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Gil decides to let the real-estate agent take a look at his place. It doesn't take long for her to get him excited about the possible rise in his bank account, considering it will more than quadruple his life-savings. Meanwhile one of the greatest achievements in human history unfolds in an online press conference, and Gil watches every second of it. 

Transcript

I was nervous that night when I went home. Maybe nervous is not the right word. Excited? Yes, I was excited, because I really had not known that my land was worth a lot of money. I didn’t want to sell it, at least I think I didn’t, but I was just…curious. 

The land I was living on I had inherited from my father, who had it passed down from his father, who had it passed down from his father, who had it passed down from his father, who murdered his brother for it, and five years later died of an overdose of mercury. It had been used to cure his syphilis. I guess it kind of cured it. 

Dad had a small family for his generation in Newfoundland. Only five brothers and two sisters, and to this day I don’t really understand why Pop —who I was named after—gave Dad the land and not one of his brothers. I mean, Dad being how he was. Pop must have known Dad wasn’t going to do anything with it. Maybe that’s why. Pop died when I was a boy, but I heard Mom and my uncles say he was a hard worker. Dad didn’t even add on to the place. He stayed with Nan and took the house when she died. I remember my grandmother well. She and Dad didn’t get along. I think she was ashamed of him. Dad’s brothers weren’t the type to kick up a stink when they found out Pop had left the land to him. Not that it was worth anything back then, but I know for a fact there were comments made. Behind his back of course. I don’t know if I can blame them. But it was fortunate for me because I ended up with all of it.

Scott had no shortage of money, so he didn’t care, but my sister, Emma. That was a different story. I don’t like arguing so I figured that maybe I would sell the house and give her half, but Amy wouldn’t hear talk of it. 

“You’re too soft,” she said. “If you gives her that land that was give to you fair and square, you’ll be looking for a new wife!”

So I kept the land. Emma took me to court, but she lost. This is the same sister that when she was five years old I nearly drowned myself trying to save when she fell over the wharf. I couldn’t swim, and I didn’t realize she could, so she ended up more or less saving me, but that’s beside the point. This is the same sister that I introduced to a teacher when I was a janitor, her future husband. They went through a really bad divorce later, but they did have three beautiful kids who didn’t seem to want to have much to do with me either.   

I was so excited I decided to call Melvin. At least now I knew we wouldn’t end up getting bored and having our shadows talking to each other. 

“I thought you knew how much that land was worth,” Melvin said when I brought it up. “She’s full of shit though. It’s not worth a million dollars. What do she know about land anyway?” 

“She’s a real estate agent. Knowing about land is how she makes money, isn’t it?” 

“She’s either mistaken or full of shit. Seven hundred thousand I’d say.”

“I didn’t even think it was worth that. I figured half a million, the most.” 

“I don’t mind you. You’re still stuck in the crazy eighties. You get all your wood out of the woods after?”

“No, I’m still at it -what if I sold it?”

He went silent for a moment when I said that.  

“Why would you sell it?” he said then. 

“For money. What else?”

“Money? Sure you still got the first dollar you made. What do you need the money for?”

“I can always use more money.” 

“Money’s not everything.” 

“No, but it helps.”

“Well I’ll be honest, I thought you were going to give the land to Park. I’d get it first, but he’d inherit it after me.” 

“So you mean you thought I was going to give it to you.”

“Park would get it.” 

“How’s Park getting it if I’m giving it to you?”

“Like I said, I would pass it on to him.” 

“How would I know that if I’m not around by then?” 

“I wouldn’t lie to you. If I tell you I’m going to give it to Park, then I’m going to give it to Park. He’s my only son. Better than some maga getting it. She’s full of shit.”

“Aren't you seeing someone now?”

“Seeing someone? I’ve been with Audrey over a year. You spoke to her on the palm.”

“I can’t remember all your girlfriends.”

“I wish I had that many. Why are you asking anyway?” 

“She might still be around when you dies. Park might never get the house.”  

“You can just say all you wants, if you leaves that land to me, then Park will get it after me.”

“What if he don’t want it? What if he moves to the mainland?” 

“Well, he can sell it.” 

“Maybe I wants to sell it. I’m not dead yet.” 

“You're not far from it,” he said, laughing. 

“What's that supposed to mean? I'm in better shape than you are. Got a gut on ya like a rum barrel.”

“I thought we was talking about age, not fat.” 

“Good for you we’re not.” 

“Anyways, I think you’d regret it for the rest of your life if you sold that land. You love at the spuds and carrots don’t you?”

 “If I buys a little house in town I can put a small garden out back I suppose.”

“In town is not like in the Sound. They got bi-laws for everything. You might not be allowed. You can't even have a few hens in town sure.” 

“Judas, you can grow a few spuds! It’s not so bad as all that.” 

“I don't know. Them town councils can do whatever they wants. That dumping pit you got? Forget about that. Chickens? Not allowed. Shooting squirrels through your bedroom window with a twelve-gauge? No sir. Towing scraped cars out into the woods? I don’t think so. Taming a bear and making up a saddle for him? Not in town you won’t.” 

“I didn’t do any of that! Was that the same bear that used to be tearing up my garbage? I had to get the forestry officers down to get rid of it.” 

“Let’s not go pointing fingers. My point is that that land was passed down from generation to generation, and I think you needs to think long and hard before—"

“Is that the same bear that ate all my carrots that time?”

“Dad, stop dwelling in the past.” 

“The same bear that broke into my shed, drank all my homebrew, tore everything to pieces, and shit all over the floor? All I could see was carrots and bear shit. I was scrubbing it out of the walls for weeks. The only reason the forestry got him was because he was too drunk to run. They thought he had rabies!” 

 “The point is that you won’t be able to have fun like that anymore.” 

“There was nothing fun about it! I was weeks trying to get the stink out.” 

“I’ll talk to you later,” Melvin said. “Don’t forget what I said either. She’s full of shit.” 

“Will you stop saying that!” 

____________________________

I had my best suit of clothes on when Sarah showed up Sunday morning because I was going to church at eleven anyway. My brown corduroys, black button-up shirt, dress shoes, and sports jacket. I know I was an old man then and old men are not supposed to be looking at young women, but my Lord, what a beautiful girl. She wasn’t even dressed up and she still looked like a million bucks. Which was the amount I had in my eyes anyway, so maybe that’s why. 

When I met her at the door she was so full of…what was she full of? Not shit, like Melvin said. No, it was…life. She was full of life. She almost glowed with it. I heard someone say once that people have auras. I don’t believe in that foolishness. I believe in souls – I mean your actual body don’t go to heaven, so there has to be a soul. Right? It’s common sense. Anyway, she had a big soul. It came right through her body.  And she was so full of energy she didn’t walk, she bounded around. Amy was like that too, but it was a different kind of energy. Amy didn’t smile like this girl. And Amy didn’t bound as much as she did march. 

“This is a really cute home you got here,” Sarah said. “It’s not a big house, but I like the way you’ve got it laid out.” 

“I didn’t lay it out, my dear. My wife did. She deserves all the credit if the poor thing was still around.” 

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Gill. I was going to say so the other day, but I didn’t know if I should bring it up. She did a wonderful job here.”

After a quick look around the house we went outside and I showed Sarah the land. It was five acres of a gentle slope with excellent soil and a beach to the saltwater on the far side. I had never really sized it up before – I guess I just took it for granted, but I really did have a beautiful spot. 

“I'm thinking around 1.2 million,” Sarah said after we had a walk around the property. There were places on that land I had not stepped on in years. “Yeah, I’d say you’d get that. Maybe a little more. You need a surveyor though to get the exact footage. I can set up a surveyor for you. Land ‘n’ Lot – they’re fast and cheap. Well, cheap in comparison. Nothing is cheap these days. I can get someone to take those wrecks away too.”

By the time Sarah left I practically had the property up for sale, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to sell it yet. I wasn’t sure at all. I really did start thinking about the importance of this land I inherited. And a part of me really did want Park to end up with it, even if it would go through Melvin’s hands first. But that money sure would make my life easier. Not that it was life-changing by any means, but if I ended up in a home it would be nice to have a few extra dollars, along with what I had already saved, in the bank. 

Old people are invisible. And forget about your kids taking care of you. Melvin always said that he was going to put me in “the best retirement home the government can buy.”

I hoped to get some inspiration from Reverend Tom when I went to church, but it was a christening. This was one of those rare times when the church was full. Every time this happened the poor Reverend would throw in a few digs at the congregation during prayer. You would think a full church would make the man happy, but I guess it just reminded him of how empty it would be the following Sunday.  

“Bow your heads. …We welcome this child, Amanda Barbra Seymore into our lives, yet another miracle from God, and hope that as she grows her family leads her back to the church with the strength and sense of community that comes with it. Not only on holidays or special occasions but on a regular Sunday-to-Sunday basis, because let’s face it, if we’re not often reminded of the teachings of Jesus Christ, then the greed of the secular world can take over. And Lord knows the church needs support, as well as the good clergy who preach in them. The LBEPQMRANSAU may be exempt from taxes by the CRA, but without local support, they will not be able to function. Don’t we all need a sense of belonging? Life doesn’t always work out like we expect. Sometimes a girl might dream of being a hockey player or an actor, say. But if things don’t work out how she hoped, and there’s not a lot of avenues in a small town to spread his —her wings, and instead, she finds herself going in the direction of the church because her ordained father expected her to, because he didn’t believe in people following their dreams even though her father wouldn’t recognize talent if it knocked him over the head. Even though he doesn’t know that she knows he wanted to be a folk singer when he was a young man. Well that’s just life, isn’t it? And life is fraught with disappointment…so…God bless this little girl. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.” 

Maybe not his best prayer. Oh well, every sermon can’t be a winner.

I shook the Reverend’s hand on the way out. 

“I hope you haven’t forgotten my offer,” he said.  

“I have not sir. I’ll be taking you up on that real soon.”

“Excellent. Give me a call anytime. You’ll be a gourmet chef when I’m done with you.” 

The Bekrub story was all over the media and my news feed, but I was watching the live stream. The press conference was huge, and the CEO, Aron Bekker, slowly ambled on stage with the help of an assistant. I think he was a few years younger than me, but everyone doesn’t age as well as I do. He was wearing a white t-shirt with armpit sweat and what looked like a big mustard stain on the front, a pair of jogging pants with a hole in the right leg, and worn-out flip-flops with white socks. I wouldn’t have scrubbed a toilet in that outfit, let alone do a big ol’ conference. Was dementia setting in? 

“Legends of the fountain of youth have been a part of human culture for thousands of years,” he slowly croaked, “from fiction to alleged true reports from ancient and medieval explorers. The Greek historian Herodotus was the first on record to mention a rejuvenating water in the land of the Macrobians, and Alexander The Great is also said to have searched for a fountain of youth. 

A travel memoir dated from 1357 to 1371 titled The Travels of Sir John Mandeville mentions a land in what is now India where he said there was a large well, and those who drank from it never grew old. Fact? Probably not. 

Then of course there is the name that is synonymous with the fountain of youth, Juan Ponce de Leon, a Spanish explorer who traveled with another famous explorer at the time you might have heard of, Cristoforo Colombo, or Christopher Columbus as he is known to the west, and Juan was later said to have searched the gulf looking for the fountain of youth on an island called Beimei. Instead, he found Florida. I think it’s safe to say there aren’t any fountains of youth in that state.”

Hunched and grinning, he paused for laughter, but I think the reason no one laughed is because he was talking about the Florida he and I remembered, not the present one. I don’t think anyone in the crowd knew who Christopher Columbus was either. It was a long time since I heard that name. 

“The truth is that the real Juan Ponce was looking for gold to steal and natives to subjugate, not the fountain of youth. Apparently, that was added later by an imaginative, and some might say, vindictive, writer in a rival family in Spain who wanted to humiliate Juan and give the impression that he had erectile dysfunction so bad that he desperately searched for rejuvenating water that would, how shall we say, enable his ship to sail at full mast? What a bunch of jackasses!“

Everyone laughed and camera lights flashed. You know I heard the other day that cameras are so good now that they don’t need flash, but journalists use them anyway to make celebrities feel important and make those kinds of things more exciting. Any truth to that I wonder? Lig says it is. 

“Popular culture and film have also taken on the legend in various forms. I think my favourite is Cocoon. I’m revealing my age now. Anyone here old enough to remember Cocoon? Wilfred Brimley? The great thespian, Steven Robert Guttenberg? Mid-nineteen-eighties? Ron Howard directed it —I suppose no one here knows who Ron Howard is either. Anyway, the movie probably didn’t age well, but if I remember correctly, it was about aliens that kept cocoons of themselves in a pool or something, and anyone who swam in the pool had their aging reversed. I think that was the general plot anyway. I’m sure if I watched it again without the milky haze of nostalgia I would be disappointed.”

He put his hand on his chin then and stared off into space. 

“I was around ten years old when I watched that movie, but I’ll be honest, it doesn’t seem like it was yesterday. It seems like it was a very long time ago. None of my memories from childhood seem close. 

Ah, but when I hit twenty, and especially around twenty-five, when my pre-frontal cortex finally stopped developing. Then I’m an adult. It’s then that time starts to speed up. 

I dropped out of college in ‘96, yet I can still remember conversations I had with my pals in class. I know I’ve grown and matured as a person, but I still feel like I’m that young man. Ever since I turned forty, every time I look in the mirror I’m a little surprised. Who is that old dude with the sagging jowls and lines around his eyes? Is that me?”

He turned to the camera and it zoomed in on his face, really close, like inches. But something was wrong. I didn’t know what it was and I don’t think I even said the words in my head. It was more like a feeling that I never even realized was there until after. It was his face. It didn’t look real. He was grinning from ear to ear, but it didn’t look right.

“Well fuck that old fart!” he yelled at the camera, and as the audience cheered, he straightened his stooped back, and his face blurred. But it didn’t really blur at all. It just seemed like it was blurring because the lines on his face were fading away, and then a minute later, he was 30 years younger. It was what my grandson at the time would call a “deepfake.” But it was a deepfake with his own face. The reason the stage had been set so far away from the crowd was because he didn’t want them to see his young face, not because he wanted to pull off a hoax. We had only been able to see his face on the giant screen over his head, or on our monitors at home. They had superimposed his old face, the one the public had last seen a few months before, over this new, younger version of him, and now as the stage slowly began to move forward with him standing on the edge, grinning, we saw that Bekker was now a young man, no more than twenty-five. Physically anyway.

“My God!” I blurted. “Is this real? This can’t be real.” 

“We have found the fountain of youth my friends,” he said, holding up his hands and walking down the steps that appeared in front of his feet at the end of the stage. Every time he took a step a tread would appear under his feet. Even that he must have practiced. “But like all miracles, this one didn’t come from some ridiculous Abrahamic god,” he said, “this one came from science.”

He was one of those atheists. I should have known. I was disappointed, but the crowd sure wasn’t. They went wild. There were so many camera flashes that it seemed like he was in a steady stream of blinding, flickering white light. When he got to the last step he stopped and stared out at the crowd. Then he looked down at his feet. 

“This is one small step for an old man.” Then he turned around with his back to the crowd and did a backward flip, landing right on his feet on the concrete floor with the flip-flops still on. “One backflip for mankind!” 

The crowd went foolish then. 

He kept trying to speak, but the crowd wouldn’t stop. Even though he was wearing a mike. Everyone was chanting, “BEK-KER! BEK-KER! BEK-KER!” 

He went on to explain the science behind his miracle drug then, but I couldn’t pick any sense to it. I remember he said something about telomeres and DNA, but I didn’t know a telomere from a telephone (we used to call palms telephones if you don’t know). You took the shot and in a few weeks, you were young again. That’s all I needed to know. I shuddered when I thought about taking a needle, but cancer involved a lot more needles. 

“Nanomites are released from there to your bloodstream, and then immediately begin repairing your damaged cells. But unlike you, the nanomites have a limited life span. When we find a way to put nanomites inside the nanomites I’ll get back to you. 

“You’ll maintain the biological equivalent of a twenty-five-year-old for about a year, sometimes more, sometimes less, and then the nanomites will lose charge and you’ll begin your normal aging process again. Unless you purchase another injection of course. When you want to purchase it is up to you. Personally, I didn’t mind having a few crows feet —made me look rugged and sexy I thought. See, to me the perfect age, was thirty-five. It wasn’t until around 40 that I started noticing aches and pains, for no reason. Especially my back. Ye gods! My body was just wearing down. Fuck that! And then the sagging jowls. I hated that so much. Jowls. Jowls! I thought about plastic surgery, but that never looks good. A little too uncanny valley for this cat. It wasn’t until about sixty that I really started to hate the aging process, and decided, ‘Enough dicking around, Aron Bekker, it’s time for you and this so-called amazing company of yours to reach for the fucking stars. No, not the stars, the gods! And goddamn it, we did.” 

The crowd roared again.    

He held up his hands and they went silent. He had them at his every word, and this time it was almost a whisper, but out of that sound system, a whisper wasn’t a whisper. “So how much do you think this cost?” he said. “How much do you think it costs to extend your life forever? Unless you slip on a banana into traffic —I can’t prevent that. Yet.”

 He walked over to the press gallery at the front row and pointing at one of the journalists, a skinny bald-headed fella with thick glasses, and said, “Well young fella, guess. Tell me what you think.” 

The journalist held his chin for a few seconds, looking a bit nervous. I would too if I was the center of attention in that room. Finally, he said, “Well I’d say —" 

“A million yuan!” Bekker shouted at the crowd like the journalist wasn’t there anymore. “One. Milliiiion. Yuan,” he said again, like in that movie Austin Powers. Dr. Bad? Dr. Evil? You know what I’m talking about. Or maybe not. That movie came out a long time ago.  

“Anyone get that reference?” he said. “You young kids probably didn’t. But I’m young too! I’m just like you young whipper-snappers now, except I’m better! Because I’ve got the wisdom of old age under my belt! Remember when people used to say if I only knew then what I know now? A phrase to be left in the dustbin of history, my friends. We have finally kicked the grim reaper’s boney ass, and this will change the world in ways that even I have yet to imagine.”

As he kept talking I stared at the black and white wedding photo of Amy and me on the wall. Not that there weren’t colour photos in my day, but for some reason, we liked that one the best. Amy used to joke I was better looking in black and white. She was tired of all the pictures that day, but she still managed to smile, whereas I was grinning at the camera like I just caught the biggest trout that ever came out of Cabin Pond. And although I was in my twenties, I looked about 16. I was about 150, with a full head of jet-black hair, no glasses, and not a wrinkle to be found.