Forgetting Permanence

It was one of those naps in which the nightmare started when I woke up. It is one thing to say you’re not alone but another to feel it. I don’t know maybe this is how life is and only some get bothered by it. 

I looked right into the mirror, trying to comprehend myself, “Wow, this is living right now. I am alive. This is me. A reality is happening and I am a part of it. No pause. I keep living. An endless cycle of actions and reactions until the final decision.” 

Out the door and onto the street, I began my walk to work. The city ate me every morning and that’s why I loved living in it so much. With the speeding cars and the herds of investment bankers discussing statistical analytics, I felt accepted in my absurdity. Almost too accepting of that fragility, that blatant fact that we are all one bad day from ending it. For me, it was a mild Thursday sunset that set of my time bomb. The psychedelic patterns of the lakefront waves coinciding with the pink poster board of a sky kind of just said, “It’s time Marcus.”

Like ordering a Chipotle burrito, I looked up at the menu before, then looked back down and what was below, and simply jumped. The last scenes I recall were a nauseating cracking sound followed by freezing water. Then, ideal blackness took over and I thought I accomplished something great for once….

“HOLY SHIT IT WORKED! IT CAN ACTUALLY WORK!”

“Calm down we aren’t sure. Scan his retina and get me his blood samples and pressure.”

A bright yellow flash stung my eyes. I could feel several hands around my neck and wrists. The miasma of sanitized sheets and iodine struck me first. 

“Motherfucker…..”

“WHAT WAS THAT? DID HE JUST SPEAK! THIS IS INCREDIBLE!”

“He must be awake,” a deeper, more direct voice said, “Everyone grant him a second. We could be witnessing history….”

I wish I just kept my eyes closed a little longer, just to make them feel how foolish they are. Nonetheless, they opened how they usually did in those mornings. As I expected I was in a hospital room surrounded by six doctors, what I think is a robot and a cameraman. I gazed left to right to left and right again, a younger man stood in the corner as well. 

The deep voice had an unexpectedly tiny appearance, “Sir do you know who you are?”

“Yes… I’m Marcus Jacobo.”

“When were you born?”

“March 15, 1982, in Portland, Oregon.”

“Do you what the date is?”

“No, because I was unconscious idiot. But, last I remember it was June 18, 2022.”

His eyes looked around fearfully. I must’ve been out long. 

He paused, folding his hands, “Well, it is now May 4th, 2038. You are in Loyola Hospital in Chicago.”

“So I’m not dead is basically what I’m hearing?”

They all laughed which snapped any tension into crumbs, “No, no Marcus. Far from it. It was very bold of you to put your theory to the test. Got to be more carefully crossing bridges.”

Fuck me. These assholes.

“Do you remember what you did before?”

Like an anchor crashing through a dock, an entire realization wreaked anarchy inside me. They actually did it! That’s how I am here. It was only a theory, a terrible, terrible, Book of Revelation theory that I should have just stopped. NO! I should’ve just burned all those journals, gone out to fire rather than water. But dammit! I-I couldn’t accept it. Something of me had to remain and I choose the worse possible thing. 

“I was a professor at the University of Chicago and managed a research and development team. We handle neuroscience of consciousness and brain development —”

“MR. JACOBO IT WORKED! YOUR-YOUR THEORY IS ACTUALLY… WELL, IT WORKS!” cheered an obvious graduate student.

“Claim down please Doctor,” directed the head doctor, before turning back to me, “Well… he’s right. There’s really nothing else to say. We’ll of course need to do several tests and see how your new body is —”

“Where’s my old body?”

I had much less arm hair and mass. The skin color seemed a bit darker, more olive now. Hair. I have hair now on my head and a lot of it. My heart sank. How did they choose and who?

“Your old body has been discarded as after the surgery there was really not much use for it. Some of the organs were used for transplants but other than that it is completely gone. You may be 46 but you got the body of a 24-year-old,” he finished with a smile so wide I wanted his teeth broken.

Some would’ve felt relief or hope or happiness but they don’t know what this means now. Of the 8 billion people on this planet and the countless souls that have existed, beating death has been the overall drive. None have succeeded until now. I am the first victory in what should be an unbeatable war. 

“Here’s a binder explaining everything. We’ll give you some time.”

They all headed out at once besides the doctor in the corner who definitely wanted to say something. Yet, after an awkward approach and too long of a stare he followed the others out as well. I looked at the binder for a moment and then laid it at my side. I invented it, I know what was needed to be done. Cryopreservation, isolate the brain from the body, code the genetic neuron links to the memory chip, and finally implant the chip onto the new body. 

I heaved a deep breath, “This really is history….” History that I shouldn’t be alive to witness. 

Two weeks pass of physical therapy and testing of that sort. Down the halls and in the cafeteria I was nothing more than an art project for these people. Even my surgery got its owns name, Jacobo rejuvenation. Not exactly the most creative title but that’s how people get, boring. Several nurses would race to check my blood pressure in the morning. Doctors too would fight over examining my progress and health condition. As I assumed, this attention spread from the hospital and into the world. Every 5 o’clock news had a segment on “Marcus Jacobo and his miraculous human defining innovation.” CNN, Fox News, MSNBC hosted debates in primetime hours as to what this now means. 

“This Jacobo guy simply invented immortality now and the question remains, who and why will people get this surgery?” analyzed a walrus of a man, “And they continue to refuse who’s body he is in. Why?”

“It is an exploitation of the rich versus poor as always. The rich will now be able to forever live while the poor will get casted out,” said another lady with short hair and bulging eyes. 

“There’s talk Jacobo was in with the highest level of health officers developing this technology behind closed doors. Again, America and its secrets. Who is Marcus Jacobo, who was he working for, and why? Sources close to me say Russia and China made strong moves to contact Jacobo weeks prior to his fall.”

I was released from the hospital two weeks after awakening and the scene outside was as I expected. I had fans of all ages and enemies of all creeds. A group of Christians held picket signs saying I was the anti-christ. Another group protested that this is phase one of “the new world order.” That now some people will be elected to live on, creating an artificial social Darwinism in favor of the elite. I was maybe alive, but in my head, I did die on that bridge. People love theatrics and that’s all this was. People need distractions and I am now the greatest one. 

When I got back to my apartment I had no words to explain to her. I needed someone to talk to. Yet, it confused me why she even came back.

“Marcus,” tears gobbling her eyes, “Marcus why?”

“I-I don’t know. I guess I was just born this way.”

“No! No one is born like that!”

I emersed myself in her blue eyes. Everything in the past 16 years and 3 weeks simply caught up. I broke down hysterically laughing. I couldn’t help it. This scene makes no sense! This sequence of events doesn’t make sense! I’m 56 but I’m 24 remember, Marcus? Lucy looked fine but if an outsider saw this, it painted perfectly a mother scolding her son for drinking too much. That’s essentially what this is all about. I drank too much of a certain lifestyle. 

She was repulsed, “What is wrong with you?”

“Lucy look at me!” puffing out my chest, “I look like I got an 8 am in Intro to Philosophy tomorrow.”

“They say you fell. That it was an accident. Or maybe that it wasn’t. Joe says you wanted to test your hypothesis but I know he’s hiding something. What’s the truth, Marc!

“Where is Joseph?” Last I left him he was getting ready to graduate high school.

Lucy failed to compose herself, sobbing with each word, “I am so lost as to why it took you three weeks to even contact us.”

“Well, why didn’t you visit?”

“BECAUSE YOU NEVER ANSWERED FOR ME! NEVER! You spent all that time in the university or working on a thesis or traveling to this convention to go to that person and understand that situation for some pointless cause. There is a reason we never married but there is none as to how we still talk at all.”

Her left hand held a wedding band. It’s been 16 years. I can’t get shocked over that but some part of me is. This is all the unconscious creation that I should’ve never experienced. 

I sat down and grabbed her hand, “Where is our son?”

“Marc,” her voice croaked, “Did you really not see him? He was there with you.”

Damn, it was always obvious, but again, people find ways to be stunned at what they expect, 

“He’s a doctor now?”

“Yep. A psychiatrist,” she cried again, “There is other news. He has a family now and — hear it from him, Marc.”

“Where is he?”

The night screamed with wind as I crossed the brick buildings of the University of Chicago. Sun had just set and a glossy indigo carried the scene into the Pritzker School of Medicine. I walked up 4 flights of stairs with such physical ease. This place had always been a second home, maybe a first, and I knew exactly where he would be. Yet, with each passing of a column or random piece of artwork, my nerves grew like weeds in every part of me. And eventually, I ran out of steps and the door to my — well his now — office arrived. 

I knocked. 

“Come in,” a muffled voice responded.

I entered and I saw my son with a clean-cut beard and a haircut that just hides his receding hairline. His office was filled with books of Plato, Camus, and medical examinations. Like any other doctor, he has a couple of trinkets on his desk alongside two too many clocks. Then right behind him, next to the window is a picture of Lucy, me, and him at the White Sox game. 

The moment was so awkward that I fought a smile, “Joseph… how’s it going?”

“Good. It’s only about 7 o’clock and was just finishing up a couple of things.”

“Where did they put my stuff?”

“Storage unit in the basement. Since you were dead or some type of purgatory they thought you wouldn’t be needing it.”

“Makes sense,” the office still looks oddly the same, “My journals?”

“The ones regarding the Jacobos experiment are now copied and pasted in almost every research facility,” he paused for a long three seconds, “You’re personal ones are in one of this drawer.”

Shit, “You read them?”

“Yup… I didn’t know if you were coming back.”

“Alright, let’s-let’s break this down.”

We both sat and I headed it off. But before I could utter a sentence, Joseph uncontrollably broke down sobbing. There was a time I knew what to do. But that was the past and this present didn’t seem very much in line. 

“Joseph I want you to know I love you very much. And I did what I did solely out of my perspective.”

“Perspective?” Joseph wiped his eyes and composed himself, “Dad… you have no idea how little that means to me.”

“What?”

He sat up and looked right at me, “There are people who think you’re an agent, a God, a terrorist for some global plot. You beat death. You of all people. You, a person who wanted to die, beat death. You had no right! None whatsoever. You’re undoing was simply because of you and self-made problems.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

Joseph laughed violently, “A bonafide genius with a partner and son. Lives in a nice place in Downtown right by all the cafes. Not one person ever crossed you nor wished you harm. Yet!” he reached in the drawer and threw four cheap spirals at my face, “The shit in here! I mean! Dad what the absolute fuck!”

“No one was meant to ever read those —”

“BULLSHIT! Stop lying! Please or otherwise get out and go just onto Lake Shore drive. You left them here. You wanted to hurt people on your way out because you saw them so below you!”

“I couldn’t help being forgotten. But I also wanted out.”

“Oh my God!”

“Well, what do you want me to say! I didn’t —”

“Why!” he interjected, “Why did you leave mom and me behind? Why did you continue to go forward with your theory when you knew what it would do?”

How am I real, “Joseph, there comes a point where there is no chance, no backup plan, nowhere to go. It’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s just the final sequence of a string of decisions and uncontrollables. All my life I wanted to be great and I was. But once I got there I realize truthfully how pointless that thinking is. I mean, I missed your games, countless Christmases, all because I thought that since life is so meaningless, I had to find the least amount of absurdity in this reality.”

“So you casually picked an evolutionary experiment that will dictate generations forever?”

A ball grew in my throat and words fumbled out, “Joseph I don’t know. That’s it. That really is it. I don’t know what I was doing and I just wanted it all to stop.”

A harsh wind shook the window. Joseph kept his stone glare, “Legacies aren’t meant to be seen by the ones who create them. The law of nature requires life and death and you defiled it.”

“Son, someone was going to do it eventually —”

“Shut up! Doesn’t matter. It’s the fact that out of all people you choose to go ahead because of your ego rather than try and stop it. You brainwashed yourself into thinking this world forever needed you to last in some type of way.”

Fuck me….

“Are you crying? Oh my God! You don’t even know the full story!”

Every nerve in me popped, “WHAT! WHAT DO I NOT KNOW,” 

“Have you looked in a mirror?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You know damn well why!”

“Your little project only works with people of the same bloodline. And you don’t want to know whose life you took.”

“I didn’t choose for this to happen! Why didn’t you do anything?”

“Because you are my Dad!”

Those words towered a pain far greater than that evening’s fall. 

 “And you know what else? The real kicker? My son was already dying and the best way to kill cancer is guess what? To be dead yourself. His body was just fresh enough for you. So lucky you, and because every officer, Doctor, and person of authority saw you as Jesus himself, they used his body.”

Another slap of wind followed by a shoulder-pressing silence. A life for a life. I got to stay and it isn’t logical in any sense. But, by some law or coincidence, I am here. 

Hot streams of tears flooded by now, “Joseph, you’re right. Completely right in every sense of it,” I gathered myself to express this much-needed help, “What do you think I should do? Can I change?”

“Huh?” his head jolted back.

“How should I go about… about this living.”

The wind hushed and the atmosphere flipped in accordance. Our eyes wouldn’t leave each other. Red, puffy, and teary, they still held a connection, the connection of father and son. 

“I failed,” I went on, “I sacrificed only for myself and I’m sorry. Please, Joseph. Look,” and I pointed at my face, “I got a second chance now. And this will be my last one as it should. Teach me what I should’ve taught you… Dad.”

We are the first of any human to be in these circumstances. Pioneers if that’s the right word. A standard must be set and Joseph might be the one. I know he knows that. Joseph opened another drawer and pulled out a spiral. He got up and walked right to my side. Bending down, he picked up all four spirals and organized them in chronological order. The first one is red. He pulled a chair over and opened to the first page.

“Let’s compare and learn from there.”