by Emmylou Kotzé

I could give you immortality.

The author’s head snapped up from her computer. Silence fell, only memory echoing the sudden sibilant hiss of a voice she might have imagined. The word processor waited, cursor blinking in the middle of an awkward sentence.

“Who said that?” She adjusted her glasses and looked around half fearfully. Her comfortable desk faced the only window in the room, blinds drawn against the night, the back of her chair to the wall. The door to the room was shut. The cat was fast asleep. Surely it would have woken if anything weird was going on. Cats could sense the supernatural.

“Jesus Christ, I’m hearing voices.” She tapped her smartphone. Three a.m. in the morning. For a moment she’d wondered if perhaps the phone’s notification bell had disturbed her train of thought, sent strange intrusions into her mind. But there was only the lockscreen, featuring a particularly adorable picture of the said cat. Nothing from her family, who were all morning people and surely all fast asleep. And nothing from her boyfriend, who was just as much of a night owl, but had his own work to do.

“Is this some prank from you, babe?” she wondered aloud.

No.

She nearly jumped out of her skin that time, sending her chair against the wall. The cat awoke and blinked lazy green eyes at her for just a second before curling itself back into a comma. Her heart was beating very fast. “Who are you?”

Not important. She tried to identify the voice. It didn’t sound fully human. There was a tinny echo behind it, a metallic hiss in the consonants. Her gaze shifted down towards her laptop.

She hit a quick keyboard shortcut, saving her precious work, and closed the word processor. There were no other applications on the taskbar. She checked the piece of tape placed over the webcam before ripping out the charging cable along with her earphones. In a few clicks, the computer was shut down.

“That’s one weird virus,” she muttered to herself, shuddering. She got out of the chair and moved away from her desk.

I am not inside your computer. She stopped in the middle of the room, letting out a loud expletive. The tinny voice sounded almost plaintive. Don’t you want to hear me out? Could be a good deal for you…

She flung open the door to her study and strode along the short corridor, checking in every chilly room. All was silent; nothing was untoward. The world was asleep, and she was arguing with a voice in her head. She sighed. “I’ve had it. I’m going crazy at last.”

You are not.

“Exactly what the voices in my head would say.” She headed back towards the study. At least it was warm in there.

I have a proposition for you, okay? Just hear me out.

“Sure, whatever.” She slumped back into her desk chair. Might as well be comfortable when navigating insanity.

How would you like… immortality?

“Eh?”

To live forever. The voice seemed to be growing impatient. To never die.

“I know what the word means.”

But do you truly comprehend it?

“This is stupid.”

Try to accept, for a moment, that this might really be happening. That I am here to give you a wish, a choice. That such a thing might actually be within your grasp…

The author blinked. Immortality. She let herself taste the concept, savoured it. No more worrying about time, because there would always be more. No more feeling guilty about her many diversions taking away from what was truly important—her life’s work, her artistic vision, her most precious project—her book.

She had always had a writer’s imagination. Oh, she could imagine what it might be like to have all the time in the world. She really could.

Her throat was dry. “What’s the catch?”

Think of laminating a plain sheet of paper.

“Excuse me?”

It would be forever preserved. Immortal. But… it would never fulfil its life’s purpose.

She let out a chuckle. “A piece of paper has a life’s purpose?”

Its purpose is to be written on.

“I see. And laminating it would make that impossible. So what you’re saying…”

She ran it through her head a few times, then spoke. “Immortality, but the price is that you’d never complete the thing you were put on earth for.” She thought of her book, and sorrow constricted in her heart. “But what would be the point?” she demanded. “What would be the point, then, of living forever?”

I think you already know, the voice hissed back. Think of all the things you could do and see. You, who have complained that there are too many good shows to watch and books to read… so many times. (And how did the voice know that, the author wondered?) And what would it matter, if your life had no purpose? If it was forever, your only purpose would be pleasure.

She took off her glasses and placed them on the desk, rubbing at her temples. “Immortality, but no book,” she said softly. “Hard deal.”

Sacrifices must be made.

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t take it.”

Are you sure? The voice sounded surprised. Make a choice, now. I’ll give you a second chance, since just now you spoke without thinking. Eternal life on the one hand, the chance to complete your life’s work on the other.

She thought about it—really thought about it. How it would feel to never complete her book. To give up her dream of becoming a real writer.

“No deal,” she whispered.

There was silence in the room. In the paper tray on her desk, the cat curled itself a little tighter, cupping its own face in a paw.

Somehow, she knew that the voice would never return. But it was worth it. She had made the right choice.

She woke up the next day feeling excitement and inspiration blossom inside her, thinking that soon she would get to writing. But the day turned out to be a disaster. Her boss wanted unreasonable deadlines, her mom called to nag her about a pile of books she’d left back home, and the cat escaped the apartment and was not found for four hours. The next day she got a little writing done, though the day after that was a bust again. Then the transmission went on her busted-up car, and she had to pick up extra work to pay it off.

And so ten years passed, and her book was still nowhere near ready. The author struggled through the distracting minutiae of everyday life, her worsening mental health and focus, crafting queries of increasing desperation and recalling now—too late, perhaps!—that the voice had never actually guaranteed the completion of her life’s work, only promised a single chance.

—END—