Youth

The only sounds in the dimly lit room and possibly in the entire house at the moment, were the tip-tapping of keys on the computer keyboard and the steady tick-tock of the tall grand clock that sat patiently on the other end of the room, next to a large book case full of encyclopedias and other fat books. John stared unenthusiastically at the soft glow of the computer screen. He was getting tired. The white of his eyes were glazed with the redness of insomnia and they drooped helplessly when he yawned and stretched his wrinkly fingers. He could feel just about every stiff bone in his body cracking.

John checked the time. The old grand clock told him it was 7:04pm. He was sleepy, but he knew his wife Margaret would shuffle her way into his study soon, calling him to dinner, the wretched woman. He sighed, and scooted out of his chair looking for his cane to make his way to the dinner table.

"Coming to dinner?" He heard a hard voice say. He looked up to the doorway and squinted (even with his thick glasses, it was hard to see after staring at the computer screen for hours) to see Margaret standing at the doorway, leaning on the frame for support. He almost grimaced at her presence. He could see her dark eyes glinting in the light of the hallway. They were mostly black, almost alien. She was not what she used to be.

Ignoring her question, he limped his way to the door, and Margaret shuffled away and met him at the dinner table a few minutes later. It pained him to stand and sit consecutively but he managed to ignore the pain as Margaret spooned food onto his plate. He stared at it as if it were the computer screen.

"Rice? Again?" He asked. Margaret said nothing but plopped a biscuit down on his plate and shuffled to the seat at the other end of the table. John sighed, exasperated, and ate a spoonfull of the dry, dull rice.

"How's the research?" She said the word research mockingly, as if she were telling the punch-line to a joke.

John stared at her with a growing anger in his eyes. "Its well." He muttured and took another spoonfull of rice. His eyes traveled wearily about the table. Like always, in the center of the table was the last biscuit. Margaret would look at him as if he wer some selfish crow if he took it but she would also complain about how ungrateful he was for her cooking if he didn't take it. He chose the ladder, because in all truth, he despised her cooking.

John's tiring eyes lingered on the biscuit, and then almost subconciously they drifted to the decor of their house. Pictures of them together in their youth clung to the walls like war medals on a commanders old vest--reminding a veteran of his golden days. Reminding him what was no more. John particularly studied a picture of himself and Margaret at her quincenera. She was beautiful. She stood there smiling in a flowing pink dress, an elegent flower in her beautifully brown hair. A flirtatious arm wrapped around John's waist. And John. He was handsome. His face free of wrinkles. His body lean and strong.

Now look at him. He sighed, looking at his craggly, wrinkly hands.

"John?" He looked up at Margaret, disgusted at what time had done to his beautiful girlfriend, now his hideous wife. John scooted from his chair and began to leave the table.

"I will fix us..." He muttured to himself.

"What are you rambling on about?" She didn't move, but her cold black eyes followed him. John stopped in the hallway. Turne his head with some difficulty to look at Margaret. "Just a little more research.." He thought "and we will be fixed."

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Morning came and John slept in. It wasn't like him to not wake up early in the morning, but he needed the sleep. He would be off on a long journey today. The house was filled with the sound of the keyboard as he tapped away on his computer, finishing the last of his research report. He smiled. this was probably the biggest accomplishment in all of mankind. He deserved a nobel peace prize. He deserved millions, and trillions of dollars from funding companies. He at least deserved free transportation.

But he didn't want that. His findings were reward enough, and his only celebration for now was a quiet smile. The real celebration would come later and it would be much sweeter. The evidence was nice, but the substance..oh, the substance would take him to the stars.

With that in mind, he scooted up from his chair and took the suitcase full of clothes and food that he had packed before. With some soreness in his back, he limped his way through the hall and was surprised to see Margaret, sitting at the table, hands folded in her lap. What was wrong with this woman? She turned in her seat to face him and looked inquiringly at the suitcase.

"John? Where are you going?" She asked with her usual icyness. John rolled his eyes and limped into the kitchen, taking a bottle of pills off of the kitchen counter and twisting the cap open.

"I'm leaving." He said with his back turned to her as he poured two pills into his palm.

"Where?"

He popped the two pills in his mouth. "It doesn't concern you." Not yet.

"John. You had better answer me." she was standing up now, the coldness in her voice melted by genuine concern and anger.

"I don't know when. I'll be back soon enough." He grumbled, mostly to himself, and he headed for the door.

"So thats it? You're just going to leave? I knew it was coming, but I didn't think it would be like this. John! John!" He felt something thump his back just as his hand was on the door handle. He turned around and saw that it was the buscuit from last night. He chuckled, and knelt down, pain jarring away in his knees and took a bite of it. His wife stood there, tears glistening in her opaque eyes, her hair a wispy mess, hideous wrinkles about her face.

I will fix you. He thought, and walked out of the door.

                                       * * *

A young man found his way to the front door of the Garcia house. The house was utterly still, impassive, silent. It was almost frightening. The ruby curtains were drawn and the grass on the front lawn was unkempt. The young man withdrew a key, but he did not want to just barge in and startle Mrs.Garcia, so instead he knocked and waited patiently. He had all of the time in the world.

But it was many moments later that he decided that Mrs.Garcia was probably napping. No one had come to answer the door. His excitement had got the best of him, and he decided to go ahead and enter the house through the front door. The inside of the house was dead. It was dark, and just like the exterior of the home, it was strongly quiet. He could even hear the tick-tocking of the grand clock all the way from the study deep in the house. It was like a heartbeat that kept going, even though the breath of the place was absent.

The young man walked carefully about the living room, touching the fabric of the couches, examining the space. It was cold here, and vacant. As if no one had lived here for years. He went to the dining room table, where he had last saw Margaret. He touched the old cracking wood of the table. On the nearby wall, the picture of him and Margaret at her quince was gathering dust along its frame and face. Pure joy bubbled up in him as he approached the picture.

He was now the same young man in the picture. Soon he would resurrect the beautiful young lady in the photo.

John made his way to the bedroom, where Margaret was sleeping ever so peacefully on the king sized bed. There were no wrinkles in the sheets. They were pressed out smoothly. John imagined her floating listlessly in a vast sea of blankets.

From his coat pocket, he withdrew the vile of sapphire water that he gathered. He sat on the bed gingerly next to her, and gently brushed the back of his hand on her wrinkly, textured face. It was cold. This would be the last time he saw this hideous, aged version of her. He removed the cork from the vile with nervous jittery hands.

"When I was old, I would shake with age. Now that I'm young, I shake with excitement." He whispered softly. The vile of water slowly tilted, and a small drop of the sapphire liquid landed softly in the center of Margaret's forehead.

John waited. Nothing happened.

A slight panic seized him. Using two of his fingers he spread the mystic water around Margaret's face, but still the wrinkles remained, haunting imprints of her ancient age. Why wasn't it working? There was no way she could be immune to the fountains waters, unless...

"No.." he whispered, but the evidence was right in front of him. She remained impassive. Unchanged. Held back from the wonders of life by the frightening hands of death. The vile dropped to the floor and shattered, spreading glass and glowing water at John's feet. He froze, staring at this old woman, tears running along his face. He had failed.

It wasn't fair. He was going to fix her. He gripped some of the sheets into his fists, wrinkling the blankets. How could he have been so late? How long had she been dead? Why? He was going to bring her back. They were going to have another quince. She was supposed to live. She was supposed to be young again! John shouted at the top of his lungs, cursing God, cursing fate, cursing himself above all. The time he had now meant nothing. The research meant nothing. It was all in vain. He was young again, but for what? To be alone for another lifetime? He didn't want it anymore. He didn't want to live. Not without fixing Margaret.

                                         * * *

The only sounds in the house were the tick-tocking of the grand clock, the wooshing of flames as they swept through the house, the officious beeping of the fire alarm, and the crackling of burning wood. John didn't really feel anything. He was numb. He didn't feel the flames lick his body as they ate the chair he was sitting in. He didn't feel the singe of the hell-like heat as the orange embers engulfed the old pictures that clung to the walls. The only thing he really felt was the consumption of his useless immortality, as his skin wore the flames like a suit of hot purgance. In a way, the guilty fire was granting him more of a surreal peace than what Margaret had been granted when she shook Deaths hand. This fire had granted him the emblem of physical mortality, the death of which would allow him to die young and in turn grant him the shallow, smoke chocked breath of eternal youth.