I take a pause from pushing my shopping cart to rest my knees. All the bending down to grab groceries from the lower shelves took a toll on my arthritis-cursed joints. I could practically hear the grinding of my bones with each step I take. Not to mention, the warm, stuffy weather was not helping my condition at all.
“Do you need help with anything, sir?” I glance to my right to see a female shop assistant looking at me. A hint of pity expresses itself on her face. She had smooth, poreless skin, no wrinkle in sight. The employee looked about eighteen, her youthfulness completely intact. But her actual age was a mystery. For all I know, she could be a fifty-year-old divorcee raising three cats. “No, thank you,” I reply. Most people wouldn’t take the pill at such a young age, but there are a few youth-obsessed citizens who prefer looking like a teenager for the rest of their lives.
I continue on and start walking down the aisle between shelves of canned food and noodles. As I push my cart filled with a month’s supply of groceries, several shoppers glance at me. Their faces display the usual expressions I get: the initial awe followed by immediate pity.
The sea of young people slowly parts as I walk through the aisle. Everywhere I go, the immortals treat me like a frail artifact — an ill-fated relic that could collapse and perish at any minute.
Well, that last part is true. I could collapse and die at any minute. I didn’t have the impeccable health that the immortals have, untainted by old age, and I definitely looked like a unique artifact–with my dusty grey hair peppered with stark white strands, loudly contrasting the dark brown heads scattered across the store.
Aside from how flexible our joints are, the most significant difference between the people in this room and me is how old we were during the release of the Vita Pill.
It was 2061. Prices of goods, food, housing, and education continued to rise while salaries stagnated. The minimum wage in NCR had been the same for the last ten years. Looking back, the only good thing that happened was DepEd finally updating its reproductive education curriculum.
After decades of worsening living conditions and sex education improving in the Philippines, nobody wanted to bring more children to this world; thus, birth rates had declined drastically. During that year, children under fifteen years old consisted of only 6% of the population, and statisticians predicted it was only going to get worse. The government was worried that the workforce nationwide would primarily consist of the elderly and those on the brink of retirement, leading to a significant decrease in productivity and profit–every capitalist society’s worst nightmare.
Due to new bodily autonomy laws and the aggressive feminist movement, policymakers failed to encourage citizens from bearing children and starting families. I spent my college days advocating for bodily autonomy and reproductive rights, and it eventually paid off well. Too well, I guess.
To address the issue, scientists decided to focus on improving the existing young citizens instead. After centuries of Western innovation and discovery, it was a huge worldwide shock that Filipino scientists were the first to unveil a drug that completely stops the effects of aging in humans. This includes physical signs of stress on the body, such as wrinkles & loss of collagen, and illnesses that develop through old age. Essentially, scientists had found a drug that induces immortality–the Vita Pill.
However, the highly-coveted medicine was not made available to everyone. Vita Pills were only administered to healthy citizens thirty-five and under due to an alarmingly high number of risks seen in older people during testing. Of course, good things are rarely distributed evenly in this country.
And as luck would have it, I was thirty-six when the drug was released. I had missed my chance at immortality by the slimmest margin and was left behind alongside the rest of the Lost Generation. Twenty-five years later, I continue to pay the high price of being born too early and continue to do so until my imminent death.
— — –
I’m second in line at the cash register. A woman was in front of me, placing her items from her pushcart to the counter. Her physical age was about thirty-five, her face hinting at a few subtle wrinkles and deep-set lines.
“It’s so hot, isn’t it?” The woman tries to engage in small talk with the cashier, who looked about twenty-five.
“Mhm.”
“It’s like we’re living in Satan’s armpit.”
The cashier looks up to give an incredulous look at the customer while I attempt to stifle a chuckle.
“Anyway, do you offer senior discounts?” The woman says as she hands the cashier her I.D card.
The employee takes the card and examines it. “Oh, happy birthday, ma’am.” She says monotonously and hands the I.D back to the woman. “It’s a twenty percent discount for those sixty and above.”
“Great! It’s my first one.” She beams.
The young-looking immortal finally finishes having her goods packed and walks towards the exit. I can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy. For the immortals, turning sixty just means being eligible for a discount at the grocery store. Still, for people like me, the last of the Lost Generation, it’s another step closer towards a grim, lonely death.
I push my cart towards the cashier and have my groceries scanned next. As she’s about to pick up a can of tuna from the conveyor belt, a loud scream cuts through the air.
Both the cashier and I whip our heads in the direction of the sound, and we see a young man standing over a shopping cart with a stunned expression.
“What’s the matter, sir?” a security guard says after hurrying over to the scene.
“S-she…disappeared…”
“What? What do you mean?”
“The woman in front of me, she suddenly started turning into…d-dust…she was just standing there and then she started dissolving–”
“Alright, calm down, sir. What did the woman look like?” The security guard asked, looking unsure whether to believe the man he was speaking to.
“She had dark brown hair, small build, physical age of about thirty-five…”
At that moment, another scream erupted from one of the shoppers. This time, I caught a glimpse of what they were shouting at. A cereal box fell from mid-air as the man previously holding it was transforming into a fine, grey dust. It reminded me of a fragile sandcastle collapsing in on itself.
Chaos ensues within each aisle after a good number of people witnessed the supernatural scene. I quickly apologize to the frazzled cashier and run to my car empty-handed.
It was the middle of the morning. A light breeze cuts through the humid air and provides my skin with short relief from the heat. It felt strange witnessing two deaths just a moment before as if death was impossible under such a sunny, blue sky.
My joints scream with each stride I take towards the vehicle. It has been a while since I ran. Decades, at least.
My wife runs every day. She’s always teasing me and calling me an old man as she massages my aching knees and says, “That’s what you get for being born too early.”
I always laugh back at her and say, “Hey, at least I won’t be dying alone.” It was a joke half-meant, always dancing around our inevitable future: I would end, and she would keep on going. I conceal my anxiety behind our playful banter, but after thirty-five years of marriage, I have yet to make peace with our reality.
The car radio is buzzing. “As the country’s temperature continues to rise and the humidity increases, it appears that the cells lose their stability and their ability to maintain struc–”
I switch the radio off, and I step on the gas as hard as I can.
Sheer panic drives the car forward as I veer through the empty streets back to my house. My wife should be in the kitchen by now, still in her yoga pants after clocking in her daily jog. She’d be standing by the counter, the bitter smell of black coffee emanating from the cup in her hand.
I picture her in my mind. She looks as beautiful as the day we married. Her porcelain skin makes the deep lines of my face seem like cracks on dry land, but she still palms my cheeks in her soft hands and tells me every day, “I love you, even after I stop breathing, however long that will take.”
But when I get there, there is no smell of coffee. The kitchen is as empty as the rest of the house. I call and scream for her, but the house answers back with nothing but silence.
I approach the counter where she usually stood. I expect to see her leaning there, greeting me with a bright smile and a kiss on my cheek.
There awaits me only a shattered coffee mug on the floor and so much ash. I try to scoop her up in my palms, but she is nothing but dust.
My reality comes crashing down, and suddenly, my future is taken away from me for the second time.
