Starzy Przestępca

Stary Przestępca never expected to live to be 200 years old. He took a gap year in college, putzed his way to a business degree and moved back into his parents basement. He had a hard time finding a job, and got an impromptu teaching license when the government threw some incentives into the mix to balance out the perpetual shortage. He taught for 32 exhausting years, never had kids nor married. and tiredly retired at that magical age of 67. He’d never been particularly healthy, and he was sure being diagnosed with goold-ol’ stage three would be the end of him. But there were a lot of people living at the time who were looking to live a whole lot longer. And living longer required science, and science requires test subjects, and the genetic markers that were being focused on required Stary. He didn’t mind the tests, the poking and proding, nor the long conversations about the low chances of success. He figured he might as well try everything he could in between his putzingings.

Stary was surprised to read the letters regarding those low chances of success succeeding, and more surprised when he received a second wave and then a third. He was cured of the good-ol’ stage three, then cured of asthma. He was cured of male pattern baldness, then of arthritis. The experiments, paid for and designed by some very powerful rich people, had all succeeded. He might have been 76 but he felt as young as ever. And he went right on putzing on his guitar and playing video games for a couple more decades. He continued being studied and experimenting on, and he kept being cured of ailments as they appeared (save for alcoholism which cost him two livers). He quit drinking at the ripe age of 133. He walked in the sun and read readings and planted plants. And he kept on keeping on, quietly and to himself, the way he preferred. Which was why he was both shocked and appalled to find his face on the headline of the Denver Post at the penultimate age of 199.

Wanted: for living to 200.

Stary was confused, mostly because he wasn’t actually 200 yet, but also about why it could possibly be against the law to live to 200. You see, those rich and powerful people hadn’t had the success that Stary had with the experiments and proding and surgeries, and they were downright upset when confronted by the conversations regarding the low chances of success. They hadn’t kept on keeping on, and had died a little later than most of society wished they had. Their rich and powerful children were up in arms about that. How could they expend the vast array of resources on something they deemed necessary and not see return on investment when some freeloader had? What good was money if it didn’t remove you from randomness. So they went to rich and powerful dinners with their rich and powerful friends and complained. They complained to their doctors and the statisticians that had created and run the experiments, and they complained to their kids. Then they complained to the somewhat less rich and powerful people who write the laws we pretend to follow, and they came to a quite normal conclusion: they needed a scapegoat. Someone to scare the unrich and nonpowerful out of living as long as they had.

“You can’t just have people not working, simply walking in the sun and reading readings and planting plants. That’s not cool! You need to be making us money,” one rich and powerful person had complained to the newspaper, who had buffed up the quote before throwing it into the article Stary’s face appeared in.

It was now illegal to live past a certain age. An age that only one individual was close to being. Stary was no longer excited for his birthday, which he had planned to spend birdwatching.

“Order!” The dude in a robe screamed at the stressed adults in the courtroom. “I will have order in this court! Before us stands the dastardly Stary Przestępca, who is charged with living past the age of 200.”

“Your honor,” the public defender in a ruffled and rimpled suit standing before Stary said, “clearly there has been some confusion. My client isn’t yet 200! He’s merely 199.”

“Silence!” The dude in a robe screamed. A courtroom attendant attended to the sweat bead dribbling down the judges nose. "Prosecution, your evidence."

A deadly looking array of corporate lawyers sat in a single line, like an unemotional flat smile. A women in a very much non-ruffled nor rimpled suit silently stood, robotically walking to a podium. She placed a yellowed plastic card underneath a docucamera. The courtroom blinked and squinted expectantly. She focused the image on the card, which took up a pathetically small chunk of the screen, then attempted to lower the camera to get a better look. Detaching the camera, she held it closer to the yellowed plastic card but the picture became to shaky for anyone to see.

“Order!” The judge hollered, though nobody was talking.

The deadly looking corporate lawyer gave up and repositioned the camera where it was. She pointed to the ID while standing on the top of her tip toes, and asked Stary if it was indeed his.

“Yes,” Stary had said. It was the same photo the paper had published. He had looked pretty good. Stary had posed for a lot of drivers licenses.

“You can clearly see here,” she gestured to a year 200 years ago on the top right of the id, where a poorly glued single digit had replaced the last year on Stary’s birthday, “this man is 200 years old!”

The courtroom exploded. A repeat of the holler and a thud of the weird official hammer quieted them. Stary looked down at the floor, hopeless.

“Death!” The judge hollered, lounder than before, and Stary’s entire body jumped.

He didn’t want to die! He liked walking in the sun and reading and planting and putzing. He wanted to keep doing it. Then he got an idea.

“But your honor,” he began, “I am a rich and powerful person now.”

“Go on.” Her honor said.

“I’ve lived a long time! And the unlimited growth of the stock market has benefited me such. I can’t be convicted of a crime if I am or am not guilty of if I’m a rich and powerful person,” Stary concluded.

“That does make sense.” Her honor said. “I guess there's insubstantial evidence. You’re free to go.”

The courtroom exploded again, the corporate lawyers unemotionally and quaintly shuffled off stage as cameras flashed and reporters roared;

“How does it feel?”

"What do you have to say to the families of the rich and poweful people you outlived?"

“What will you do now that you’re a rich and powerful person?”

The judge did not hammer nor holler, but the courtroom gasped and fell silent at Stary’s reply.

“If no other rich and powerful person will do it, I guess I’ll make the world a better place.”