my hair—have been taken on the same day. The time span is invisible. It’s as if I haven’t lived at all.
I have a friend who struggles with his weight from time to time. He’ll reach a certain weight and then grow completely intolerant of what he’s become. He’ll start running and eating nothing but grilled chicken and asparagus and baked potato chips. Then he’ll get down to a fairly acceptable weight, get a girlfriend, eat her cooking, and gain all the weight back. And once he’s reached his personal critical mass again, he’ll do it all over. If you took
his
picture every day for a decade, it would be far more interesting. It would be like watching someone try to inflate a balloon without bothering to pinch the end between breaths. You’d see the history. You would get at least some semblance of the life he’s led and what’s he’s been dealing with. But you can’t see that with me. There’s no story. You can’t tell a damn thing.
Happy tenth cure day to me.
DATE MODIFIED:
6/20/2029, 12:14 P.M.
“You said you’d love me forever”
Sonia wanted to get married. The issue had come up in the past, but I had managed to stave it off for as long as I possibly could. I have found, though, that once a woman introduces the idea of something to you, she’ll never let it go until you finally relent. I don’t mean this as a criticism of women. They’re all so admirably tenacious, whereas I am the exact opposite. I’ll let go of anything if holding on to it comes to require too much effort.
She broke one of the long silences that tended to overpopulate our most serious arguments. “I don’t understand what you’re so afraid of.”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” I told her.
“Yes, you are.”
“You’re not going to get me to marry you simply by challenging my manhood. I already know I don’t stack up to most men. The Cap’n Crunch boxes in the kitchen are proof alone of that.”
“This isn’t funny, John. I’ve invested four years of my life in this. There comes a point when it’s fair for a woman to ask what a man’s intentions are. Don’t you think that’s fair?”
“I do. And I am committed to you. I’ve never cheated. I’ve always been there to support you.”
“And you say you love me, right?”
“I do. I love the hell out of you.”
“You said you’d love me forever.”
“I did. And I meant it.”
Sonia sat down. She didn’t look upset. She looked as if she was trying to solve a math proof whose solution eluded her. That’s what I always liked about her. She was never unreasonable. If she had an argument with anything, it was backed up by sound logic and analysis. Not everyone I know acts in a similar manner. I know I don’t.
“Then I don’t understand,” she said. “You know I’m not a needy person. I can take care of myself. But the reason I’m talking to you about this is because I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to build something with you. And I don’t want to have this conversation with you every four months. I want this settled.”
“I understand all that. But look out there. Do you see anyone getting married? At all?”
“What does that have to do with us? Are you telling me it’s peer pressure that’s holding you back?”
“No.”
“Because I know what’s going on these days. A man in my office got engaged three months ago, and all the other men laughed at him. They laughed right in his face. Every guy is supposed to be some macho, shit-kicking eternal bachelor now.”
I sat next to her on the couch. She had a glass of wine on the coffee table, but she hadn’t bothered to touch it.
“It’s not just a guy thing,” I said. “I’m going to be as honest as I possibly can about this, because you deserve the unvarnished truth. I don’t have the capacity to commit to something—
anything
—for five hundred years or however long we’re likely to live. I don’t have the knowledge and foresight to say to you, ‘Yes. I will stick with you no matter what occurs from now until the end of time.’ ”
“But you could commit to me if you hadn’t taken the cure? That makes no sense.”
“Yes it does. I could commit to you if we knew our lives were definite. But they aren’t. I have no earthly idea what’s coming next, and I can’t promise that from now until the end of time I’ll always be by your side. Because I don’t know. And you can’t promise that either, because you don’t know.”
“But that’s what marriage is. It’s two people saying that we don’t know what’s going to happen but we promise we’ll get through it together. Being married means there’s one thing you can always count on.”
“I don’t know if I want that. I’m sorry. People got married before because they knew, deep down, that there would come a time in their lives when they would become too old, too ugly, and too infirm to have anyone care about them except their spouse. You needed someone to change your bedpan and help tie your shoes and all that. That’s all gone now, Sonia. All that fear is gone. And whatever urge there is for people to find a lifetime companion . . . I don’t have that anymore. Every guy I know feels the same way. You want something concrete from me? I love you, but I don’t want to get married, and I don’t know if I ever will. I’m pretty sure I won’t.”
Her eyes tightened, like she was about to swing at a baseball. “I’m pregnant.”
“What?”
“I’m pregnant.”
“How long?”
“Ten weeks. I just found out this morning.”
“You spring this on me now?”
“I’m not afraid to raise our child alone, John. I’m not. I’m a strong woman and I know I can do that. But I’d like you to be there. I’d like to raise him with you, as your wife. It wouldn’t be a chore. It would be wonderful. Indelible. It would be fifty times more rewarding than spending the next three decades getting blasted and watching football with your friends or whatever.”
“I don’t know. I like football quite a bit.”
“Don’t be a wiseass. Not now.”
“I’m not being a wiseass. This is just . . . more seriousness than I want. This is more responsibility than I want.”
“Don’t you think it’s time you grew up?”
“No. See, that’s what I dislike. I dislike that just because I reach a certain age, I’m supposed to hunker down and stop enjoying my life. That I’m supposed to leave all the fun to the younger generation. I’m not buying into that anymore, and no one else I know is either. This is liberation, Sonia. Honestly, why have this child now? Don’t you want to enjoy your life a little bit more before you weigh yourself down with all this?”
“It’s not a weight. It’s something I want. I’m not having this child as some sort of self-punishment. Just because I can have a child a hundred years from now doesn’t mean I want to wait that long. I’m still a woman. I still have the urge to be a mother and to be a wife. I still have that drive. You’re telling me about liberation. I
am
free. I don’t have to worry about growing old and never finding a man, like every goddamn magazine used to tell me. I have the freedom now to marry whom I want when I want, and to have children when I want. And I want this child
today
, and I want to raise it with you. Not because I’m some wet blanket. But because I know life is going to be better with the three of us together. I want something in my life that means something. Don’t you see that? It’s not some invisible cultural force driving all this, John. It’s just me, telling you that I love you very much and want to be with you. You tell me that isn’t what you want. But is that really true? Are you really so scared that you’ll miss out on partying and hooking up with other women down the line? Why have you gone out with me for this long if that’s what you really want?”
“Because I love you.”
“Then tell me how tomorrow will be any different.”
I had no answer. Three weeks ago I helped our firm devise a lucrative new type of prenuptial agreement between a banker and his fiancée. It’s a forty-year marriage. Set in stone. No divorcing allowed without significant penalties. The couple agrees to be together for forty years, with the marriage automatically dissolving at the end of that period and the assets divided at a previously agreed-upon percentage. The couple could then pick up an additional forty-year option if they wished. My boss has even coined a new term for it: “cycle marriage.” He says it could help raise marriage rates back up to where they were a few years ago. The reason clients like it is because it precludes the acrimony that usually accompanies divorce. You’re less likely to claw at each other’s throats if you know there’s already an end set in place. A couple marries, raises a family, then they go their separate ways to enjoy single life once more after the children are grown and well-adjusted. It’s a win-win situation, particularly if you’re the lawyer brokering the deal.
“What about a cycle marriage?” I asked her.
“That forty-year thing you do for asshole bankers? Are you being serious? That’s moronic.”
“That’s all I can offer you.”
She stood up and straightened her skirt. “So this is it. You really don’t want this?”
“I don’t. There’s too much left in front of me. I love you. But I don’t have the certainty that you have. I’m not ready.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m sorry all this has changed your ability to love someone. I can’t stay here.” On went her jacket. “Will you help me raise him? Will you support us?”
“I will. I promise you that I will be the best father I can be.”
“Then I guess that’s the best I can hope for.”
I watched her collect her things and move to the door. She turned to me. She wasn’t crying. But I could see the disappointment. She’d had plans for us. She had envisioned an entire life for us that she thought was going to become reality one day, and she was so very much looking forward to it. She thought I would feel the same way. She felt assured of it. She believed in me. But now that she knew the truth, she saw me as a different man—one I don’t think she liked very much.
“I’ll let you know when the first ultrasound is,” she said. “I’ll pack up my things when you’re at work this week.”
“I’m sorry, Sonia. I’m sorry I failed you.”
“Goodbye, John.”
And she left.
DATE MODIFIED
:
10/31/029, 5:33 A.M.
I Seek the Grail
I have a friend who’s going to have a cure party next week in Las Vegas. He’s really doing it up too. He booked a suite at the Fountain of Youth, so our trip is guaranteed to be either cheesy in a fascinating, outstanding way or cheesy in a horrible, soul-sucking way. There’s no in-between when you go to Vegas, particularly if you’re committed to staying at that monstrosity. Before the trip, my friend had a request.