Utopia

"Just the broth to start with," said Eddie, ladling steaming liquid from the pan on the wood stove into a tin cup. "No pieces, no fibre. You're going to have to ease your stomach back into action after all these years on the replacement pills. I remember my first portion of broth, Maud had just boiled some veg and herbs, she only let me have the water, but it seemed to me to be the most aromatically complex dish ever prepared."

Eddie handed the hot cup to his friend Frank and sat down in the shabby easy chair opposite him. He let his palms settle on the round ends of the arm rests, where the fabric was almost worn through. The door of the stove stood open, and the burning logs inside it made the sombre room glow. Eddie's round, clean-shaven face shone pink in the soft light. His balding head was slightly wet from the effort of lighting the fire and chopping vegetables. Still a bit short of breath, he let his heavy body sink into the deep chair. He looked at his friend, who was all the opposite of him in appearance. Frank's long fingers wrapped around the cup, his thick white hair and beard illuminated, smile wrinkles creasing deeper around his pale blue eyes as he inhaled the fragrant steam in delight.

"I'm so glad you could make it Frank. I wasn't sure you would get my message," said Eddie after a while. "I haven't stopped thinking about you since... that day. Didn't seem right to be here without you."

"You took a risk contacting me my friend. I'm grateful that you did. I never imagined a place like this existed."

Despite having met only once before, the two men each valued their friendship immensely.

"I'd heard about it," said Eddie, "without ever completely believing it. And I was too scared of climbing the wall to find out what was out here. I saw a man shot down trying once. But since, well, since the... that day, the fear's kind of left me. All my days are a bonus now. It's all just extra time."

Frank sipped his broth, then stared down into his cup, tipping it slowly from side to side, watching the liquid move.

"You're going to have to put some real words on that day," he said.

"I guess you're right," Eddie replied. "It was an important one. Alright then, here goes. You saved my life that day, Frank."

"And you mine, Eddie."

"Of all the places we could have chosen to sit and wait, we ended up together on that bench."

"Feeling what we never thought we'd feel again," added Frank, less word-shy than his friend.

Eddie pushed his lips together and ran a finger over them slowly.

"I'm still embarrassed, you know, about bawling my eyes out like a baby," he said. "It was like a gate opening inside me, decades of unfelt feelings washing over me in minutes. I couldn't hold them back, I could only... well you know the rest. You saw it."

"You were almost too moved to move," laughed Frank gently. "We knew we had to get away fast once we'd decided we weren't going in, and you just sat there staring into empty space, silent tears rolling down your face. They're still looking for us now you know, wondering why we didn't keep our appointment. They'll be dragging us there by any body part they can get a hold on if they ever find us. Illegal to be alive, who would ever have thought it? You're not allowed to cancel those appointments you know, they produce your replacement embryo the minute you book with the service."

"I know," replied Eddie with a half smile. "The much improved Eddie and Frank version 2.0 are floating around in test tubes as we speak, preparing to take our places, to replace the cowards who chose to die and signed up for help doing it."

Frank tutted and shook his head. "You have to be a coward to carry on living in the block. It's the sanest ones that make an appointment with Dr Death. And even saner are those who don't keep it. You should be damn proud of the human you are Eddie, not embarrassed. Those tears were the most beautiful thing I'd seen in years. Although with you I didn't need to see them to know you were human."

"Right?" replied Eddie. "I knew it straight away with you too. It's what saved me. There's nothing lonelier than being surrounded by human forms and just not knowing who's human and who's not. That sent me right into myself. That loneliness, it's the most god awful worst kind of loneliness, the one you feel in the middle of a crowd. Nothing meant anything. The androids could show more emotion than most of Dr Death's empty-eyed human future clients. And then you sat down next to me on that bench and I just knew you were human. The connection flowed, sewing up the gaping wound of loneliness as it went, giving me back some long lost desire to live, to feel, to know, to hope."

"Yeah. So, you see, beautiful tears," replied Frank. "Seems I'm going to have to get used to beauty again though, out here."

"I sure hope you'll find yourself a Maud too," said Eddie, a dreamy look coming over his face. "I'll introduce you to my Maud later. Sometimes I just sit and look at her, or hold her, smelling her hair. It's something I never thought I'd feel again."

Then in a more matter-of-fact tone, "You got that map I sent you by the way?"

Frank handed him a scrappy piece of paper.

"Thanks. She'll be wanting to burn this," said Eddie.

"Well, a Maud of my own again. Yeah." Frank looked down into his cup. "I was quite content admiring the trees and the birds and the bees until now."

"Wait till you do that with a hand in yours, and sunlight making her hair look like strands of gold, talking about what you're going to grow in your garden next year, and how you're going to keep your hens safe, and what colour she should dye the fabric she just wove."

"Where do you even get the seeds from, for the vegetables?" asked Frank. He was enchanted by his friend's fairy tale, but his mind was also filled with a thousand practical questions. He had just arrived in a place he barely believed existed only a few days ago. Now he could see that not only did it exist, but it thrived as a fully functional, entirely self-sufficient enterprise, hidden in the heart of the forest, surviving in the utmost secrecy.

"Well, a number of years ago," began Eddie, "a small group of people sensed things would soon be on the fritz, so they broke away while they still could. First thing they did out here was dig. They built their seed bank before their houses were even finished. It's an incredible story, Frank. I was expecting to find a stoned bunch of hippies out here, but these people who weave their clothes and grow their veg are scientists, engineers, doctors, great thinkers... Each member has their own role. There are the planners, the visionaries, the administrators, the knowledge bearers, the healers, the entertainers, the artists... and yet, each person contributes with their head and with their hands. Each man, woman and child knows how to cook, clean, build, weave, grow, repair, and sew."

They sat then in silence for a few minutes, watching the flames flicker.

"How many food pills did you bring with you?" asked Eddie after a while.

"About sixty," replied Frank, distractedly. His mind was still grappling with the information Eddie had just given him.

"That should get you through till your stomach's working again. Remember when we were sitting on that bench, reminiscing about food, sharing memories of taking our girls out for dinner, before they disappeared?"

"Yeah," said Frank, "if we'd only known, sitting in those restaurants, that food itself would one day just be a fond memory."

"Not any more," replied Eddie. "Not any more."

"You know what the funniest thing is?" asked Frank, suddenly changing the subject.

"What?"

"Well, now I know I'm mortal again, I suddenly feel more alive than ever."

"Immortality is just a twisted, distant memory of a nightmare now. Life and death are out of our hands here, like they should be," said Eddie. "You're safe now, Frank."