THE TURQUOISE PEN

LIFE GOES ON

Noël R. King

I gave blood that day because I thought it was a nice thing to do for the world. I was not offering sweat or tears, but the least I could do was offer blood.

It went nicely and smoothly, as far as I could tell. My blood ran red and rich, B+ at its best. They gave me cookies and some juice and sent me on my way.

Three days later, the donor center administrator called me on the phone and asked if he could see me, pronto soon, that afternoon?

"Don’t worry, you don’t have HIV-AIDS or anything," he said, "but if you could please come in regardless, Mrs. Smithlebee?"

"Well," I said, "if I really must, I suppose I could, shortly."

"Excellent," he said. "I shall await your arrival."

I probably had one of those African brain-eating irregularities or mad cow disease they always asked you about, was the first thing I thought. But I thought it with a laugh and a snort, so preposterous the possibility.

I really wasn’t worried. I felt fine; I ate no meat; I didn’t live in a slum; I indulged in no "risky behavior" with needles or humans; I hadn’t been bit by my dog.

Mr. Runkle, as he had introduced himself to me, met me at his office door when I arrived and showed me in. He closed the door and said, "You are going to live forever!"

"What?" I said. Had I (my blood as well) been stolen by a cult, despite my usual best intentions not to be?

"Oh, I shouldn’t have blurted it out the way I did, but I couldn’t help it," he sighed. "I saw your blood. You have a streak of immortality programmed in your cells, the red ones, in particular.

"The thing is," he went on, moving around to his desk and sitting down in his chair, which squeaked, "nobody believes me when I tell them such a thing is possible. I have learned to do my research very quietly; no one knows that I am even doing it now."

"Oh," I said.

"Yes," he said. "It probably is a bit much to hear that one is going to live forever, no warning and all, but I really had to tell you. You see that, don’t you?"

"Uh," I said.

"Really," he said, "now you can live your life much more wisely, don’t you think?"

"Well . . . ," I said.

"Well, just in case you’re wondering," he said, "I don’t know any way of transferring this state to anybody else. Either you have it or you don’t. You are the first that I have seen or heard about; there could be others, too, you know, but I don’t know, offhand."

He stood up and held out his hand.

"Congratulations!" he said. "Have a great life!"

Then he said, "You can close the door on your way out, if you would be so kind."

"Uh, well . . . ," I said.

"Bye bye," he said.

I blinked, walked out, and drove home.

I wonder now if that was just that doctor’s sick idea of a fun joke, but I don’t want to ask anybody, because I certainly do not want to start some kind of hullabaloo.

Besides, I am kind of getting used to the idea, if you really want to know the truth.

My husband, though. How unnerving would that be for him to know he’s going to die and I am not? I think it better not to tell him, frankly. I can always change my mind later, if I see that he is aging well and I think he can take it.

Of course the other thing I have been thinking a lot about is what I want to do with this very long life I seem to have acquired. I can pretty much do anything I care to attempt, it seems, if it only requires commitment, effort, and patience (i.e., time).

What really gets me excited, though, is that I would be the perfect cosmonaut in space.

You know how they always say that, well, we could fly to another galaxy or faraway planets or white dwarfs even, if we had the technology, but it would take the crew 100 light years just to get there?

Did I just hear my name, "Mrs. Smithlebee! Mrs. Smithlebee!"???

I think that I just did!

I am going to see it all! The stars, the worlds, the big black holes (wheeeeeeee!! Such graviteeeeee!) and this and that, for years and years and years.

Of course, I might have to wait a couple hundred years or so, or maybe wait even for a whole new civilization of people to come about, people who are a little smarter than these ones around me now, to build me a spaceship that works, but I can wait, can’t I?

—As circumstances warrant, through her Turquoise Pen column Noël R. King, Scottsville, Virginia, reports on strange and wonderful things, including finding out you have eternal life in your blood.