The Postmortal Read Free Page A

offense.”
    The pope’s words were met mostly with silent reverence from the crowd. But thousands protested outside the stadium, nearly all of them in their teens and twenties.
    “The pope hasn’t condemned us,” countered Sasha Delvic, a twenty-three-year-old student. “It’s his church he’s just condemned—to a life of obscurity. How can he expect the people of his faith to accept dying while everyone else out there goes on being happy and healthy? It’s insane. He’ll lose constituents by the millions.
    “No one should listen to him,” she added. “He’s just a stupid old man.”
    It is believed the pope chose to deliver his address in Budapest as an attempt to pressure the Hungarian government to begin drafting anti-cure legislation. But thus far, here in one of the youngest countries on the planet according to median age, very few government officials appear willing to speak out in favor of doing so.
    When I was a kid, I saw religion as insurance against death. It’s what the preachers on TV used to say. You’re better off believing in God, they’d warn you, just in case . Because you’d hate to arrive at the gates of heaven a nonbeliever and find out the Christians had been right all along. It was a pretty ingenious line of thinking. It almost made me want to go to church. Not enough to actually go, but still.
    I wonder if we’ve completely flipped the script on that now. I wonder if the cure represents insurance against religion. Because what if the pope is wrong? If I forgo the cure and end up dying at seventy to please a Lord who turns out to not exist, I’m gonna feel like a real jackass. Isn’t it better to live an extra thousand years or so, just in case?
    I guess I’ll find out at some point. Some very, very distant point. Twelve more days till the cure.
    DATE MODIFIED:
6/8/2019, 7:05 P.M.

“I’m always gonna get my period”
    Until the other night, I hadn’t told anyone that I’m in the middle of getting the cure. I didn’t tell my dad or my sister or anyone at work—didn’t consult them either. They don’t know I’ve done it, and I sure as hell don’t know if they have. I didn’t even tell the banker friend who gave me the address. For one thing, I haven’t finished the process yet, so I’d feel a bit foolish telling everyone that I’m about to live forever, only to find out a week from now that my doctor has been caught and thrown in Rikers.
    But more to the point, I have yet to meet a single person who has publicly admitted it. I think we’ve all collectively adopted the unspoken rule that you don’t mention it out in the open. Like getting a nose job. Every discussion I’ve had about it has been conducted strictly in hypothetical terms. “Would you get it?” “What if it were legal? Would you get it then?” “Would you fly to Brazil and do it? I heard about a bunch of people at work who are taking sudden ‘vacations’ to Rio.” Stuff like that. But no one has ever said to me, “Yes, I got it”—which is just so weird. Clearly, people are going to get it. If a random person like me can go and have it done, I have to assume that I’m not alone. But I suppose there’s just too much uncertainty right now to go around parading the fact.
    Anyway, I was more than happy to keep all this to myself. But Katy got it out of me. She’s an interrogator, my roommate. Aggressively interested in other people. Present her with wine, and she’ll pepper you with questions until you feel as if you’re under a hot lamp. She delights in extracting key information from you and then playing with it—stretching it out and bouncing it against the walls until she grows bored with it.
    We were sitting in our apartment, watching the news. They were doing their nightly cure story, and Katy turned to me, clear out of the blue. She was squinting one eye.
    “Did you get it?”
    “What? No.”
    “Oh my God,” she said. “You are the absolute worst liar ever.”
    “I’m not