12 March 2013 fiction "85"

It is a world untouched by the limitations of change. Every human being is allotted eighty-five years of breaths, eighty-five years and not a second more. From the very beginning to the absolute end, humans can know exactly how much time they have on this simple blue planet.

The difference of this world lies in a choice unlike any other. Each person chooses an age as his favorite, and when he does so he remains that age for the rest of his life. To grow and develop each year is allowed; until the choice is made. After the choice there is not a single eyelash added to the body, not a day more of development to the mind. To choose thirty-two years and four days as a favorite, for instance, means to remain thirty-two years and four days old for an additional fifty-two years and three hundred and sixty days.

The simplest people choose their age early. Six, seven, eight. They choose to breathe in the choice of innocence, to understand the happiness that comes with instant gratification. To never leave this age means to never have to feel nostalgic for it. These people are content knowing what they know now. They wish not for anything more than what they received today.

People with a little more depth make their way to twelve, thirteen, fourteen. They wish to be old enough to be taken seriously. The boundaries of the playground are not enough for them, and they reach to touch something a little darker than their nightlight. However, they are afraid of anything that much more. With too much responsibility comes fear, and they can never truly leave the comfort of familiarity. These are the types of people that enjoy by sight, not experience.

Some of the more complicated people choose eighteen as their age. They want to be old enough to experience. Their minds are sharp enough to take them past the early stages of adolescence. These people live in their imaginations. The potential is right there; they can feel it as it wraps itself around their minds. These people are dying to understand experience, but to move past the want and take it is more than their personalities are made of.

Many people choose mid-twenties as their age. How could anything get any better than this kind of youth? Youth that sings of its self-important glory? To grow old is the enemy of this kind of person, and to end their growing here appears to be the only solution. They live in late nights and late mornings, they smile through reliving memories—half of all the fun they have.

People who enjoy safety choose to live in their thirties. Job security comes with this age, the children are young, the body can still handle all that life demands. To be thirty in this world means to live on the edge of a shallow pool. It is not difficult to step out and get wet, but safe avoidance is tolerated vehemently.

Very few choose to remain in their forties. To make it this far means to understand that life is intensely dynamic. To remain in a portion of life as difficult as this one, full of changes and mood swings and facts of life that wedge their way into the body’s new unappreciated cracks means to erase the conviction with which these individuals have pushed through every other age.

The bulk of those who pushed past the forties choose to live in their fifties and sixties.  It is as good of a time as any, they say. There isn’t much time left, there must not be much excitement left either, they say. These people are adventurous enough to dream of better times, but not adventurous enough to wait for them. Rest is familiar here, tiredness is what keeps them.

Very very few people make it past their seventies. Here is where life begins to pull at them and they give in. The people who choose to stay here choose to out of fear of not doing so. They lie down and rest their heads, smiling at all they have made it through.

The people who make it all the way to eighty-five are the most absolutely fascinating. Fear does not grip them, exhaustion affects only the speed in which they ascend the stairs to get to another morning. They believe not in the past, but instead in the future. They are the bravest, the ones who give the most of themselves, the ones who understand the most about life. To them, what it means to be happy is not to take joy in routine. It is not to fear the future from a safe post in the past. No, happiness is something else entirely. Happiness is never acceptance, instead it is a series of ups and downs. Happiness comes to them in their death, in their knowing for sure that in this life, they never missed a moment.