John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

“None taken,” Elias commented sarcastically.

“They all need to be scared to death to take that step. You know, what if they do go to hell when they die? What if, after they die, there is just nothing? All that stuff. And what if killing themselves would hurt like blazes?

“In other words, if that option of suicide is truly too horrible to fathom, people have to try harder to get things right, to find a better solution. What I’m saying is that there needs to be a real deterrent, or people would take the option if they stubbed their toes.”

“That’s what is happening out there now.”

“I know,” Wilson sighed. “I’ve been in here watching. Most of the people coming in aren’t doing it for the old reasons, not that all of the old ones were good ones. They’re doing it for some of the most ridiculous reasons I’ve ever heard. There was even a young girl who came here because her favorite actor checked in.”

“I heard about that.”

“Yeah? Well, would she have done that if she knew he was dead?”

“No. Probably not. Maybe it happened, but I can’t remember anyone committing suicide because his or her favorite actor or singer did it.”

“Me neither. But that’s not what I meant.”

“What…?”

“He was dead! Within minutes of walking through those spinning doors, they killed him.”

“Who killed him?”

“Those punks. They did it for the fun of it. They were so happy to have this spoiled, privileged kid just so they could beat the insides out of him. And then when she arrived, looking for her heartthrob, well, I’m not even going to tell you what those animals did to her.”

Elias shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

“But, see, if we still did things the old way, she wouldn’t have come and it wouldn’t have happened. She thought she was checking in at a hotel and was going to be able to make google-eyes at the star. She probably thought she could move into one of the apartments here with him and they could live happily ever after. If he had O.D.’d on sleeping pills, she would have felt bad. Might have even thought about doing it herself, but she wouldn’t have had any illusions about living in the hereafter with him!”

“I see what you mean.”

“Of course you do. You’re not an idiot. The point is, we’ve cheapened everything, even death.”

“What do you mean ‘cheapened’?”

Wilson took another long sip on his tea as he collected his thoughts for another tirade. “You look old enough to me to remember something pretty special.”

“What’s that?”

“Tearing open the plastic wrapper on an album.”

“A record album?”

“Yes, a record album. I remember wanting to get a copy of ‘Peggy Sue’ by Buddy Holly.”

Elias nodded, encouraging him to continue.

“I took my allowance money from doing chores around the house and went to the Kresge on the corner. That was before K-Mart. It was 1958, and I bought Buddy Holly’s latest album, which had the song on it. I cradled that album all the way home on my bike, ran inside the house, and sat down on the floor in front of my record player. Then came the best part.”

The old man grinned as his eyes conveyed the joy of this past memory. “I broke the plastic wrapper with my fingernail, right at the opening of the jacket. Then I slid my finger to carefully slice that wrapper open. Didn’t want to tear it, you know.”

Elias nodded.

“Darned if I didn’t get a paper cut under my fingernail from the cardboard edge inside.”

“Ouch!”

Wilson chuckled. “But it didn’t matter. Careful not to get any blood on the inside liner — you know, that paper sleeve inside — I pulled out the record, with the sleeve still on it. Then I set down the album cover, gently took the record out of the sleeve, and put it on the turntable.”

He looked piercingly at Elias. “You remember that smell? The smell of a new record?”

“Oh, yeah,” Elias answered.

“Well, then I played it. And I played it and played it and played it. Boy, did I love that album. But the point is the experience. The process. The ritual. We all had record collections, and you could tell a lot about a fella by his records. Or a girl, for that matter.”

“That’s true.”

“Do you think that all of the younger people around today prize any individual song that they have crammed on their iPods, with the eight thousand other songs they’ve downloaded, as much as I prized that album? I don’t.

“Before I came to this place, I was sitting at a coffee shop and listening to a couple of younger guys talking. From what I heard, they had downloaded, between the two of them, about three hundred songs the night before. Three hundred! And most of them were downloaded onto their cell phones! I’ll bet there are some songs they have gotten that they’ll never even listen to the rest of their lives, much less care about the way I did that one album.”

“You’re probably right.”

The man leaned forward, closing the gap between himself and Elias. “And it isn’t just songs, either. Look at pictures! With digital cameras, people come back from lunch with as many pictures as a man and his wife used to take during an entire vacation. And books, too, with those cursed e-books.”

This stranger obviously had no way of knowing how many times Elias had made the same argument to his friends over the years. “Let me tell you something, Wilson. Do you have any idea how I got here?”

Taken slightly aback by the question, Wilson ventured, “I assume by car.”

“Only the last leg. Before that, I traveled from New Orleans to Tucson by train.”

Elias’ companion slapped him on the knee. “There you go. Traveling in a way that actually makes you feel as though you’ve gone someplace.”

“You got it.”

Wilson dropped heavily back into his chair and sighed again. “But you know what, my friend? Anybody listening to us no doubt thinks we’re a couple of old fuddy-duddies for saying these things.”

“I gave up,” Elias mused, “trying to explain to my boss that just walking onto an airplane and a few hours later stepping off, half the world away, gives us a skewed perspective on where we are and what the world is really like.”

“Don’t I know it! You can’t tell them though, can you?”

“No. You can’t. But what you said, Wilson, about the other things and about suicide, makes a lot of sense. I never thought of it that way.”

“We’re cheapening everything and we’re making everything all about us, and future generations be damned. The mind-set that causes us to fiddle with the way we name ourselves and our kids, without even mentally extending it out one or two generations, is the same as letting the debt get so high. Either we don’t care or we somehow know that it’s all going to end soon anyway, so what difference does it make?”

Wilson turned away and stared out at the riot of plants and trees encircling the porch. Without looking back at Elias and with a more subdued tone to his voice, he continued, “And television. Not all that long ago there were only three channels to watch. Now there are hundreds. And most of it is baloney. With the three, there was always something to watch, something you wanted to see. You could watch I Love Lucy or What’s My Line? or the fights, unless they were taken off for an Andy Williams special" — he paused and smiled at some private memory — “but, seriously, you can search through the choices delivered by the little black cable or satellite dish and usually not find a single thing you want to waste your time on.”

Returning his gaze to Elias, Wilson remarked, “You think I’m some crazy Luddite, don’t you?”

Elias smiled and shook his head. “No, Wilson, I don’t. As a matter of fact, I agree with you.”