The Problem With Immortality Ch. 23

Chapter 23

Epilogue

"Are you sure about this, my sweet?" said Jennifer, as she pulled the car into the driveway of Francisco's Odour's estate. Jessica's air car was already parked, and there she stood, waiting in front of it.

"Quite sure," said Anson. "I'll only be gone a few moments, my love," he said, getting out of the car.

"An eternity," said Jennifer jealously, blowing him a kiss.

Anson walked to Jessica, who was waiting for him.

"Anson, I'm so glad you're alive," said Jessica, giving him a hug. Anson tenderly hugged her back.

They went to the front door, and they were recognized and admitted. Francisco Odour was waiting for them in the drawing room.

Anson noticed some changes since the last time he had been here, nearly a year and a half ago. The mansion which seemed cluttered and messy, was sparkling clean. Odour himself was well dressed, and his hair was neatly combed. He was well shaven and looked freshly bathed. It was as if his home now had the touch of a woman.

If so, it was not his daughter Melanthia's. She had left him, nearly two months earlier.

********

"Father, I'm leaving you!" she said, tears in her eyes, as the robot carried her luggage to her air car.

"So I see," said Francisco sadly.

"Your treatment of Anders was the last straw," said Melanthia.

"Was it?"

"This is going to surprise you, Father, but I love Anders, and he loves me, and we're going to be together, and we're going to get married!" she said, as rapidly as she could. She stared at her father, who was silent for a long moment.

She had expected surprise. She had expected anger. She had expected rage.

What she didn't expect was her father to say, "It's about time."

"What?" said Melanthia.

"Why do you think I hired him in the first place?" Francisco asked. "You don't think I do a proper background check on anyone who comes to work in my home?"

"You knew?" said Melanthia.

"I've had people keeping an eye on you since you were old enough to walk," said Francisco. "Of course I knew about Anders. That's why I hired him!"

"But Father... why...?"

"Because of you. You insisted on staying here on... taking care of me," said Francisco. "I... I wanted you to be happy."

"So all those years? All those years when we were, we were..."

"Sneaking around? Or thinking you were sneaking around? Of course I knew," said Francisco. "How could I not?"

"But then, why did you fire him?"

"Someone convinced me that my kindness was holding you back. That I needed to give him a shove, so I could give you a shove."

"So... you don't mind if I marry Anders? You don't care if he's not rich?"

"Why would I care about that? I only care about your happiness."

"Oh Father! If only I knew!" And she hugged him, and he actually laughed. But then she pulled back a bit. "But... who will take care of you, when I'm gone?"

"I've taken care of myself for a good long time, and expect to do so for a good while longer," said Francisco. "Now you go now, and make sure you send me an invitation to your wedding."

"Oh, I will, Father! I love you!"

"And I love you too, daughter," said Francisco, and something momentarily sparked inside of him, a feeling, a sensation, an emotion.

*********

"Mr. Ford! So glad to see you are alive," said Francisco.

"So glad to be alive, Mr. Odour."

"A fall like that would have killed most men, but not you, eh, Mr. Ford?" Francisco stretched his legs behind his desk. "You know, a suspicious mind might have thought that maybe you faked your death, in order to keep the 100 million credit deposit I gave you. Money can make a man do strange things."

"And yet here I am."

"And here you are," said Odour. "So, what do you have for me?"

Anson raised his datapad. "Your 100 million credit down payment. Transferred back to your account."

"What?" said Odour. He hadn't been expecting this. "You didn't find a solution to my problem?"

"Oh, but I did," said Anson, thinking of Jennifer, and Heycom, and Master Pho. "I definitely did."

"Well, let's have it, man."

"Unfortunately, I can't tell you," said Anson.

"Why not?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't help you," said Anson. He got up to go.

"What are you doing? You can't just leave like this!" said Odour.

"Actually, I can," said Anson, heading to the door.

"This failure will be a big black mark on your record, Ford!" Odour barked.

Anson paused at the door. He looked out, and saw Jennifer, in the air car, smiling at him, holding a picnic basket. "Yes, I suppose it will."

"Please," said Odour. "I'm begging you. I'll pay you double. I'll pay you triple."

Anson looked at the man. He noticed how much better Odour looked since the last time he had seen him. Something... in his spirit? "You have to find the answer for yourself," said Anson. His hand paused on the door, and something in Odour's new demeanor made him say this: "But if you're lucky, if you're really lucky, the answer may find you."

As he left, he heard Jessica's frantic voice behind him. "Wait! Wait! Mr. Odour! Mr. Odour! I'm Anson's assistant, and I saw everything he did... I can help you... all we need to do is to work up a program involving food, and destruction of art, and perhaps telepathy...."

The sound of her voice was abruptly cut off as Anson entered the air car and closed the door behind him.

"Are we all done here, Mr. Ford?" Jennifer asked.

"We are all done here, Mrs. Ford," said Anson.

"I love you, Anson Ford," said Jennifer, with a sudden burst of emotion.

"And I love you, Jennifer," said Anson, his voice also choking up.

Jennifer, trying to contain her anticipation, started the engine, and got the car moving. Anson thought about the lunch in the picnic basket, and the secluded place in the park they were going to, and the thought of making love to Jennifer again, and realized that life couldn't get any better than this. She caught his eye, and he smiled, and she smiled back, and he felt a thrill coursing through him, and life was grand.

And they lived happily ever after.

The End

Author's Note, 3/2019

This book was planned, written, and revised in a little under a month. Why do people take a year or years to write books? By the way, this book, like most of my books was 98% done in the first draft. All done in one shot. It just comes out of me.

Originally, this was to be a book about how to cope with eternal life. But then I knew I had to pair it with a human interest story, and that's where the romance came in. Very quickly this book became SOMETHING ELSE--not a story about immortality paired with a romance, but a romance paired with a story about immortality.

I didn't want to market this as a standard romance, however, because we have more than enough of those, and very few books talking about immortality. I also had some important things to say about how humanity might deal with immortality, and felt that would be simply lost in a book entitled "I Dream of Jennifer" with a cover simply showing a man's bare chest.

If I were to ask you, "What was this book really about?", what would you say? If you said it was a romance, you'd be correct, but that's not the core story. If you said it was a romance about lovers meant to be together, you'd be correct, but still not entirely hitting the mark.

At its most basic, this is a story not about coping with immortality, but the ability to find happiness in one's life. Even in a limited, mortal lifespan.

Surprise!

Now the names....

"Jessica Dhomes" came from the TV Show Logan's Run, the blonde bombshell named Jessica ("Hi, my name is Jessica, and I'm from the City of Domes"), who was written so poorly, as so tremendously naive, that she was dumb as a nail. She would run around the post-apocalyptic earth in that miniskirt of hers, letting aliens capture and molest her. (Although her character wasn't very bright, the writers were.)

The "Circuit" that Jennifer found herself on was also from Logan's Run, where it was not only a dating circuit but an actual teleportation device--you picked your date and she gets actually beamed to your quarters. Very convenient!

"Mr. Walker" and "Mr. Wheeler" were also two sides of the same person from a famous Disney Cartoon about a mild mannered Goofy who walked the streets, and a Goofy who became very aggressive and violent once he got behind the wheel of a car.

Mr. Sammock was from the planet Valtrex--Valtrex is a herpes medication, heh heh.

Brother Theo was a very pompous and annoying monk on Babylon 5.

The scene where Maizie lifted off her face to reveal she was a robot was lifted from a Six Million Dollar Man episode (which also featured a robot named... Maizie!).

Heycom is basically the mild mannered scientist from the Star Trek episode "The Cage", who was also the mild mannered hotel manager in "Return of the Archons".

I hope you enjoyed the Star Trek and Kung Fu parodies.

This book was the tiniest bit inspired by the Robert A. Heinlein novel, "Time Enough for Love", the story of a basically immortal man who grew tired of living, having tried everything (sounds familiar). Eventually, they manage to get him interested in living by making female clones of himself and having sex with them, and when that doesn't prove sufficient, he travels back in time to have sex with his mother. Basically, in Heinlein's view, the answer to the riddle of immortality is to have a lot of kinky sex.

This book evolved as I wrote it. Originally Anson would learn the secret of life from Heycom, and then go and seduce Jennifer and win her back. But then I thought a more dramatic way of doing that was through turnabout, having Jennifer come and rescue him.

Then I had to decide which of two ways to end the story. At first, I thought to make Heycom the mastermind of the entire book. He was to be revealed as be the one who kept pushing Anson and Jennifer together and provide a plausible explanation as to why they kept bumping into each other. He was to have been hired by their daughter Judy to bring them back together. It would have been him who arranged Anson's auto accident, and Jennifer's telepathy, to ultimately bring them together again.

While this would have explained the many coincidental reunions between Anson and Jennifer in the book, ultimately, I found it unsatisfying. Because if Anson and Jennifer were being thrown together by a person, it felt less romantic, less "meant to be". So I went with the other alternative, that "fate" brought them together. It was totally unscientific, and never concretely explained their many fateful meetings, but I felt that for a book such as this, the idea that the two lovers were "meant" to be together and were drawn together by their love, even if not very logical, made for a tremendously more emotionally powerful story.

Having Anson and Jennifer drawn together by the power of their love gave their love a lot more meaning than if Heycom had been pulling the strings. So I kept Heycom in the story, but reduced his role to helper status, leaving "fate" as the overall element which brought them together.

This was a REALLY emotional book to write. Writing the ending was especially draining. I actually felt the emotions of my characters as if they were real. I hope you did too.

Gary LM Martin