The Living Truth

The woman let the cool air conditioner emissions breeze over her face. She loved the coolness thereof. She entertained questions from the press.

“You’re not really….” Curtis Naaman let the phrase trail off.

“Yes, I am,” Virty Gordon replied.

“So you’re one hundred and forty years old?”

“At least that. I had papers on me but they got lost in the shuffle. Now I truck no nonsense with this. I tell you what I am, then that’s what it is.”

Cameras snapped. Like the old fashioned kind or the professional sort, not just phones with professional accoutrements.

“I have been living in Newark, Delaware my whole life. All of these years, I’ve been taking care of little ones and their families. If you say I am a selfless person, I’d stop you and ask you to kindly bite your tongue. I am thoroughly selfish because I wanted to do all of this helping.”

“So, you’d say you were an altruist?”

“Hell, no,” Verty replied.

“Are you an atheist?” asked Henrik Angrumsson.

“God, no.”

Verty lifted a cup of tea to her lips. The warm liquid soothed her. The minty flavor cooled her despite the temperature of the tea.

“Alright, were there any investigations or anything related to finding your papers because we noted that no one from the 19th century was still alive, Miss Gordon?” Bruce Alexander queried.

She sat her tea on the table. “I’m one of the undocumented. But I’m sure there’s some way you medical folks can ascertain my exact age and verify it. I’m telling you, I’m one hundred forty-three years old. Now, you can mark that down…I’ve been on this earth and witness two world wars, two major pandemics, and all sorts of shit that need not be talked about.”

“You still find beauty in this world, right?” Lana Burton asked.

“Of course I do. Every time a ballerina leaps, or a businesswoman closes a deal, or someone smacks a ball with a racket, I enjoy those kinds of things. Anything that man has made from his mind. Anything a woman has wrought from her thoughts…that’s special to me.”

“How long do you want to live?” Sturgis Cantrell asked.

“I want to be here for as long as possible. I’ve survived three break ins, an attack on my life, and was shot in my thigh and stabbed in my breast. I made it past all of that and I’m talking to you right now. So what does that tell you?”

Virty sipped some more tea.

“It’s been alleged that you have records of your birth. Can they be verified?”

“I was born in a house. Only prostitutes and the ill mothers gave birth in hospitals in those days. So,” she shrugged. “I’d say that any documents are either fraudulent or nonexistent.”

“How about your family,” Wister Gaskins said. “What came of them?”

“My husband died about sixty years ago. We had no children. It’s just been me and these plants: Calla the cactus; Gondola the money tree; and Vera…”

“The aloe vera?”

“No, another cactus,” Verty laughed. Some laughs amongst the journalists eased a quiet tension in the room. It was like the press members were alternately standing in front of a living relic and a gem and a true human.

“Do you have regrets, Miss Gordon?”

“No. I never had. Kids? Nope. I’m glad I had the mind and have the mind to make my own decisions. I worked for the Mercier Hotel as a receptionist for seventy years. When I got my pension, I said that was enough. If the next thing for me to do is die, let that be. It’s what I must do.”

The plants swayed when the cool air conditioning blew out from the vent. The journalists began to file out just then.