There was a man. An old man. This sort of thing happens, over time.
He was also dying. And didn’t much like it. This too was not unusual.
“I’m not going to stand for this kind of treatment,” he said, and that WAS a little strange, and he phoned up his three daughters and two sons and told them to get their asses over to the hospital.
And they got their asses along properly, because he was their father and he was dying and they all felt like they owed him that much. In limousines and taxis, motorbikes and minivans, up came each of them, one after another, all within five minute’s time. Up they paraded in their suits and their brightly coloured socks, and they listened.
“My beloved, successful, wealthy, entrepreneurial children,” said the dying old man, “I have a last request for all of you from your father, on his deathbed. I humbly request that you all do your best to fulfill it.”
“Yes,” they all said. “That sounds fair enough.”
“Dying isn’t that great a thing,” said the old man. “I don’t want to go through dying – the thought gets me all tense and wired, like a squirrel stuffed in a spring. I want you to fix it. Go on, give it a try.”
Five moments of thought overlapped.
“I’m not so sure,” said the oldest daughter.
“Doable,” disputed the oldest son.
“Possibly,” seconded the youngest son.
“Absolutely,” said the middle daughter.
“No doubt about it,” said the youngest daughter.
The oldest daughter made a face at her siblings. They made faces right back.
“Enough of that,” said the old man. “Get to it. I’ve got a few hours left and the clock’s ticking. As incentive, the one who pulls it off gets my wallet and buys a free round for the family.”
“I’ll go first,” said the oldest son. He stood up and straightened his tie in a very menacing way, then walked over to the nurse.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I would like to see the doctor, or I’m going to sue you for obstruction of obfuscation of objectification of the Oldowan.”
“Right this way,” said the nurse, and he led the oldest son to the doctor.
“What’s your problem?” asked the doctor.
“I’d like to see the director of this hospital,” said the oldest son, “or I’m going to sue you for breach of privacy, breach of conduct, breach of hospitality, breach of hospital, and breaching with malicious intent to spyhop.”
“Whatever,” said the doctor. “Not my problem.” And she sent the oldest son onwards to the director, who was trapped on his desk surrounded by four ringing cellphones, three laptops blaring with virus alerts and unanswered emails, forty-five unfilled forms, and a savage blackberry.
“What is it?” asked the director. “I’m a little busy here.”
“I would like to meet your supervisor of death,” said the oldest son, “or I’ll sue you for libel, liability, liberalism, and lagomorphism.”
“Screw off,” said the director. “I’m too busy for that. I’ve got forty-five other lawsuits to deal with this afternoon.”
“I’ll give you a chocolate bar,” said the oldest son.
The director’s hand darted out faster than the strike of a praying mantis, snaring the treat from the son’s grasp almost before the words had left his esophagus. “Done deal,” he muttered through the crumbs, and he directed the oldest son to the office of the local supervisor of death.
He was texting with his feet up on his desk, chewing a novelty scythe-shaped toothpick in the corner of his barely-obese lips.
“‘Sup,” he said, without looking up.
“Laws,” said the oldest son.
“Shit. What kind?”
“I am going to sue you for defamation of character, declaration of independence, and defenestration of crepuscularation if you don’t reverse my father’s impending death immediately.”
“Hit me with your best shot, dumbass,” said the supervisor of death, still not looking up from his phone. “Crepuscularation isn’t a word. ‘Crepuscular’ pertains to twilight or dusk, and as a noun it’s ‘crepuscularity.'””
The oldest son returned to his father’s deathbed, his cold blue eyes brimming with tears.
“I tried, dad,” he said. “I tried.”
“It’s okay, we’ve got time,” said the old man.
“I think it’s my turn,” said the younger brother. He pulled himself off the wall he’d been leaning on, took out his laptop, and wrote a very serious research paper.
“I’ve been planning this for a while,” he told his father. “This is really just the perfect time to sum it all up. Nothing like panic to give you that good kick in the ass you need to write more than three pages a minute.”
“What’s it on?” asked the old man.
“What isn’t it? I’ve got philosophy applied to sociology applied to anthropology applied to history applied to biology applied to chemistry. Then I applied that to physics, astronomy, and brought it back around to philosophy again. The gist of the central thesis is that your mind makes other people real but can’t control their beliefs and worldviews, which explains the U.S. Civil War, and how an unusually obvious gene pattern in the skull of Ulysses S. Grant confirms the overall necessity of this, as well as how uranium is a false concept just like the existence of other humans. This means that most of what we know about physics is fake, which throws our beliefs about the universe at large into question and ends up confirming my initial premise, which is that if enough people believe each other not to be fake they become immortal.” He blew his hair out of his eyes, rattled his fingers across the keyboard one last time, and spiked his laptop.
“Done and good as already edited,” he said with satisfaction. “I’ve just disproved death. Published ten seconds ago.”
“I don’t feel any better,” said the old man.
“Wait a few days for the peer reviews,” said the younger brother.
The old man gave him a look.
“Oh. Right.” The younger brother slouched against his wall again and didn’t look at anyone.
“Good effort,” said the old man fondly. “Reminds me of those frogs you sent into orbit years back with nothing more than matches and old cellophane tubes. Anyone else got an idea?”
“Of course,” said the middle sister. She put on a pair of appropriately stern glasses over her contacts, adjusted the indestructible plastic sheen that coated her hair, and beckoned her finest cameraman in for a close shot, adjusting the angle of her head so that it was perfectly silhouetted against the flag a helpful aide was quickly nailing to the nearest wall.
“Citizens, my opponent is all about death,” she announced, the sincerity in her voice sound enough to split redwoods with a single blow. “Death is a necessity, he claims, death is a vital part of our economy, death is there so that there may also be life. But this cold, clinical analysis, which may remind us of Auschwitz (I am most certainly not implying my opponent is a Nazi at all what gave you that idea perhaps you are implying something YOURSELF hmm?), is not the only way to look at death. Death may be necessary indeed, death may be economically sound, death may indeed define our entire species and outlook upon life – upon our very existence – but this cannot excuse on-two solitary facts.”
The music swelled.
“My opponent wants to raise your taxes and is a possible pedophile,” she said. “Goodnight, and god bless.”
The middle sister sat down again as the camera turned off.
“Election won,” she said happily.
“You’re going to abolish death then,” asked the younger son. “Won’t that be a bit messy? I can do the math for you.”
“Oh, nothing so crass as that,” she said dismissively. “I’ll just have the supervisor in charge of his case file fired and get dad lost in the shuffle.”
“Metaphysical affairs,” said the youngest sister. “Out of your jurisdiction.”
“I can get an appointee in there.”
“Sure. They take a few hundred years to process applications.”
“What?!”
“They say it weeds out the applicants that aren’t catchy enough.”
“Fiddlesticks,” said the middle sister, and she sat down again in a frump.
“I believe it is my turn,” said the youngest sister. “Tell me,” she asked the older brother, “where was the supervisor of death for this district?”
“Five rooms and four layers of willing disbelief to your left on exiting the room,” he said.
“Good,” said the youngest sister, and she went there.
“Heya,” said the supervisor. His feet were no longer up on the desk, but he was still texting. His tongue, once prepared to whet his lips once per minute with clockwork precision, had become stuck just to the right side of his mouth. It seemed to leer at the youngest sister.
“I will donate one billion dollars to you if you remove this unnecessary red tape from the path of my family,” she said.
“Nah,” said the supervisor.
“I will place one trillion dollars towards making your life absolute hell if you do not remove this useless obstruction from my father,” she said.
The supervisor shrugged and flicked an errant snotcrusting from the rim of his largest nostril.
“I’ll put in a good word with your boss and get you some stock tips,” she said.
The supervisor looked up from his texting. “Get in line. Position eight quintillion. Rounded down.”
“I’m really sorry,” the youngest sister told her father. “That’s the first time that hasn’t worked.
“Bureaucrats,” grumbled the old man. “Well, I’ve got five minutes. Anyone got any plan Bs?”
“I used all my lawsuits,” said the oldest son. “My tie is flaccid.”
“I can’t make people peer-review any faster,” said the youngest son.
“I’d be accused of flip-flopping,” said the middle sister.
“I don’t have enough money,” said the youngest sister. “I should fix that.”
“Well, shit,” said the old man. He sighed, with an underlying gurgle. “Good tries, everyone. Guess that’s it.”
“I might have an idea,” said the oldest sister, carefully unhooking her stethoscope and coiling it into a neat loop.
“Well, go on and try it,” said the old man. “Can’t hurt to try.”
“It’s going to take a little while,” said the oldest sister. “Just bear with me, and listen hard…”
So the oldest sister talked to him about world war II, and the effect that had probably had on his parent’s upbringing of him, and the possibly psychological effects this might have had, and about his fierce and competitive drive that had so obviously ingrained itself in his children, judging by their career paths, and how the seeds of resentment so easily sown between generations when the children had been in their teenaged years had only fuelled their fierce pursuit of independence, and of how reconciliation had come gradually, achingly, lovingly over the past decade, and of how this whole deathbed effort they’d all put forth really was the most heartwarming and coordinated family event they’d had since, well, ever.
“That’s a really nice thought,” said the oldest brother.
“Well, when it’s put that way, sure,” said the youngest brother.
“Homey,” said the middle sister.
“Cute,” said the youngest sister.
The old man didn’t say anything.
The oldest sister lifted one of his eyelids and critically inspected the pupil. “Gone half a paragraph ago, I’ll wager on my medical license,” she said. “And judging from the amount of tension in his muscles, I’d double or nothing that he didn’t see it coming either. Anesthetic’s for people without a little creativity.” She extracted his wallet and turned it over with a critical eye. “Five bucks. Let’s go get some juice.”