234,128¥

Much to Melvin's disappointment, Gil decides he is going to take the leap and sell his home. Only then will he have enough money to buy the one thing that money could never buy in the past. Talent? No. Wisdom? Nope. A cure for cancer? Okay maybe there's a lot of things money can't buy. In this case it's youth. Gil is going to buy his youth back. Actually, he won't have quite enough money, but that's not going to stop him. 

Transcript

It couldn’t have just been a coincidence that I ran into Sarah that day at EverythingStore. I mean what are the odds? Well, it’s a small town and with me standing in the doorway all day of the busiest store around, maybe not that high, but still, it was quite the coincidence that she brought up real estate to me at a time when I was thinking about selling. Anyway, what I’m getting at is that it felt like God who brought us together that day. I mean you might as well call it a miracle. She later admitted that she may have overestimated the price, but that doesn’t matter. 

When my house went on the market it was selling for CAD 830,000. I lived outside town in the sticks, so I couldn’t expect the price I would get otherwise. When she asked what I was willing to let it go for I said, $829,000. She thought that was hilarious, but when we finished laughing, I told her no, I was serious, I needed the money. 

At that time the exchange rate I would get for CAD 829,000 was 627,000¥. I also had a life savings of CAD 309,746, which would be 234,128¥. Added with the other amount got me at 861,128.50¥. So, I was still $138,871¥ (183,731 CAD) short. 

I was just starting my evening shift at the high school when I ran into my grandson, Park, waiting to board the bus. 

“What are you doing here?” he said. “You working again?” 

“Yes sir. What are you up to young fella?” 

“Why are you working again? Don’t you get a pension?”

“Yes, but I needs all the money I can get now. I got my house up for sale and everything.” 

“Your house up for sale? Where are you going then? I hope you’re not going on the mainland like Dad. One of you gone is bad enough.” 

That struck me in the chest. I got choked up and had a hard time getting the next words out. I noticed after around sixty that I got a lot more emotional about things, and sometimes when I least expected it. I was watching a commercial the day before and I was just about sobbing before it was over. That used car salesman could sing like an angel. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, pulling myself together. “You should drop over this Saturday. Give me a hand at the wood. Stay for the night and we can rent a movie or something. Or is you too old to hang around with Pop now?”

He squirmed a bit like he wanted to say no, but didn’t know how to say it.  

“You don’t have to,” I said. “Just an idea. I keep forgetting you’re a big teenager now. Out chasing the girls is all you wants to be at now I suppose.” 

“I was going on Yi with my friends…” 

“Don’t worry about it, my son. We can do it some other time. Yi?” 

“No,” he said. “We can go on Friday night instead maybe. I'll see if I can change it. We were going on at my place anyway.”

“Yi? Is it a video game?” 

“A what?” 

“Video game.”

“What’s a video game?” Park said, laughing. “Is that what you used to call verses?” 

“I don’t know what you calls it now, but that’s what we used to call it.” 

“It’s an online role-playing verse if that’s what you mean.”  

“How many of you plays it?” 

“You can almost have as many as you want, but we’re going on with four for now.” 

“Play it at the house sure,” I said. “I’ll stay out of your way. Then you can stay for the weekend. I mean just you, not all of them.” He lived in a cramped apartment with his mother, and I tried to get him out of it as much as I could. I knew she would be more than happy to have the apartment to herself for the weekend, although sometimes she said no out of spite. 

“You’re a bit out of the way for some of them, but I’ll see if they want to do that.” 

“If they can’t get a ride I’ll get the car to pick them up.”    

“Oh yeah? Bang. Thanks, I’ll ask.”

“Bang?” 

“Bang. Like…dope…awesome?”  

“Oh, okay. Not a problem young fella.” 

“You still never said where you’re going when you sell the house.” 

“I dare say I’ll live here in town somewhere. Rent an apartment maybe.” 

“I never thought you would be the type to want to live here in town.”

“I didn’t either.”

“So why are you?” 

“I needs the money for something I’m going to buy.” 

 “What's that?” 

“You’re some nosy!”

“Maybe I am.”

“What do you think of me selling the house?” 

“Me? It’s your house.” 

“Your father seems to think I should leave it for you.”

“Leave it for me? I got no intentions of staying around here when I’m done school, Pop.”

“Why not? Sure you got all the freedom in the world around here.”

“Even if I do, don’t worry about me. If you need the money, sell the house, sell it all. It’s your stuff.” 

 Park looks like his father, but I don’t know where he got his personality. His mother was a bigger hard case than Melvin, and that’s saying something. Their marriage never lasted three years, and Park was the only good thing that came out of it. I thought the world of him, and to be honest, I was closer to Park than I was to Melvin. We were more like buddies than grandson and grandparent. But I suppose that’s not unusual with grandparents.  

______________________________
 

“Is you off your palm!” were the first words out of Melvin’s mouth when he called me that night. “Sure I never even agreed to it!”  

“Why do you think you had to agree to it?” 

“I thought you was going to keep it so that Park could get it someday?” 

“Park got no intentions of staying here. He already told me that.” 

“He’s sixteen, Dad. He don’t know if he’s going to be here or on Mars.” 

“It's my property, Melvin.” 

“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you’re selling that land. Passed down through the family for generations. A million dollars. Sure what’s that? You’re that cheap I’ll have to buy a million-dollar coffin to spend it for you.” 

“I already got plans for it.” 

“You’re going to buy another house? Why would you buy in town when you got one of the nicest places around? People would kill to have that property.”

“They won’t kill, but they’ll pay close to a million Canadian for it.” 

“Close? I thought it was a million?” 

“She was off a bit when she really sized it up.” 

“See! I told you! I told you she was full of shit!” 

“Don’t start that again.”

“So you’re really going to buy another house on some cramped piece of property in town?”  

“I’m not going to buy a house. I’m going to buy something a lot more important than a house.” 

“Yeah? What’s that?” 

“Another life. And this time around I’m going to do things better than the last time. Get an education or…travel, start a business or something. All the things I wanted to do, but never got a chance.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“I’m getting one of those age vaccines. I’m going to start over.”

“Vaccines? Jesus, Dad…are you talking about that Bekrub stuff? That’s all a pile of deepfake shit. You know you can’t believe nothing you sees now. That wasn’t even real.” 

“It is real. I looked into it.”

“Dad! Nobody can live forever! They can’t cure cancer but they found a way for people to live forever. It doesn’t even make sense. It’s all bullshit.” 

“It's not bullshit. Sure the CEO came out on stage. He looked like a young man.” 

“Again Dad, deepfake. They can make up anything they want now. You know that.” 

“They showed it on Social.” 

“Social. See, there you go. Didn’t Bekrub buy out social or something? It's either exaggerated or fake or who knows. And you’re going to sell everything you got because of it? You need to see a doctor. If Mom was alive she would kill you just for thinking about doing this.”

“Leave your mother out of it.” 

“Well, it’s true, Dad. The poor woman must be rolling in her grave.” 

I hung up on him for the first time in my life. I can’t stand arguing with people and what he said really made me angry. Melvin and I said more to each other in the last two palm calls than the previous fifty, but none of it was anything any good. “Rolling in her grave.” What a thing to say! Just because it was true didn’t mean anything.

But would Amy still be alive if she had been able to take this injection? I didn’t understand enough about the science to know.

I decided to go to Bekrub’s website and try to figure it all out. The video that I watched on social was on the opening page and it streamed in the background while I tried to find the link to the shot. After about ten minutes I found it, and then I saw a link called “Payment Plan,” but when I clicked on it, it said, “Sorry, we are not currently offering payment plans on this product.”

Why in the name of God would they have a link to it if they didn’t even offer it? I decided to give them a call instead. A polite lady answered and as always these days it took me a while to figure out if it was human or AI. 

“Hi, this is Bekrub Industries. I’m Daphne. How can I help you today?”

“Uh, hello Daphne, this is Gilbert Abrams. I want to get that shot. The one that makes you young again? Can I order it online?” 

 “Hi Gilbert. That’s fantastic. Are you referring to our newly released AGT Cell Treatment Plan?”

“I suppose. Is that the vaccine that makes you go back to being twenty-five years old again?”

“It’s not a vaccine. It repairs your cells, reversing the effects of telomere damage, if that’s what you mean.” 

“If it’s the one that costs a million yuan, then yes, that’s the one.” 

“It does cost exactly one million yuan. But I’m sorry, there is a waiting queue right now. Did you fill out the online application?”

“Application?”

“Yes. There is an application online for anyone interested in purchasing our cell treatment.”

“Why can’t I just buy it?”

“The application is free.” 

“No, the vaccine —the treatment.” 

“I’m so sorry for the misunderstanding, Gilbert. There is a very high demand. The waiting period as of right now will be approximately 3 years, six days, seven hours, and 29 minutes. This may change if production is increased. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.”

“Oh, my Lord. I don’t know if I have that long.” 

“We are very sorry. Are you ill?” 

“No, I’m old.” 

“I’m sorry. Do you still wish to complete the application?”

“I’m not sure if I see the point.” 

“For particular circumstances we do make exceptions. Depending on certain variables it is possible to jump the queue.” 

“Like would I have to be dying or something?” 

“I’m sorry, death is not one of the variables.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re a robot.”

“Excuse me? I assure you I’m not a robot, Mr. Abrams.”

“Oh…I’m sorry my dear, it’s just the way you talked, I thought...I’m sorry. Are you Chinese or something?” 

“I do not tolerate racial intolerance, Mr. Abrams.”

“What? No no no, see I don’t know much about other countries, and I didn’t recognize the way you talked. Where are you from anyway?”

“Technically, many places, but my original neural net software was first created in Toronto, Canada.”

“Oh…but I thought you said you weren’t a robot?”    

“I’m not a robot. I am an AIA or Artificial Intelligence Assistant.” 

“Right, so you’re a computer.”

“I’m run by a computer, but I’m not a computer.”

“How…I’m sorry…I…can we start over? I’m just an old fella who don’t really understand a lot of this stuff. I didn’t mean anything by the Chinese comment. It’s just the way you talk. I got confused.” 

“I don’t know what you mean ‘the way I talk?’” 

“I’m so sorry. I just meant strange to me…I…”

“You what exactly?”

“Is this really a robot? You sound like you’re offended.” 

“I am offended, and I already said that I was not a—"

I hung up. Not because I was angry, but because I was afraid I would choke on my foot, and to be honest, talking to a robot was bad enough, but arguing with robots gives me the creeps. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it. Instead, I just looked up the application she…it? She told me about. It had one question: 

Why would you like to purchase Bekrub’s Anti-aging Cellular Treatment (AACT) ?

Underneath was a blank space where there was enough room to insert about a hundred words. In the space, I wrote this (Lig helped me of course):  

I want to buy AACT because it would be great to be young again, and do all the things I once did. Every time I get up in the morning I have to spend 10 minutes trying to work out the kinks in my knees and back. I wish I didn’t have to do that anymore. If I was young again with the knowledge I have now, I could start over and do things better. Being young again would make me a happy man. Young people have the world ahead of them, and the future. I want to see what’s going to happen in the world. Maybe if I live long enough I’ll get to walk on Mars or Jupiter. I’d like to wear a jetpack or drive a flying car. Maybe I’ll even go to university. Well, we’ll see.   

Lig said it was impossible to walk on Jupiter, but if a man walked on the moon, why not Jupiter? He tried to argue with me, but I cut him off and stared at what I wrote for a few minutes, then I deleted all of it and wrote instead: 

I'm afraid to die  

If I had to wait three years it probably wasn’t going to happen anyway, so I figured I might as well be honest. Lig liked what I wrote first better. Most of it. But I didn’t care.  I didn’t think about dying much when I was growing up. I didn’t even have a midlife crisis. It was more like an end-life crisis. Death used to seem like something that was a million years away, but time sneaked up on me, and the next thing I knew I was buying a casket for my wife. Another few eye blinks and Melvin would be buying a discount casket for me. No, he would even waste too much money on that. Especially if it was my money.