An Immortal Son

That damn little black book. What a joke. As if I really believed it was the remedy to all the pain I felt today. That it would make the pain of losing them go away. But why did I feel like that anyway? My parents… they were indescribable. No words in the English language could appropriately reveal the fury that I felt in my soul toward them.

All thanks to that little black book.

I’d spent enough time on the Earth to know that what I was doing fulfilled my inner desire to do good. Researching and developing a seemingly mythic immortality serum at 26 for an intelligence agency seemed to fill that void early on. Now, locked at that age, living my own life, I still look back at the century and wonder what I did wrong.

That little black book was everywhere. My father kept it in the top right drawer of his mahogany desk that seemed to engulf the entire home office. I’d come home from school as a kid and see him scribbling in it by the pool out back. Then again at the dining table when I visited on holiday while enrolled in university. The pages never seemed to run out.

My parents never took interest in my work. Never bothered to ask what I was doing. Some kids would have killed for that kind of freedom… but it wasn’t what I wanted. When it came time to begin work on the serum 78 years ago, I came up $20,000 short of what I needed. Finally, I believed it to be my chance. A chance to show my parents the world they never seemed to care about. My world.

When I went to my mother about the research, she waved me to my father in his office. Another call with another client. No matter the time of day, they always seemed to be working. Their time in investment banking had given me the life I’d come to know, but at what cost? However, I knew better than to complain about the “struggles” in my life. And the “allowance” money I’d get as a kid… it always went discreetly into the pockets of my friends and strangers who didn’t have much of anything.

That little black book. Sprawled out in my father’s hands, his black ink pen spilling words and numbers onto the lined sheets. I couldn’t get that damn thing out of my sight.

I began to tell my father about the research, but he held up a hand so he could finish writing. I offered a weak smile, familiar with his mannerisms when working on finances. Finally closing the little black book, my father turned his attention to me.

I didn’t get two sentences in on the project’s introduction before my father cut me off and said the words, “How much?”

I stumbled over what would have been the third sentence of my introduction.

“How much?”

I shook my head and ran my fingers through my hair. That wasn’t the point. That was never the point. I needed him to hear this from me.

“How much?”

“Twenty thousand…”

My father reached into the left side of his mahogany desk to retrieve his checkbook. He used his black pen to scribble out a dollar amount that would change the lives of so many people. It meant nothing to him, but it meant everything to me.

After handing me the check, he reopened his little black book that had folded itself shut, even after the years of wear and tear. He scribbled something down in it as I left the room, but I never saw what it was. It was the last time I ever saw the little black book.

Until today in 2100. The truth was my work took me away from everything I ever knew. The immortality serum was granted only to those part of our intelligence agency, but never to anyone we held close. Forced to end contact with parents, spouses, children, friends, and neighbors, our lives were subject to isolation from reality.

I found out about my parents’ simultaneous deaths when a fellow agent handed me that damn little black book. The agent found the book while on assignment and recognized the surname written inside. He revealed that they died in eastern Europe around Christmas of 2035, only ten years after the project’s completion. For the first time in my 101-year life, I felt the aged leather in my grasp.

I flipped the little black book open to the first page.

Listed was a date in October, followed by the year 1999. It was the day I was born. The first entry in the little black book.

Continuing through the pages, there were milestones listed. First steps (00), first words (00), first haircut (02), first lost tooth (03), first sport (04), first day of school (05), first crush (08), first science fair (11), first kiss (13), first day of high school (14), first relationship (15).

What stuck out the most, however, were the events that fell between the firsts. My father had listed out everything I’d ever told him. He’d kept a timeline of all the events in my life for me as a keepsake. That damn little black book was the story of my life and I didn’t even care to ask.

The last entry was notated December 24, 2022.

the project that will change the world ~ $20,000 to the bank, but priceless to me

I had tears in my eyes. I wanted to be angry at them for never caring about what I did with my life, but here I was. Holding the last piece of their existence from a bygone era. The truth that they did care. I was their everything, I just didn’t know how to appreciate the way they wanted to show that to me.

That little black book even had a few blank pages remaining. I decided in that moment I’d hold onto it forever, because that was reality for me. I’d never write anything in it, but when asked, “What’s your story?” I’d hand them the little black book and say…

“An immortal son.”