The End Specialist. Drew Magary

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СКАЧАТЬ bandaged me up.

      “This won’t cause me to sprout fangs and sleep in a coffin, will it?”

      “No, that’s a different gene. Would you like me to alter that one?”

      “No, no thank you.”

      “Well, you’re all set. I have you in the books for this same time two weeks from now. Don’t bother calling to confirm. Just show up with your money­­—no denominations higher than fifty dollars, please. I’ll be here.”

      (Note: The total cost was seven thousand dollars. Not bad.)

      I walked to the door. Four million more questions flooded into my brain. I felt the urge to ask all of them simultaneously. Instead, I offered only one.

      “One last thing.”

      “Sure,” he said.

      “Have you given it to yourself?”

      “Of course I have.”

      “But you’re over thirty-five.”

      He shrugged. “Oh, well. I’ll live. I’ll see you in two weeks, John.”

      A cursory wave goodbye and the door shut behind him. I walked back out into the street. A massive thunderstorm had come and gone while I was getting my blood drawn, and as I walked out, all that remained in the sky was that odd, sickly glow that happens when a thunderstorm clears out at summer twilight. It’s an unsettling kind of light. Almost puce colored, as if the sky hasn’t been feeling well. I was stuck between the violent darkness of the storm and the last flickering embers of daylight.

      I rushed home. And now here I am, a day later, comfortably seated in immortality’s waiting room.

      Date Modified: 6/7/2019, 8:47AM

      “Death Is The Only Thing Keeping Us In Line”

      I know it’s mere coincidence, and yet it I find it discomforting that the pope would officially come out and damn all postmortals to hell right in the middle of my mandatory deliberation period. This article posted ten minutes ago:

      VATICAN THREATENS CURE SEEKERS WITH EXCOMMUNICATION

      By Wyatt Dearborn

      BUDAPEST (AP)—The pope today issued his strongest condemnation yet of the so-called cure for death, officially codifying it as a sin and promising to excommunicate permanently from the Roman Catholic Church anyone found to have received it, including priests.

      Still on his weeklong goodwill tour of eastern Europe, the pontiff purposely chose to deliver his edict in the city of Budapest. Hungary is one of only four industrialized nations, including Russia, Brazil and the Netherlands, that have officially legalized the cure.

      “This cure is affront to the Lord and His work,” the pontiff told a crowd of nearly seventy-five thousand at Puskás Ferenc Stadium. “But more than that, it is affront to our fellow man. What responsibility will we feel compelled to bear for one another if we know we can eternally put off standing in judgment of the Lord? Death is what makes us humble before God—knowing that our lives will come to an end and that when that end arrives, we will be forced to answer for them. If we answer not to Him, to whom do we answer? Death is the only thing keeping us in line.”

      The pope then went on to issue this warning: “You cannot avoid God’s judgment. Not even if you live for another hundred thousand years. This planet and the sun that keeps it alight are all fleeting. There is no ‘forever’ down here and to believe so is a blasphemy. That’s why, from this point forward, the Vatican officially condemns the taking of the cure as a sin and an excommunicable, unforgivable offense.”

      The pope’s words were met mostly with silent reverence from the crowd. But thousands protested outside the stadium, nearly all of them in their teens and twenties.

      “The pope hasn’t condemned us,” countered Sasha Delvic, a twenty-three-year-old student. “It’s his church he’s just condemned—to a life of obscurity. How can he expect the people of his faith to accept dying while everyone else out there goes on being happy and healthy? It’s insane. He’ll lose constituents by the millions.

      “No one should listen to him,” she added, “he’s just a stupid old man.”

      It is believed the pope chose to deliver his address in Budapest as an attempt to pressure the Hungarian government to begin drafting anti-cure legislation. But thus far, here in one of the youngest countries on the planet according to median age, very few government officials appear willing to speak out in favor of doing so.

      When I was a kid, I saw religion as insurance against death. It’s what the preachers on the TV used to say. You’re better off believing in God, they’d warn you, just in case. Because you’d hate to arrive at the gates of heaven a nonbeliever and find out the Christians had been right all along. It was a pretty ingenious line of thinking. It almost made me want to go to church. Not enough to actually go, but still.

      I wonder if we’ve completely flipped the script on that now. I wonder if the cure represents insurance against religion. Because what if the pope is wrong? If I forgo the cure and end up dying at seventy to please a Lord who turns out not to exist, I’m gonna feel like a real jackass. Isn’t it better to live an extra thousand years or so, just in case?

      I guess I’ll find out at some point. Some very, very distant point. Twelve more days till the cure.

      Date Modified: 6/8/2019, 7:05PM

      “I’m Always Gonna Get

       My Period”

      Until the other night, I hadn’t told anyone that I’m in the middle of getting the cure. I didn’t tell my dad or my sister or anyone at work—didn’t consult them either. They don’t know I’ve done it, and I sure as hell don’t know if they have. I didn’t even tell the banker friend who gave me the address. For one thing, I haven’t finished the process yet, so I’d feel a bit foolish telling everyone I was about to live forever, only to find out a week from now that my doctor was caught and thrown in Rikers.

      But more to the point, I have yet to meet a single person who has publicly admitted it. I think we’ve all collectively adopted the unspoken rule that you don’t mention it out in the open. Like getting a nose job. Every discussion I’ve had about it has been conducted strictly in hypothetical terms. “Would you get it?” “What if it were legal? Would you get it then?” “Would you fly to Brazil and do it? I heard about a bunch of people at work who are taking sudden ‘vacations’ to Rio.” Stuff like that. But no one has ever said to me, “Yes, I got it”—which is just so weird. Clearly, people are going to get it. If a random person like me can go have it done, I have to assume I’m not alone. But I suppose there’s just too much uncertainly right now to go around parading the fact.

      Anyway, I was more than happy to keep all this to myself. But Katy got it out of me. She’s an interrogator, my roommate. Aggressively interested in other people. Present her with wine, and she’ll pepper you with questions until you feel as if you’re under a hot lamp. She delights in extracting key information from you and then playing with it—stretching it out and bouncing it against the walls until she grows bored with it.

      We were sitting in our apartment, watching the news. They СКАЧАТЬ