Clifford Simak - New Folks' Home - And Other Stories

Originally published in the February 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, “Second Childhood” may be the culmination of the list of second thoughts Clifford D. Simak had about the concept of immortality. And it makes suicide look like a good idea, if only one could do it. …

You did not die.

There was no normal way to die.

You lived as carelessly and as recklessly as you could and you hoped that you would be lucky and be accidently killed.

You kept on living and you got tired of living.

“God, how tired a man can get of living!” Andrew Young said.

John Riggs, chairman of the immortality commission, cleared his throat.

“You realize,” he said to Andrew Young, “that this petition is a highly irregular procedure to bring to our attention.”

He picked up the sheaf of papers off the table and ruffled through them rapidly.

“There is no precedent,” he added.

“I had hoped,” said Andrew Young, “to establish precedent.”

Commissioner Stanford said, “I must admit that you have made a good case, Ancestor Young. Yet you must realize that this commission has no possible jurisdiction over the life of any person, except to see that everyone is assured of all the benefits of immortality and to work out any kinks that may show up.”

“I am well aware of that,” answered Young, “and it seems to me that my case is one of the kinks you mention.”

He stood silently, watching the faces of the members of the board. They are afraid, he thought. Every one of them. Afraid of the day they will face the thing I am facing now. They have sought an answer and there is no answer yet except the pitifully basic answer, the brutally fundamental answer that I have given them.

“My request is simple,” he told them, calmly. “I have asked for permission to discontinue life. And since suicide has been made psychologically impossible, I have asked that this committee appoint a panel of next-friends to make the necessary and somewhat distasteful arrangements to bring about the discontinuance of my life.”

“If we did,” said Riggs, “we would destroy everything we have. There is no virtue in a life of only five thousand years. No more than in a life of only a hundred years. If Man is to be immortal, he must be genuinely immortal. He cannot compromise.”

“And yet,” said Young, “my friends are gone.”

He gestured at the papers Riggs held in his hands. “I have them listed there,” he said. “Their names and when and where and how they died. Take a look at them. More than two hundred names. People of my own generation and of the generations closely following mine. Their names and the photo-copies of their death certificates.”

He put both of his hands upon the table, palms flat against the table, and leaned his weight upon his arms.

“Take a look at how they died,” he said. “Every one involves accidental violence. Some of them drove their vehicles too fast and, more than likely, very recklessly. One fell off a cliff when he reached down to pick a flower that was growing on its edge. A case of deliberately poor judgment, to my mind. One got stinking drunk and took a bath and passed out in the tub. He drowned …”

“Ancestor Young,” Riggs said sharply, “you are surely not implying these folks were suicides.”

“No,” Andrew Young said bitterly. “We abolished suicide three thousand years ago, cleared it clean out of human minds. How could they have killed themselves?”

Stanford said, peering up at Young, “I believe, sir, you sat on the board that resolved that problem.”

Andrew Young nodded. “It was after the first wave of suicides. I remember it quite well. It took years of work. We had to change human perspective, shift certain facets of human nature. We had to condition human reasoning by education and propaganda and instill a new set of moral values. I think we did a good job of it. Perhaps too good a job. Today a man can no more think of deliberately committing suicide than he could think of overthrowing our government. The very idea, the very word is repulsive, instinctively repulsive. You can come a long way, gentlemen, in three thousand years.”

He leaned across the table and tapped the sheaf of papers with a lean, tense finger.

“They didn’t kill themselves,” he said. “They did not commit suicide. They just didn’t give a damn. They were tired of living … as I am tired of living. So they lived recklessly in every way. Perhaps there always was a secret hope that they would drown while drunk or their car would hit a tree or …”

He straightened up and faced them. “Gentlemen,” he said. “I am 5,786 years of age. I was born at Lancaster, Maine, on the planet Earth on September 21, 1968. I have served humankind well in those fifty-seven centuries. My record is there for you to see. Boards, commissions, legislative posts, diplomatic missions. No one can say that I have shirked my duty. I submit that I have paid any debt I owe humanity … even the well-intentioned debt for a chance at immortality.”

“We wish,” said Riggs, “that you would reconsider.”

“I am a lonely man,” replied Young. “A lonely man and tired. I have no friends. There is nothing any longer that holds my interest. It is my hope that I can make you see the desirability of assuming jurisdiction in cases such as mine. Someday you may find a solution to the problem, but until that time arrives, I ask you, in the name of mercy, to give us relief from life.”

“The problem, as we see it,” said Riggs, “is to find some way to wipe out mental perspective. When a man lives as you have, sir, for fifty centuries, he has too long a memory. The memories add up to the disadvantage of present realities and prospects for the future.”

“I know,” said Young. “I remember we used to talk about that in the early days. It was one of the problems which was recognized when immortality first became practical. But we always thought that memory would erase itself, that the brain could accommodate only so many memories, that when it got full up it would dump the old ones. It hasn’t worked that way.”

He made a savage gesture. “Gentlemen, I can recall my childhood much more vividly than I recall anything that happened yesterday.”

“Memories are buried,” said Riggs, “and in the old days, when men lived no longer than a hundred years at most, it was thought those buried memories were forgotten. Life, Man told himself, is a process of forgetting. So Man wasn’t too worried over memories when he became immortal. He thought he would forget them.”

“He should have known,” argued Young. “I can remember my father, and I remember him much more intimately than I will remember you gentlemen once I leave this room. … I can remember my father telling me that, in his later years, he could recall things which happened in his childhood that had been forgotten all his younger years. And that, alone, should have tipped us off. The brain buries only the newer memories deeply … they are not available; they do not rise to bother one, because they are not sorted or oriented or correlated or whatever it is that the brain may do with them. But once they are all nicely docketed and filed, they pop up in an instant.”

Riggs nodded agreement. “There’s a lag of a good many years in the brain’s bookkeeping. We will overcome it in time.”

“We have tried,” said Stanford. “We tried conditioning, the same solution that worked with suicides. But in this, it didn’t work. For a man’s life is built upon his memories. There are certain basic memories that must remain intact. With conditioning, you could not be selective. You could not keep the structural memories and winnow out the trash. It didn’t work that way.”