The Jovial

There is a great city far far away. The people there are very happy and very prosperous. The city is filled with large beautiful structures and parks. Elegant works of art and long dancing arcs look down upon the streets below. All of the carriages float above the ground as if by magic. There are fine restaurants and magnificent plays. Performers gather around the city market places. Little children eat ice cream scream with delight and the amorous play indoors under fine silks.

But there is a price. Deep underground, far from the sunlight and the sounds of sex and laughter, there is a child who wiggles and screams all through the day and all through the night. These are no fits of delight.

It is the great machine, that fine invention which so many years ago saved an entire civilization from certain doom. It is indeed the engine of utopia. It comes at a price, this is true, but a small price to pay to allow countless lives to thrive. What is the chronic torture of a single soul when weighed against the infinite prosperity in complete health and thorough satisfaction of entire people. When any people are faced with such a choice, the great machine is the sole solution, the universal panacea. 

Is it worth it, you ask? The suffering of one for the benefit of all. Is not the answer an obvious one?

Fount of Youth

Dr. Tresper is four hundred years old.

Most people are afraid of him. Others wish to steal his secret. I and I alone know where to find it.

This much, however, I am willing to tell:

There are many long lived creatures in this world. Certain tortoises and trees. The tricks for cheating death vary, but they have some  things in common. In order to live for a very long time, an organism must be good at one of these things: keeping bad things out, replacing damaged parts of itself, or doing without damaged portions of itself.

Dr. Tresper has tried all three. The mode that he prefers is replication of damaged issues. Keeping bad things out is far harder for a human than it is for a tree, and there simply is not enough body for humans to go without any portion of it that gets damaged.

The secret is hidden in the drought that Dr. Tresper always keeps close at hand. He has created a symbiotic relationship with another organism. The organism was extracted from one of the many creatures that rely on benevolent microbes for long term survival. It really is remarkable how much energy a small colony of bacteria, for example, can produce for a larger organism to use. Entire ecosystems are built on micro-organisms. The ones that live inside Dr. Tresper are, of course, very much altered from their original state. Normally the single celled organisms would go to war with the unfamiliar cells of Dr. Tresper. Nothing a little mutation doesn’t fix, though.

These creatures help Dr. Tresper to combat foreign bodies. They also provide the desperately needed service of rejuvenating genetic decay and the other handful of problems that cause human aging and eventual death.

Nobody knows exactly how long Dr. Tresper should expect to live. I would venture that he has not even as yet reached midlife. Dr. Tresper will live for a very long time indeed.

I have shared with you all that I will. May you live a long and prosperous life. Ha ha ha.