Robert Sawyer - Immortality

Sixty years.

Sweet Jesus, had it been that long?

But of course it had. The year was now 2023, and then—

Then it had been 1963.

The year of the march on Washington.

The year JFK had been assassinated.

The year I—

No, no, I didn’t want to think about that. After all, I’m sure he never thinks about it… or about me.

I’d been seventeen in 1963. And I’d thought of myself as ugly, an unpardonable sin for a young woman.

Now, though…

Now, I was seventy-seven. And I was no longer homely. Not that I’d had any work done, but there was no such thing as a homely—or a beautiful -woman of seventy-seven, at least not one who had never had treatments. The only adjective people applied to an unmodified woman of seventy-seven was old .

My sixtieth high-school reunion.

For some, there would be a seventieth, and an eightieth, a ninetieth, and doubtless a mega-bash for the hundredth. For those who had money—real money, the kind of money I’d once had at the height of my career—there were pharmaceuticals and gene therapies and cloned organs and bodily implants, all granting the gift of synthetic youth, the gift of time.

I’d skipped the previous reunions, and I wasn’t fool enough to think I’d be alive for the next one. This would be it, my one, my only, my last. Although I’d once, briefly, been rich, I didn’t have the kind of money anymore that could buy literal immortality. I would have to be content knowing that my songs would exist after I was gone.

And yet, today’s young people, children of the third millennium, couldn’t relate to socially conscious lyrics written so long ago. Still, the recordings would exist, although…

Although if a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a recording—digitized, copied from medium to medium as technologies and standards endlessly change—isn’t listened to, does the song still exist? Does the pain it chronicled still continue?

I sighed.

Sixty years since high-school graduation.

Sixty years since all those swirling hormones and clashing emotions.

Sixty years since Devon.

It wasn’t the high school I remembered. My Cedar Valley High had been a brown-and-red brick structure, two stories tall, with large fields to the east and north, and a tiny staff parking lot.

That building had long since been torn down—asbestos in its walls, poor insulation, no fiber-optic infrastructure. The replacement, larger, beige, thermally efficient, bore the same name but that was its only resemblance. And the field to the east had become a parking lot, since every seventeen-year-old had his or her own car these days.

Things change.

Walls come down.

Time passes.

I went inside.

“Hello,” I said. “My name is…” and I spoke it, then spelled the last name—the one I’d had back when I’d been a student here, the one that had been my stage name, the one that pre-dated my ex-husbands.

The man sitting behind the desk was in his late forties; other classes were celebrating their whole-decade anniversaries as well. I suspected he had no trouble guessing to which year each arrival belonged, but I supplied it anyway: “Class of Sixty-Three.”

The man consulted a tablet computer. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Come a long way, have we? Well, it’s good to see you.” A badge appeared, printed instantly and silently, bearing my name. He handed it to me, along with two drink tickets. “Your class is meeting in Gymnasium Four. It’s down that corridor. Just follow everyone else.”

They’d done their best to capture the spirit of the era. There was a US flag with just fifty stars—easy to recognize because of the staggered rows. And there were photos on the walls of Jack and Jackie Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, and a Mercury space capsule bobbing in the Pacific, and Sandy Koufax with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Someone had even dug up movie posters for the hits of that year, Dr. No and Cleopatra . Two video monitors were silently playing The Beverly Hillbillies and Bonanza . And “Easier Said Than Done” was coming softly out of the detachable speakers belonging to a portable stereo.

I looked around the large room at the dozens of people. I had no idea who most of them were—not at a glance. They were just old folks, like me: wrinkled, with gray or white hair, some noticeably stooped, one using a walker.

But that man, over there…

There had only been one black person in my class. I hadn’t seen Devon Smith in the sixty years since, but this had to be him. Back then, he’d had a full head of curly hair, buzzed short. Now, most of it was gone, and his face was deeply lined.

My heart was pounding harder than it had in years; indeed, I hadn’t thought the old thing had that much life left in it.

Devon Smith.

We hadn’t talked, not since that hot June evening in ’63 when I’d told him I couldn’t see him anymore. Our senior prom had only been a week away, but my parents had demanded I break up with him. They’d seen governor George Wallace on the news, personally blocking black students—“coloreds,” we called them back then—from enrolling at the University of Alabama. Mom and Dad said their edict was for my own safety, and I went along with it, doing what society wanted.

Truth be told, part of me was relieved. I’d grown tired of the stares, the whispered comments. I’d even overheard two of our teachers making jokes about us, despite all their posturing about the changing times during class.

Of course, those teachers must long since be dead. And as Devon looked my way, for a moment I envied them.

He had a glass of red wine in his hand, and he was wearing a dark gray suit. There was no sign of recognition on his face. Still, he came over. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Devon Smith.”

I was too flustered to speak, and, after a moment, he went on. “You’re not wearing your nametag.”

He was right; it was still in my hand, along with the drink chits. I thought about just turning and walking away. But no, no—I couldn’t do that. Not to him. Not again.

“Sorry,” I said, and that one word embarrassed me further. I lifted my hand, opened my palm, showing the nametag held within.

He stared at it as though I’d shown him a crucifixion wound.

“It’s you,” he said, and his gaze came up to my face, his brown eyes wide.

“Hello, Devon,” I said. I’d been a singer; I still had good breath control. My voice did not crack.

He was silent for a time, and then he lifted his shoulders, a small shrug, as if he’d decided not to make a big thing of it. “Hello,” he replied. And then he added, presumably because politeness demanded it, “It’s good to see you.” But his words were flat.

“How have you been?” I asked.

He shrugged again, this time as if acknowledging the impossibility of my question. How has anyone been for six decades? How does one sum up the bulk of a lifetime in a few words?

“Fine,” he said at last. “I’ve had…” But whatever it was he’d had remained unsaid. He looked away and took a sip of his wine. Finally, he spoke again. “I used to follow your career.”

“It had its ups and downs,” I said, trying to keep my tone light.

“That song…” he began, but didn’t finish.

There was no need to specify which song. The one I’d written about him. The one I’d written about what I did to him. It was one of my few really big hits, but I’d never intended to grow rich off my—off our —pain.