“Come on, we’re already late as it is.” Kara’s older brother Nick chided her from a few meters ahead as they trekked through the dead woods. It was hard to call it woods, since every tree had died long ago, and none were left standing. ‘Dead woods’ was simply the moniker that every similar area came to be known as. She was only a year younger, but one would never guess from looking at them. “If you’re still self-conscious about the dumb dress, I’m telling you, you look fine. Just don’t get mad at me when it gets a little messed up.”
This boosted her confidence, but only a little, since it was her favorite piece of clothing. Whether things went as planned or horribly wrong, she wanted to look nice. It also matched her nutri-band reasonably well, but generally it was good to know his friends wouldn’t be thinking about it too much. The thing did everything really; it gave their bodies all the nutrients necessary to live from sunlight alone, acted as a supercomputer, kept them clean, and held any and all information pertaining to the wearer at all times. Only a thin sleeve fitted over one’s arm with a valve-like cylinder attached, it couldn’t ever be removed and was placed on everyone since birth. Nick never looked back for a second, he simply kept his hands in his shorts pockets and watched where he stepped. “Did you bring the dog treats?” he asked.
“No” she replied. They were in the backpack over her shoulder.
“Did you remember the antique?” He continued without acknowledging her previous answer.
“No.” Again, it was in her backpack.
“Is there anything you haven’t forg—” Nick was masterfully interrupted by Kara eating dirt.
She tripped and fell to the ground, but not before giving her head a good taste of his shoulder. The dry ground lacked any real smell since there wasn’t any life to speak of, but it did get her and her pale skin dirty. She had lain there for a few seconds, relishing in her shame and self-targeted disappointment. This accidentally scared Nick, however, so he rushed to her, flipped her over and asked if she was alright.
“I… I remember…” she whispered, lightly reaching up to hold his face with one hand.
“What? W-what?” He had knelt down, getting his jeans in the dirt, and pulled her up in a half cradle. His eyes flicked back and forth between each of hers after brushing off clumps of dust and sand. The nutri-band was already starting to ‘remove contaminants.’
“I remember… the Alamo…” An unreasonably large grin formed on Kara’s face as she squinted back at him, before he promptly dropped her once again, fully allowing her to collide with the ground as hard as gravity would permit from that height.
Nick stood back up, looked down at her and said, “Jesus Christ.” He changed his perspective to the sun, which was getting ever closer to the horizon. “We’re running out of time.”
…
When they reached the spot up the hill, they could finally make out the shed, but only Nick’s friend Jeevan showed up. He was tall and handsome with his light brown skin, and Kara was especially surprised when he and her brother took their shirts off, revealing healthy nutri-band given physiques. She still didn’t understand what water did to clothes, even after everyone had explained multiple times.
“Where’s everyone else?” asked Nick.
“I don’t know man, fucking pussies.” replied Jeevan. Nick let out an exaggerated gasp and put his hands around Kara’s ears, to which she scowled and shrugged him off.
“Hey, I got you something, but I’ll have to show you later, okay?” she told Jeevan. His face lit up.
“Okay! Just tell me you remembered the treats, or this isn’t happening.”
She nodded. The three of them turned to walk to the shed and ventured around a large fixture in the ground covered in a green tarp. As they got closer Jeevan shouted “Hey Leland! Get out here!”
Nick motioned for Kara to take the dog treats out, so she pulled out her massive bag, which took up the majority of the backpack’s real estate. The shed door swung open and out came an incredibly tan old man with a white beard that must have taken years to grow. He was tall and lanky, wore a tee shirt with the sleeves cut off, sunglasses, and a bandana over his bald head. Kara opened the bag and readied a treat, but she was shivering. She had only ever seen a dog in a zoo before and at the time it looked like it could do damage. She also wondered how someone like him was allowed to have one. Leland approached her as she scanned the area behind him waiting for the dog, but then he reached into the bag and grabbed a handful, shoving them all into his mouth at once.
“PEANUT BUTTER!” he exclaimed with a mouth-full in a scratchy, high-pitched voice. He noticed the treat in Kara’s hand. “Go on, try it!” he said, still munching, but she just put it back in the bag, unready to have another conversation with an old person about how people don’t chew anymore. Having never done it before, she certainly wouldn’t make dog treats her first time. He gave a look of withdrawn understanding, and then directed his attention towards the tarp. “Check this out, kids” he said as he uncovered the pool.
The three of them stared wide eyed at the clear, shiny water. They didn’t know how to react, as they hadn’t seen the stuff outside of textbooks or old pictures and media, and most of the time it was accompanied by a plethora of warning symbols. It rippled and shimmered, reflecting the light from the setting sun. “Where’d you get all of it?” asked Nick.
Leland looked back and pointed at the treat bag, saying “Hey, I didn’t ask where you got those— keep the plausible deniability goin’, man.” He had pointed, but it still took him a second to realize that they were still there, and he went back for more. Kara let him hold the bag this time. Crunching away, he said “Well? What are ya waiting for? I didn’t fill this whole thing just for you to sit there and stare at it.” It was only five feet deep at the lowest, but the whole pool clearly required a serious amount of water. The three of them could only watch it move, let it hypnotize them. It plucked the purple and orange out of the sky and mixed them together like a spendthrift iris swaying in the wind. The sound it made was like nothing Kara had ever imagined, and she had to strain herself to hear its rumbling serenity, its deceptive depth.
Nick and Jeevan were braver than her. The latter asked, “So… we’re just supposed to step on it… a-and it moves over us?”
Leland knelt down on the other side. “Naw man,” he said with a wild and toothy smile, “you get in.” He lightly plunged his hand into the pool, whisked it around a little, and then took it back out, shaking it off. The three of them were slack jawed, but the boys didn’t need to hear any more. All it took was seeing someone else do it first, so they clambered over to the side, put a hand on the ground, and jumped into the pool with a big splash. Kara watched as their faces expanded and eyes widened. They bounced up and down from the bottom and looked at each other, almost panicking at the perceived danger of being shoulder deep. They grabbed onto each other’s shoulders and tried to calm down together. Once they settled, the pool’s waves had grown much larger as a result. Leland had set up some lights in the bottom ahead of time and was now setting up some plastic chairs with ancient towels as they fiddled around. As they began to fiddle with the minute shifts in the waves their hands made, the old man leant back in one of the chairs, crossed his legs, put one arm behind his head and kept munching on the dog treats.
Meanwhile, Kara stood back in fear. Seeing how they reacted, seeing how their hair became covered— it made her wonder how easily they could be tricked into something by a strange man they didn’t even really know. She got down on her knees and found herself whispering, though she somehow felt embarrassed at the thought of Leland feeling excluded from the discussion. “Are you guys okay?” she asked.
Jeevan waded over to her and said, “Oh my god, it feels so weird! What are you waiting for? I can help you down the stairs if you want.” Nick was attempting handstands but kept coming back up early because he didn’t know how to keep the water out of his nose.
He looked away from the ending sunset and gave his full attention to her but didn’t put much thought into his answer. Even still, it made her feel ashamed for being suspicious. “Why not?” he replied.
“I don’t know, it just seems like a lot of work for… those.” She nodded at the bag on his belly.
“It’s less work than giving up your life for just a little swim.”
“It’s not just a swim… we’re choosing to dieby doing this. None of us asked to live forever.” She tapped her nutri-band, the very thing pumping simulated water into her. “I don’t see you wearing one of these, and, I mean, either way I still get to live out the rest of my life like you did.” At this he let out a cackle.
“Hey, I’m still kickin’ girlfriend, and, sad to say, I don’t think you’ll ever reach my level of at-trac-tive-ness,” he said as he added another treat to the count and wiggled his eyebrows at the same time. “I was born before the Dehydration, so I can’t really use it anyway, ya know— and I’m doing this because I think we should have the choice. So what if the government cured aging of all things; doesn’t matter at all if people don’t at least get to have the option of a normal life.”
“Who says anything about this isn’t normal?” she asked as she held up her nutri-band, desperate for a reason not to do what she was planning to do. “If everyone lives like this from now on, how could it be anything but normal?”
“Alright, maybe it is normal. I guess what you’re wondering is, is whether or not it should be.” She sat pondering for a moment before shifting in her seat, finally finding a more comfortable position. The darkness had fully set in except for the moonlight and pool glow, so he took off his sunglasses and folded them into the collar of his shirt. He turned back to her and skipped a beat before saying, “I don’t see you getting in.”
Kara turned and leaned back in her chair, curling up her legs. “I… I’m just a little scared.” They watched Nick and Jeevan float on their backs and squirt water into the air with their mouths. “What’s getting old like?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” said Leland, “but if I had to guess it would involve a lot of joint pain and forgetting where I put my shoes. I gotta tell ya, drinking the simulated stuff is probably way worse than if I just had a band like you. I don’t think it even counts as liquid, not that there’s much of that anymore.”
“You don’t think it’d be better if I just lived a long time and then shot myself when I thought I was done?”
Without being too phased by that, he asked, “Hey, for all I know I might end up doing that before one of my dumbass grandkids puts me in a home, but how would you know when to do it? How can you say you’ve seen everything—” he grabbed a treat and held it out to her, “when you haven’t tried one of these?” She deftly but gradually took it from him and held it in her open palm for a moment. Taking it with her other hand, she placed it in her mouth. She had no reference for the taste, but it certainly wasn’t as pleasant as he made it seem. Not knowing really what to do next, she turned to the old man and attempted to mimic the crunching and grinding of the teeth. She swallowed as if it was just excess saliva, but the new sensation made her gag. She wouldn’t do it again but was happy it happened.
…
Kara had been on the fence for a while by the time the boys walked up to them, dripping from head to toe. If rain was deemed enough to cause the body to continue the natural aging process after maturity, then they had certainly been exposed to the right amount of the stuff in the pool. They took a moment to dry off, and Kara observed how tired they were before returning her attention to the glowing water.
Nick asked her, “Did you change your mind?” Her eyes didn’t leave their mark.
“No, I’m gonna do it. It might just be a minute, I guess. You guys can head out if you want. Oh, wait!” She sprang out of the chair and rifled through her backpack until she pulled out small rectangular object with one hand and held it out to Jeevan. “Here. It’s one of those antique picture frames,” she said, before flipping it over, revealing a photo of the boy inside. “It’s… for your parents… so one day they can look at you when they want to without using their nutri-bands. Nick and I already made one for ours. Just be gentle about it, our parents didn’t particularly enjoy being told they’d outlive us.”
She half smiled at Jeevan when he took it. He gazed at it for a long time, and she could see his eyebrows furl and lips tremble. Before she could say anything else, he tried to hug her, but she jumped away. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she replied, “just don’t get me wet yet.”
“Oh, come on, Kara,” said Nick, “just get in! You convinced us!” Jeevan put his hand on Nick’s shoulder.
“Let’s just leave. Give her space, okay?” he said, but Nick shrugged off his hand.
“Don’t you get what we just did?”
“Yeah, I do, which is why she shouldn’t have that decision taken away from her. Let her get there by herself. Yeah, she suggested it to us, but we still thought about it on our own, right? We got in all by ourselves.” Jeevan approached Nick again, gently trying to calm his frustration.
Nick’s face darted towards Kara, and he said, “You have to do it too!”
She replied, “I’m going to,” but this didn’t appear satisfactory, so Nick took his wet towel off his back, and he threw it at her, only for it to be intercepted by Jeevan. Nick shoved him.
“For fuck’s sake, Jeevan, get out of the way,” he snarled. Kara stepped back, eyeing the towel. She backed up into Leland, who was standing in between her and the pool, trying not to let her fall in. He stepped past her as the boys kept bickering.
“Why do you care?” asked Jeevan, “You already did it. So what if she decides not to?”
“She can’t!” yelled Nick.
“She can do whatever she wants,” Jeevan spoke again, solemn, “and you’re just gonna have to put up with that, man.”
Then, Leland stood between them, arms behind his back, and in that scratchy, high-pitched voice he simply said, “Guys, just cool it.” This alone, the presence of something between them, calmed them down. Nick’s arms dropped to his sides, and his fists unfurled.
Jeevan remembered his earlier suggestion and quietly said, “Let’s go.” They looked at each other and then at Kara, and then they left. Heading down the hill, they turned back and waved, yelling thanks to Leland, for the pool and the sensibility. He threw them the peace sign, and they disappeared, but not before Jeevan said something about it being her decision and getting slapped on the back of the head. Kara walked over to the pool and sat down by the edge, watching and listening to the gentle ripples. The old man went back to the chair and the treats.
…
Her eyelids had become heavy as the night went on, and she held her head in her hands. She couldn’t tell if the old man was still awake the last time she checked. She had had enough. Up she got, no need to brush anything off, and she stood fuming at the water as well as herself.
“Fuck this,” she said, and she turned around on her way to leave when suddenly she found Leland standing right behind her. She immediately shrieked, stumbled with frenzied feet, and fell backwards into the pool. She didn’t know how to maneuver underwater and couldn’t find the floor, but all she could really think about was how incredibly unable to breathe water she was. Leland jumped in after her and pulled her up while she thrashed around, and she spat out a lung’s worth of water. Not being very tall and failing to find footing while her head was above the surface, she used her outstretched arms to clutch his shoulders with every fiber of her being, gasping for any air she could get. He muttered something she didn’t understand and picked her up in a bridal carry before slowly moving towards the stairs.
“Wait… wait…” she said between breaths, “put me down where I can stand, please,” she said. As he waded over to a shallower bit, she could finally pay attention to the water. It made her dress stick to her skin in some places and float away in others, and it washed over and under every part of her. It was a borrowed warmth, uncaring and ever present, and when her ears dipped under the surface, she could hear what she imagined were the sounds of a bottomless pit. She enjoyed the weightlessness, how it moved through her fingers.
“Sorry,” said Leland, “I had just decided not to push ya when you went and jumped in anyway.” When he finally put her down in a spot where the water came up to her shoulders, she sat down in it on her own accord and let herself be engulfed, looking up at the rippling moon. She took in all of her senses and just felt. She found herself wishing she could do this every day, and she came up from the bottom again. Looking at the old man, wading through the blue, she started to come to grips with what had happened, and like someone possessed she walked through to him and buried her face in his chest, hugging him in the process. She then turned her head to the side and let her feet off the floor to just float, letting her locked arms hold her up with him.
“I’m… I’m going to die…” She tried to avoid sniffling too much.
“Yeah. Me too.” She felt her head get gently pulled closer by his hand to keep steady.
“What happens after?”
“No one knows.”
“W-will it hurt?”
“…Does life hurt?”
“No.”
“I don’t imagine death will either.”
“Can I come hug you again when you die?”
“Only if you bring more treats.”