The Price of Time

by Tim Tigner

You and I will never know if The Fountain of Youth exists. There is one simple reason for this. Revealing such a grand discovery would be foolish—and no fool is going to find it.

Telomeres were like metal tips on the ends of DNA zippers. They kept the long strands from getting fouled up during the unzipping and re-zipping process at the core of cellular reproduction. When telomeres malfunctioned, people got cancer. When they wore down, people aged. By keeping telomeres in pristine condition, Eos—the name of both their product and their company—would act like the elixir of immortality.

With just one billion dollars in the bank, a person could spend a thousand an hour for a hundred years and still have a fortune left over.

“Some of us need to risk dying in order to feel like we’re living.”

If you didn’t have black to make the most of the white, everything was gray.

“While most people enjoy a good hamburger, few want to pet the cow.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be happy. I mean the big us, humans. I think we’re supposed to struggle. I think that’s because there’s something more important to our psyche than hedonistic happiness.”

“Satisfaction. The satisfaction that comes from achievement. From having worked and produced and accomplished. Adults need it the way babies need milk. And like milk, satisfaction has a shelf life. People can feed off past accomplishments for a couple of weeks, but their mood starts to sour after that. “I have developed the theory that adults wean themselves off the need to achieve as they move beyond middle age. By the time they’re seniors, they can sustain a positive attitude off the energy of past accomplishments. But as Immortals, we’re stuck with the achievement appetite of youth.”

Weather reports and stock portfolio performances didn’t cut it when people feared the Grim Reaper and were searching each other for scythes.

“It’s turned out like everything else, don’t you think?” The vague non sequitur didn’t tax David’s mind. “Immortality?” “Yeah. It looks like the solution to all your problems, the thing that will bring you everlasting happiness. Until you get it. Then your mind adapts and resets, and you find yourself faced with a new and equally compelling set of wants and wishes.”