I always smile but my eyes are sad

I have a charmed life with hired hands who wait on me, friends who appear out of nowhere with a phone call, and the heavy job of being some wealthy girl’s boyfriend. I am afforded luxuries I can't spell from names I wasn't taught to pronounce but this is a precious life. It is my precious life and neither death nor age will fracture my youth. I will be eternal in this 23-year-old cocoon flung into a future everyone around me will be too deceased to experience with me. I hear the process is something about cryogenic stasis which I can't spell either but if it keeps my skin still and beautiful, freeze me. 

I was considered precocious from when I could walk and I walked earlier than kids could spit milk, fling a spoonful of mashed peas, and grasp the full concept of “no”. I was bright in the way a virtuoso balances piano and rudimentary math though somehow excelled in neither one. I mimicked the way an adult lies, the way adults excuse those lies, and the way kids caught in those lies blame the adults from the ripe age of six. By then, I fed the dog vegetables, save for a handful of peas and baby carrots, to sell my parents the first lie I invented. It makes sense for someone of my stature and grace to preserve flawlessness rather than subject it to the cracks of time. 

I was a teenager with standard formal training in English who instructed middle-aged also-rans outside unemployment offices on how to smoke a cigarette. I demonstrated the poise required for a lesser person to believe a poser. I skated by on average grades but managed a stellar grip on the coolness of smoking. I taught losers how to exude the illusion of danger. It was priceless similar to this stasis business except in a creative way. 

I reached university as an eighteen-year-old on the precipice of a marvelous breakthrough- I was about to discover the cure to a disease that had yet to exist. Since the disease had yet to exist, I boasted a unique authority on it that attracted the ire of some classmates and the intrigue of others such as a fellow English literature classmate named Bernice. We bonded over a fondness for novels we didn’t comprehend, people we were not supposed to admire, and food we were not supposed to consume. She knew the disease, cure, and persona were for show but adopted me into her lavish life, a life where I could hide in a stasis chamber for close to eternity. 

Bernice finds me on a night swim the day before the scheduled cryogenic stasis appointment with a smile the length of her Olympic-sized pool. She dips her ankles into the water and watches me backstroke from one end to the other. I avoid her gaze though because eyes can expose anyone’s true emotions. 

“Sam, something’s wrong,” she sighs and creates a miniature whirlpool with her finger, “You avoid my gaze when something’s wrong.” 

“I hadn’t noticed,” I pant halfway through my second lap and despite my sore arms, I force them to propel me back and forth. 

Bernice dives into the water and swims in my path. I maneuver around her and she latches onto my leg. She has a stranglehold on it the way my mother gripped the orphanage doorknob. She didn’t return for me but in dreams, she has a feasible apology and explanation. My mother’s face is blurred but she loves me in this material way and labored to design a material place for me; in my dreams, this place is a stasis chamber and that is what Bernice doesn’t know. 

I spin around and she caresses my face to study it. She coos at my lonesome eyes, eyes that long for my mother and constructed lies to make friends and enemies. The hilarity and genius of my life is pure fantasy as I shunned the reality of mashed eggs, hand-me-down clothes, and relentless bullies. I hope to reunite with my mother in the stasis chamber. I hope she is in the century I wake up to because there is much to ask and express. 

Bernice wraps her arms around me while I weep for times I was a child who struggled to walk upright, read, and tie his shoes. I weep for times when I was crammed in lockers and marred by cigarette burns on the football field. I weep for days where the only person to comfort or approach me was Bernice. I weep for the fact that I have to leave her for a sweet reunion with my mother. 

“You don’t have to do this,” she whispers in my ear and draws me out of the pool. 

The fantastical skin I imagined myself in peels before my eyes and a pitiful shell remains. I am a pitiful shell of sheer agony with hopes to escape this current world for a fresh one. I want to be frozen and transported to my mother the way I am tonight. I refuse to have Bernice give genuine love to the husk of a man. She is the only witness right now and doesn't cast judgment on me for my shaken body which will freeze tomorrow. 

The remainder of the night is a blur but the morning is filled with people who dress, feed, and clothe me without a word. They shuffle around drones to ensure my care and Bernice fills the empty slots between my shaky fingers with her calm ones. The people who operate the machine tinker and make final adjustments before the chamber is prepped for me. I step out into the backyard to a metal dome and Bernice leads me through an automated entrance. 

The chamber is a bit taller than me and I inhale. When it opens, I step inside and reach out for Bernice who grabs my arm before a cluster of workers jerk her away. I miss my mother but I miss Bernice now. 

“Bernice, I love you!” I yell as Bernice scratches the glass and liquid nitrogen surrounds my body. 

“I love you too, Sam!” 

In an instant, everything is frozen solid for me. I was not one to anticipate the future but it will come soon. Whether it brings the promise of my mother or not is another story. I know it brings the promise of a time without Bernice and as the one person who loves me, this is punishment. If Bernice was here, the future would have a strong chance of exceptional brightness but I have to settle for what happens once I exit the chamber whenever that happens.