The Immortal
by Stephen Paske

EXCERPT

PROLOGUE

“If eating human flesh was the key to immortality, would you do it?”

Tom was prone to asking bizarre questions, but this one was particularly odd. For a couple of seconds, the remaining four of us sat uncomfortably silent. Then Tom threw the tabloid magazine with a cover story about an immortal flesh eating man on the table. Our silence continued while we read the cover.

“Like… cannibalism?” Ray finally responded. His lack of affect was mildly disturbing.

I picked up the article and started to read. Interestingly, it was a reprint of a story I had seen long ago; a peculiar attempt by the magazine’s creators to link Jesus’ teachings about becoming one with him, to eating flesh. Even for the National Enquirer, it was a step outside the usual lines.

“Yeah,” Tom said. “According to that story, if you eat your best friend’s brain and liver, you get to live forever.”

“Do you only have to do it once?” Joe asked. “Cause if you’re immortal, I imagine you really won’t remember your friend all that well after a million years or so.”

“Hmmm…” Tom scratched his chin. “I suppose it’s all hypothetical, but let’s just go with what’s in the article. You have to eat at least four friends every 40 years.”

“Pretty specific guidelines, don’t you think?”

“You do know that it’s a tabloid?” Joe pointed out.

“Can Tom even make friends that fast?” I bantered.

Tom’s look made me wonder if I would be his first victim.

“One every ten years,” Ray mumbled to himself; a look of curiosity enveloped his gaunt face. He placed the last bite of his second chocolate-chunk cookie of the morning in his mouth. Even at 36, no matter how many chocolate chunk cookies he ate, Ray never gained any weight.

Our self-made running club had been meeting at Rochambo Coffee House at least a couple of times a week for the past decade. Ray might have missed a meeting or two in that time, but assuming he made 100 meetings a year and averaged three 200 calorie cookies each time, that was a minimum of 200,000 cookie calories he had consumed that had never gone to his waist. Having burned at least 1,000 on our ten mile morning jog, that waist wasn’t about to get bigger today.

“Do you have to eat your best friend?” Joe asked.

“Absolutely,” Tom said.

“But what if you can’t decide between two or three?”

“Whoever would be your best man,” Tom answered.

“What if my best friend is my wife?”

“You’re not even married.”

“We’re talking about whether eating your best friend’s flesh would make you immortal, Tom. Can’t we be a bit hypothetical?”

“Hypothetical, yes. Impossible, no.”

Hot coffee burned my nostrils as it spurted out of my nose. I thought the barb hilarious.

“Doesn’t this situation create a supply and demand problem?” Ray began. It was a typical comment from our economist friend. “I mean, if everybody is immortal, and you need to eat your best friend every ten years to stay that way, doesn’t that mean that more people are being consumed than could possibly exist?”

Everybody’s head nodded in a general consensus. Yet another new teenage clerk behind the counter rushed to the bathroom to get sick. We were used to such a reaction to our strange philosophical meanderings and so the conversation didn’t miss a beat.

“And what happens if one immortal flesh eater tries to eat another immortal flesh eater?” Joe added. “Clearly that’s a paradox that needs some work.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Tom growled. “It’s simply philosophical. We don’t need to get into the inherent problems involved with the reality of it.”

For a moment, all five of us sat and silently chewed on our coffee-shop muffins; or in Ray’s case, a cookie. As of yet, Ben hadn’t spoken; as usual he had just sat back in his burly-thin sort of way and soaked in the absurdity of our conversation. Three of us took a sip of the black simultaneously.

“I don’t know how you guys can stand it without cream or sugar,” Tom spat.

“Do you have to murder a friend?” Ben asked. His head cocked to the side, as it did with every question he asked.

Though Tom had tried to quell the flow of ridiculous questions, preventing the group from giving an answer to the most ridiculous question, this one made him pause.

“I suppose you do,” he finally stated. “It doesn’t seem too likely that your friend would be a willing participant.”

“I don’t know,” Ray interrupted. “If you told me that by eating me you could live forever, I might consider letting you do it.”

“Even if you could do the same?” I asked, my tone puzzled.

“Throw me a bone, Jack. I’m trying to solve the paradox here.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” I said, my voice exasperated. “Why would you want him to live forever before you could live forever?”

“Perhaps I believe in an afterlife.”

“You’re an atheist!”

“It’s hypothetical, Jack!”

“Would you idiots calm down and answer the question!”

Tom’s fist slammed the table so hard that everybody’s heart stood at attention.

“It’s a simple question. If eating your best friend could make you immortal would you do it, yes or no? I ask you… Jack the Ripper.”

If Tom wore glasses, I would have thought I was on the McGlothlin Group. His inane stare was somewhat unnerving. The pressure I felt with everybody looking at me forced me to stall.

“Can I eat the heart instead of the brain? It would probably taste better.”

“Answer yes or no!”

It was too much pressure.

“Mmmm… ahhh… Yes! There… I said it… Yes, I’d eat my best friend. I’d slit your neck, stick a fork into an eyeball and start devouring you like a starving lion.”

Four strange gazes skewered me. More chocolate chunks crumbled in Ray’s open mouth.

“You are one sick mother fu…”

“Me… ME!!! He’s the one that asked the question,” I shrieked. My finger shook as it pointed in Tom’s direction. “I just answered to humor this moron! Why am I the sicko?”

“Cause it ain’t funny,” Joe spewed, obviously disgusted by my callus response. “You must be one self-centered S.O.B.”

“How does that make me self centered?”

“You just said you’d eat Tom so you could live forever. His life doesn’t mean anything?”

“If I’m living forever then surely I’ll find a way to resurrect him at some point.”

“You couldn’t pass Biology 101,” Tom said.

“And if that’s the case, why not let him eat you?” asked Joe.

I could have thrown the remainder of my scalding hot coffee in Joe’s face.

“Calm down,” Ben started. He placed a cool hand on my balled up fist. “It’s just Tom trying to get us riled up again. Don’t read so much into it.”

“You’d really eat me, Jack?”

“Cut it out, Tom,” Ben scolded.

Several people laughed. As usual, I had let Tom’s edgy ways get the best of me again. I was well aware that he simply argued for the sake of arguing, but in spite of my knowledge, it was still difficult to take.

All of us took a moment for a breather, and aside from coffee-shop sounds, silence had its way. Whirrs and whistles, clanks and clatters, and several calls for a double latte filled the air before Joe mustered up the courage to speak.

“What if you get hit by a bus?” he badgered. “Would eating your friend put you in some sort of protective case?”

Yet again, Tom scratched his chin thoughtfully. Clearly he hadn’t thought about all of the implications before presenting his ethical question. He had simply been inspired by a stupid tabloid story.

“Perhaps eating your friend would allow your body to develop healing properties that could regenerate the structure of your head after it splattered on the pavement.”

“And if you were at ground zero of a nuclear blast?” Ben questioned. Tom frowned. “That would be some impressive healing power.”

“Ben,” Ray drawled. “You know that’s not the point Tom is trying to make with the question.”

One more statement like that one, and I was ready to slam my head into the table.

“Are you serious,” I blubbered. “Ben has an IQ of like 264. Do you really think he didn’t understand the point Tom was trying to make?”

“You can’t even have an IQ above 200, Jack.”

My fist balled again. I would have hit Ray in the nose if it hadn’t been for Ben getting in the way.

“Breathe…”

“He’s being a nincompoop!”

“Breathe…”

“He’s just doing it to pi…”

“Breathe…”

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

I returned to my seat. Tom got up and walked to the garbage to throw his muffin wrapper away. Ray started his fourth cookie. Joe looked up at the ceiling in an effort to conceal the fact that he was scratching his rear. I turned to Ben.

“How would you answer?”

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