The Decision

Decisions decisions. 

The coin in my pocket is a 1964 quarter, the same year my mother was born. I tend to collect coins from that year now.

Nothing this important should be decided with a coin toss, but here I am. 

Ironically, I was sat in a doctor’s office waiting room when the news broke. 

The Procedure. The greatest scientific breakthrough of all time.  They certainly had a catchy headline. 

“Do you want to live forever?”

The singularity, the melding of machine and man. 

No longer were we trapped by these mortal vessels. A simple procedure and POOF, we are as gods. 

No Holy Grail, no Fountain of Youth, just science. Calculations, ones and zeroes, and we are Moses come down from the mountain with the secrets of the Almighty. 

At first, The Procedure looked like it would be reserved for the super-rich, which at first it was. It meant we got an eternal Oprah, which was great, but then again, “The Donald” jumped on board too. As the technology advanced, (which with AI running the show, happened practically overnight), the cost plummeted and it became clear that almost anyone would have the option. The Procedure became as quick and painless as going in for a hair cut. 

Religion hit a hard wall. Many abandoned their faith flat out. The facade so many had been hiding behind for years, this unwavering, unquestioning belief that their prayers would defeat the boogeyman and deliver them to the sweet embrace of Heaven, it fell away. 

There were plenty who believed this was just the Mark of the Beast. The Procedure being the final sign of the Tribulation and the End of Days. Why Jesus still hadn’t shown was anyone’s guess, but they had already waited this long… 

And then there was another group of people, the ones who lost so much and weren’t sure sticking around till the death of the universe itself would make matters better. 

People like me. 

A few years prior, my mother, a true beauty, was still young and full of life when she died in a mess of tubes in a hospice bed, surrounded by her shattered family and the dozens of fucking medications that ruined her in the first place. The doctors couldn’t save her. God, despite all my prayers, didn’t save her, and I, no matter how hard I had tried, I couldn’t save her. 

In those last days, she told me not to be afraid. She would see me and my dad and brother and sister really soon. Time was different where she was going. She was going ahead of us, but before we knew it, we would hold each other again. 

I kissed the cold skin of her forehead one last time before the coroner zipped her up in a goddamn bag. I promised her that nothing would keep me from her, not even death. One day I would see her again, a little lie I told to her horribly still body and my pounding heart as I left her bedroom for the last time. 

But now I don’t have to die. No one else I love ever needs to die again. I could watch millennia unfold before us. Our bodies and youth preserved and to be enjoyed as the clock hands spin away, a forgotten enemy we no longer need be at war with. 

Forever is a long time though. Would humans grow out of their childish ways? Certainly, as the centuries passed, our brains would mature, right? Things like racism, sexism, these would be as myth. Monsters that once walked the Earth but slain eons ago. Or would they?

Would we finally realize we are so much more than a flag and a border? That we are all just humans, surviving with no idea why we exist in the first place, spinning in an infinite universe on a pale blue dot? I would like to think so, but still… I don’t know.

The quarter is smooth in my hand. The edifice of Washington worn down. I think of the day when the mountains will look like plains, when the oceans dry and we would have to leave this planet as our sun explodes. I could be there for that…

But would it be worth it? Sure the whole of existence is there, waiting to be explored, every galaxy, every infinite star, but what would that mean without the wind in the pines? Without the street I grew up on? Without Mama?

She died before The Procedure, and so far as we can tell, we solved death, but only as a preventive disease. Lazarus must stay in his grave.

But what if she was right? Mama spoke of the “Dead in Christ” rising at the end of time, the heaven where she waits for the rest of our close-nit clan, patiently waiting to welcome us. But what if we never show? Selfishly choosing to opt-out, to not follow her into the dark that she so bravely faced. I don’t know if I believe in the place she did, but still, there could be something…

I hear my name called. Instead of St. Peter, it’s an overweight guy in scrubs. It’s my turn for The Procedure, to enter the AI constructed pearly gates. 

I look at the quarter. 

My name is called again and the man is getting irritated, there are lots of other people waiting after all. 

I take the coin and flip it in the air, flashing back.

I remember being back at my childhood home. Waking in the night, I would creep out to the hallway. I never liked the picture of heaven being some cloudy city in the sky. The idea scared me. To me it was here, when I would stand in the quiet of the night, my parents’ door ajar in case they were needed, my sister’s music floating muffled from her room, my brother snoring up a storm in our bunk bed, everyone in their place, all under one roof, at peace. My whole world. My reason for being. 

I always hoped that’s what death would be like. One day I would crawl back into bed, close my eyes, and enjoy a long night’s sleep, my family beside me. 

I catch the quarter and look at it. I never called heads or tails. 

“In God We Trust”

A statement I certainly always wanted to live by, but never could. And then I realize it doesn’t matter. All I need to trust in is her, and I can’t leave her waiting forever. 

Sure it’s a gamble, but it’s worth it, and I don’t need a quarter to tell me that.