Only The
Lonely
Ken pushes the heavy, red,
velvet curtain aside with a sagging hand. He enters the reception area. With
one brief glance the woman behind the counter says, “Room 17, Candy’s
available”. He nods curtly and makes his way towards the stairs through the
empty doorframe at the back of the room. He begins to climb. When Ken reaches
step five he pauses to catch his breath and flex his poor, aching joints. He
needs this. He knows that he needs this. It’s certainly embarrassing, but
equally as necessary. So, he continues up the stairs, his decaying teeth
whistling as a whisper of air is dragged into his tired lungs.
When he reaches the top he pads heavily across
the heavy, red carpet to number 17. Opening the door, he steps inside and
places his money on the table. The room has only five things in it: two
comfortable chairs placed close together, a girl in the left-hand chair, a
large mirror placed behind the chairs, presumably for decoration, and Ken.. The
room is familiar to Ken. He knows that it’s the same as all the other rooms
here. He knows the protocol here, too. So, he places himself in the free chair
and tries to relax a little. He runs a weathered hand over his lined face.
After the slightest of breathless, not-quite-hesitant pauses he closes his eyes
and gets the thing underway. He lifts his right hand and places his palm on the
girl’s. Wrist to wrist. Fingers intertwined. And he sits.
The first few times he had
tried to make conversation with whichever girl he found himself next to. He
soon learned that things only became more awkward that way; he soon stopped
trying. This is why Ken just sits. Ken
just sits hand in hand with the girl, avoiding looking at her at all.
After half an hour she says,
“That’s half an hour”.
His half an hour over Ken
says “Thankyou” and stands up.
Ken even smiles. And with a
newly perfect set of teeth and newly smooth skin, and with a new energy back in
his soul, Ken is rather handsome. Newly handsome Ken slips out of the room,
leaving the chairs, the girl, and the mirror.
The mirror. The mirror is not
a mirror. Well, it’s not just a
mirror. It’s a two way mirror. And behind it there are two doctors. Well, one
doctor and one almost-doctor. A student doctor. The student doctor looks up at
the experienced doctor with confusion.
His young face looks almost horrified, in fact.
“What on earth…” The student
doctor somehow squeezes out the words around the wide ‘o’ of his mouth. “He
was… he was aged.”
“Yes.” Replies the experienced
doctor.
“So, it’s true, then? It
really happens?”
“Yes. And it’s important that
you understand why.”
The experienced doctor begins
his explanation, placing his clever, logical words carefully and clearly into
the mind of the student. He says:
“You have heard that the only
way to die is through loneliness, and this is very accurate. So, everybody has the capability to live
forever, because of this. You have barely known what it means to age beyond
what you know as full maturity, which happens at what age?”
“Thirty”
“Good. At the age of thirty, men and women cease to
age, with the exception of the lonely. The lonely age past thirty, sometimes to
the point of death. And do you know why this is?”
“Erm… No?”
The experienced doctor sighs.
The student doctors, really, should do their research. They should understand
this already, it is happening all around them, constantly. But they never do.
He so often finds himself having to explain the mechanics of the aging process
to his students. And because he so often finds himself having to explain, he
has the explanation all ready in his mind. This particular explanation he can
reel off with little thought at all. He explains to the student how the body
registers loneliness through lack of physical contact. And the sensors for
contact control the aging centres of the brain. He reminds him that loved body
is healthy and strong, pointing out that child grows tall when he holds his
mother’s hand. That the kisses of a teenager’s first love will mature him towards
adulthood. And, how all acts of love after that point, a father’s firm hug or a
daughter’s cuddle, anything with care, maintains the health and vitality of a
person.
The experienced doctor pauses
to rub his eyes. His job can be tiring, at times, especially when he’s teaching
things to students who don’t do their research. Still, he must teach. So, he
goes on.
He goes on to explain lack of
care is detrimental. How, without care the aging process is rapid. That the
body can be tricked. But, he explains, that he, as a doctor, would not
recommend this. It is bad for the psyche and for the contact sensors. He tells
the student how body can be tricked by certain chemicals that are sent to the
aging centres of the brain. That physical acts that would normally imply love
trigger these chemicals, even when they are careless. But this is not good for
the brain, he stresses. The lonely still continue to trick their brains and
their bodies, though. Touch-houses such as this one continue to quietly
flourish throughout the world.
He asks the student if he
still understands.
“Yes, I think so.” Answers
the student.
The experienced doctor
doesn’t look too impressed. He sighs again, quietly, so that the student doctor
isn’t quite sure if he sighed at all.
“Okay, let’s go back to Ken.
He may help you to understand more fully”
The two turn around to look
at a small screen behind them. The screen runs a feed of the CCTV camera from
the reception area. On the screen the two can see Ken still talking with the
receptionist. He is standing up very straight, flashing his perfect teeth in a
perfect smile. He uses his hands to gesticulate a lot while he talks. Overall,
Ken looks very lively.
“That, you see,” says the
experienced doctor to the student, “is how much of an effect just half an hour
of care can have on even the most aged man.”
The student nods.
Back on screen, Ken says
something that seems to make the receptionist laugh a lot. Ken has, in fact,
just told her a very funny joke, and the reception area rings with the sound of
her reaction. After this, she tells Ken that it’s been very lovely to talk to
him, but that she has something that she really must take care of. Ken flashes
that perfect smile and says goodbye. The two doctors watch him make his
spritely way off to the edge of the screen.
The student doctor now
understands the difference that holding a person’s hand can make, in a medical
sense. There is just one thing that he does not understand.
He asks “Why, though? I
understand how it works, but if it all works as you say then why doesn’t
everybody live forever? And why would Ken keep coming here? Why wouldn’t the
lonely just let themselves go?”
After releasing his
questions, the student doctor shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
This whole experience is strange to him.
He isn’t used to thinking about these things.
The experienced doctor does
his best to respond. The experienced doctor also does his best to maintain his
patience. Or, at the very least, to maintain the appearance of patience.
“Well, Ken is still very
young, as are a lot of the lonely. At eighty years he is not at all ready to be
old, and not at all ready to die. Ken, though has no family to care for him or
to show him love. Ken’s wife left a few
months ago. And Ken’s grandparents will help to answer your other question.
Only last year they decided, as many 743 year olds do, that they were satisfied
with the span of their lives. So, they avoided each other’s touch for six weeks
and quietly and happily died of old age. Very few people choose to live
eternally, there is only so much time that a person can fill. And, in any case, those that choose to try to
live eternally find that they become fully content with their lives no older
than 1,000 anyway. They then do what
Ken’s grandparents did, they avoid touch and fade away.”
The two men are quiet for a
little while. The student doctor is thinking about everything that he’s just
learned. It’s a lot to take in, but it all makes sense. He repeats the gist of
it to himself, in a steady way, inside his head. He likes to do this to make
sure that he takes in what he has been told. The experienced doctor watches the
student while he thinks.
When he is sure, the student
says, “I understand.”
“Good.” Says the experienced
doctor. “It is important to understand. No one wants to get old, and no one
wants to die. It’s very impractical. But no one really wants to live forever.
That’s impractical too.”
