The day we finally perfected the Elixir of Life, a shadow fell. It crept up on us quietly, but with equal quickness. Of course, first things first, we all passed around the beaker that contained the rose-gold liquid. It tasted like rain smells. It only took a single sip and you could feel it working, like entropy suddenly stopped. Like a surge of adrenalin, but one that came on slow and gentle and didn’t fade, a glow that radiated out from our very souls that let us know we’d never have to die.
After all of our research group had drunk from the beaker we broke out the champagne and drank each other’s good health with knowing grins. We laughed, and hugged, and drank more champagne. We read together a draft of the press release which we’d prepared a month or more before when we knew we were getting close. We’d send it out the next day to general amazement.
There would be ethical implications for sure, we had no illusions on that front. Most medical professionals would protest–would have to find new lines of work. Religious types might also object. But that was fine, none of us would make anyone take it against their will. Nevertheless we’d have to take precautions in case people grew violent in the face of revolution. The recipe would be copied onto a dozen hard drives, emailed to a hundred colleagues around the world. We could have fifty labs delivering the first batches of it to the critically ill within a week. Mass production would be able to being in less than a month. In a years time, eighteen months tops, no one would have to die anymore.
We talked about what how we’d remember this moment a thousand years from now, ten thousand years. “We should have reunions every power of ten years!” someone joked. We all laughed.
But then one by one, as the night wore on, we all started remembering the ones we’d lost. Their ghosts settled on us like dew in the early morning hours of our revelry. The death of beloved parents and grandparents, spouses, children, friends—each one weighed more heavily on us than the death of a newborn child. What was lost was not a mere 70 or 80 years. In this awful new reality we were all younger than newborns, with more life ahead of us than mankind could previously dream of or fathom. But just as this new and infinite horizon arose before us the past loomed up behind us as well, vast and unredeemable. What joy could there be in a future haunted by these ghosts?
One by one we fell into sullen silence. Sobs broke out from corners of the lab. Lips formed silent apologies to those we had not saved. Our hearts broke as we said their names. Yet the elixir still glowed in our bellies. Time flowed over us, the champagne grew flat in our glasses. Dawn broke and shone in the eastern windows. We waited. We shuffled about the lab. Unsure how to act. We tidied up. Organized our papers. The rose-gold liquid sat untouched, repelling our gaze.
Eventually we came together and sat in a circle on the floor. Tears still streaming down some cheeks. We agreed: it could not proceed. For us the damage was done, but we could never unleash the horror we felt onto the world. We burned our notes under the, reformatted our hard-drives, wiped every trace of our research from the University servers. We thanked God we had not published preliminary findings—that our work would only remain on the books as some research into aging that apparently never went anywhere.
We scoured the lab for days, went out in ones or twos to our offices and homes, never leaving the lab unguarded. We brought in every scrap we could find on what we had done, journals, daily planners, calendars. When at last we were satisfied that every last vestige of our work had been done away with, we turned to the beaker itself. We passed it around once more, sharing in a grim communion. We sipped and passed, the beaker circling around and around, draining bit by bit to emptiness. Each rain-smelling sip taking on an awful gravity.
When it was empty we filled the beaker with acetone. Scrubbed it with soap and water. Bathed it in acetone again. Put in the autoclave and left it in for a week on high, scrubbed it again before breaking it, and dumping it unceremoniously in the trash. The job complete, we slipped out of the lab one by one and went our separate ways.
A year later we met again on the lawn outside our old lab. No one had called us there, but we all came. Again on the tenth anniversary we came. And again on the hundredth. We hardly spoke to each other, and no one spoke to us. We shook each other’s hands with sad and knowing smiles, glad to see each other but anxious to get away again. We were strangers to everyone else but ourselves, but in each other’s eyes we only saw the mirror of our own sadness so these brief meetings at increasing intervals is more than enough for any of us, a penance we willingly undertake.
The years pass more quickly now, the University is gone. Some war or another leveled it and it was never rebuilt. The ruined buildings were demolished, and a dour looking subdivision was built. Who can say what will be there when we next meet again. It will not matter to us. We are ghosts, haunted and haunting—carrying in our lives the deaths of millions that we could not save. And the millions more that we would not save lest we condemn them to live as we live. To live with the awful promise of a future shrouded in the shadow of a past full of a death that has no hope of resurrection.
After all of our research group had drunk from the beaker we broke out the champagne and drank each other’s good health with knowing grins. We laughed, and hugged, and drank more champagne. We read together a draft of the press release which we’d prepared a month or more before when we knew we were getting close. We’d send it out the next day to general amazement.
There would be ethical implications for sure, we had no illusions on that front. Most medical professionals would protest–would have to find new lines of work. Religious types might also object. But that was fine, none of us would make anyone take it against their will. Nevertheless we’d have to take precautions in case people grew violent in the face of revolution. The recipe would be copied onto a dozen hard drives, emailed to a hundred colleagues around the world. We could have fifty labs delivering the first batches of it to the critically ill within a week. Mass production would be able to being in less than a month. In a years time, eighteen months tops, no one would have to die anymore.
We talked about what how we’d remember this moment a thousand years from now, ten thousand years. “We should have reunions every power of ten years!” someone joked. We all laughed.
But then one by one, as the night wore on, we all started remembering the ones we’d lost. Their ghosts settled on us like dew in the early morning hours of our revelry. The death of beloved parents and grandparents, spouses, children, friends—each one weighed more heavily on us than the death of a newborn child. What was lost was not a mere 70 or 80 years. In this awful new reality we were all younger than newborns, with more life ahead of us than mankind could previously dream of or fathom. But just as this new and infinite horizon arose before us the past loomed up behind us as well, vast and unredeemable. What joy could there be in a future haunted by these ghosts?
One by one we fell into sullen silence. Sobs broke out from corners of the lab. Lips formed silent apologies to those we had not saved. Our hearts broke as we said their names. Yet the elixir still glowed in our bellies. Time flowed over us, the champagne grew flat in our glasses. Dawn broke and shone in the eastern windows. We waited. We shuffled about the lab. Unsure how to act. We tidied up. Organized our papers. The rose-gold liquid sat untouched, repelling our gaze.
Eventually we came together and sat in a circle on the floor. Tears still streaming down some cheeks. We agreed: it could not proceed. For us the damage was done, but we could never unleash the horror we felt onto the world. We burned our notes under the, reformatted our hard-drives, wiped every trace of our research from the University servers. We thanked God we had not published preliminary findings—that our work would only remain on the books as some research into aging that apparently never went anywhere.
We scoured the lab for days, went out in ones or twos to our offices and homes, never leaving the lab unguarded. We brought in every scrap we could find on what we had done, journals, daily planners, calendars. When at last we were satisfied that every last vestige of our work had been done away with, we turned to the beaker itself. We passed it around once more, sharing in a grim communion. We sipped and passed, the beaker circling around and around, draining bit by bit to emptiness. Each rain-smelling sip taking on an awful gravity.
When it was empty we filled the beaker with acetone. Scrubbed it with soap and water. Bathed it in acetone again. Put in the autoclave and left it in for a week on high, scrubbed it again before breaking it, and dumping it unceremoniously in the trash. The job complete, we slipped out of the lab one by one and went our separate ways.
A year later we met again on the lawn outside our old lab. No one had called us there, but we all came. Again on the tenth anniversary we came. And again on the hundredth. We hardly spoke to each other, and no one spoke to us. We shook each other’s hands with sad and knowing smiles, glad to see each other but anxious to get away again. We were strangers to everyone else but ourselves, but in each other’s eyes we only saw the mirror of our own sadness so these brief meetings at increasing intervals is more than enough for any of us, a penance we willingly undertake.
The years pass more quickly now, the University is gone. Some war or another leveled it and it was never rebuilt. The ruined buildings were demolished, and a dour looking subdivision was built. Who can say what will be there when we next meet again. It will not matter to us. We are ghosts, haunted and haunting—carrying in our lives the deaths of millions that we could not save. And the millions more that we would not save lest we condemn them to live as we live. To live with the awful promise of a future shrouded in the shadow of a past full of a death that has no hope of resurrection.
