Chapter 2 Chapter One
On my seventy-fifth birthday, I did two things: I went to visit my wife's grave first, and then I enlisted in the army.
Cathy's grave was less dramatic than enlisting.
She is buried in Harris Creek Cemetery, less than a mile from where we lived together and where I still live.It might have been easy to bury her in the cemetery, but neither of us had anticipated the need for it, and hadn't prearranged it.I had to argue with the cemetery keeper for not booking my wife's grave.This kind of thing, to put it lightly, is also very sad.In the end it was my son Charlie, who happened to be the mayor.Charlie finally solved the problem and found the tomb.Being the mayor's dad does have its perks.
Well, let's talk about my wife's grave.It is simple and unobtrusive, with only a small tombstone and no large tombstone.The grave of Sandra Kane, lying next to Cathy, is a stark contrast: the oversized headstone is carved from black polished granite, inlaid with pictures from high school, and on the front is a poem by Keats lamenting the passing of youth and beauty , is engraved by sandblasting.It's Sandy through and through.Cathy would be amused if she knew that Sandy was buried next to her, with a ridiculously large headstone.During their lifetimes, the competitive Sandy had been engaged in ludicrous comparisons with the passive Cathy.If Kathy brought one pie to the local bake sale, Sandy would bring three; if Kathy's pie sold first, she would resent, palpably resentful.Cathy, who is trying to solve this problem, will start by buying a piece of Sandy's pie first.From Sandy's point of view, I really don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
I think that Sandy's tombstone can be regarded as the final summary of the contest between the two, and it is the final show off, so that Cathy has no chance to fight back, because Cathy has passed away before her.But on the other hand, I can't think of anyone who ever came to pay Sandy's respect.Three months after Sandy's death, her husband, Steve Kane, sold the house and moved to Arizona with the same broad smile on his face.He sent me a postcard afterward; he lived there with a woman who had been a third-degree porn star fifty years earlier.For a week after hearing the news, I felt nasty.Sandy's children and grandchildren live in neighboring towns, but they also rarely come to pay homage to Sandy, but they often go to Arizona, which is not much different from living there.Since the funeral, I am afraid no one has read the Keats lines quoted on Sandy's tombstone except me.And I was just passing by to visit my wife who was a few feet away.
Cathy's tombstone bears her full name (Katherine Rebecca Perry), dates of birth and death, and the words: Beloved Wife and Loving Mother.Every time I visit her, I can't help but repeat these words over and over again.These five words are pale but perfectly summed up a life.These few words say nothing about her, how she greets each day, how she works, what hobbies she has, where she likes to travel.You never know what her favorite color is, how she wears her hair, who she votes for in elections, or her sense of humor.You have no way of knowing her, only that she is deeply loved.This is real.She'll think that's enough.
I hate coming here.I don't want my wife who has been with me for forty-two years to die.That Saturday morning, she was in the kitchen stirring a bowl of waffle batter while telling me about the library board argument the night before; There was constant twitching on the floor.It saddens me to think that her last words were, "Where the hell did I put the vanilla extract?"
I hate being one of the old people who can only go to the cemetery to meet their dead wives.When I was (much) younger, I asked Cathy what the hell was the point of visiting the grave.The rotting bones and rotten flesh that once clinged to someone is no longer that person, just a pile of rotting bones and rotten flesh.Yi Ren was gone—to heaven, hell, or somewhere else, or no such place at all.Paying homage to a cemetery is no different than paying homage to a slice of beef.But, when you're older, you'll know: it's okay, even though it's true.This is all you have.
As much as I hate the cemetery, I'm also grateful for its existence.I miss my wife very much.It was easier to think of her in the cemetery, after all, she was dead here, and she had been alive everywhere else.
I didn't stop much, and never have.As long as I stay long enough, I can feel the pain of the wound, so that the heart hurts like it was eight years ago.It can remind me that there are other things waiting for me, that I can't just stand in the graveyard like a goddamn old idiot all the time.At the moment when the pain recovered, I turned around and left without looking back.This is the last time I will visit the cemetery to pay respects to my wife's grave, but I don't bother to remember the place.Here, as I have said before, she is just a corpse.Remember that cemeteries are of little value.
When you think about it, enlisting in the army is actually not that dramatic.
The town I live in is too small to have a dedicated conscription office.I could only drive to Greenville, the county capital, to sign up.The recruiting office was a small storefront in an ordinary strip mall; on one side was a state liquor store and on the other was a tattoo parlor.
When you wake up the next morning, there's a good chance you'll find yourself in big trouble—depending on the order in which you enter the two stores.
The interior of the office is even less attractive, if at all possible.There was a desk in the room with a computer and a printer on it, a person was sitting behind the desk, two chairs were placed in front of the desk, and six chairs were lined up along one wall.On the little table in front of the row of chairs were draft information and a few back issues of Time and Newsweek.Of course, Cathy and I came here ten years ago; I guess nothing has been touched or changed since then, including the magazines.The recruiters seemed to have changed.At least I don't remember the previous one with so much hair and such full boobs.
The recruiter was so busy typing on the keyboard and entering materials into the computer that I didn't even bother to look up when I walked in.
"Right away," she muttered, more or less a Pavlovian reflex of my opening the door.
"Take your time," I said, "I know it's crowded." I tried to crack a joke with some sarcasm, but no one appreciated it, and I was ignored.This has been the case for the past few years.It's nice to see my style maintained.I sat down at my desk and waited for the recruiter to finish his work.
"Are you coming or going?" she asked, still not looking up at me.
"What did you say?" I asked.
"Come or go," she repeated. "Should I come and sign my intention to join the army, or should I go and start serving?"
"Oh, I'm leaving."
The remark finally caused her to squint and glance at me through the thick lenses of her glasses.
"You're John Perry," she said.
"That's right. How did you guess that?"
She looked back at the computer. "Most people who want to enlist come on their birthdays, even though they still have thirty days until they officially enlist. There are only three birthdays today. Mary Vallowe has already called, Said she wasn't coming. You don't look like Cynthia Smith."
"Thank you for saying that," I said.
"Plus you're not here to sign up to declare your intention to join the military," she went on, ignoring my repeated joke. "Then you're John Perry, of course."
"I might just be a lonely old man wandering around looking for someone to talk to," I said.
"People like that don't come here very often," she said. "They're usually scared off by the kids next door with devil tattoos." She finally pushed away the keyboard and turned her full attention to me. "Okay , let's look at your personal documents now."
"But don't you already know who I am?" I reminded her.
"Let's make sure." She said without a trace of a smile on her face.Dealing with talkative old guys on a daily basis has obviously had a bad effect.
I handed over my driver's license, birth certificate, and ID.She took it, reached out and took a piece of palm print paper from the desk, inserted it into the computer, and slid it in front of me from the other end.I put my palm down on the paper and wait for the computer to finish scanning.She took the palm print paper and swiped my ID card on the side of the computer to check the palm print information. "You are indeed John Perry," she said at last.
"Back to our original dialogue," I said.
Again, she ignored my humor. "At the voluntary enlistment training session ten years ago, you had been given information about the Colonial Defense Forces and the duties and responsibilities of enlisting," she said.Her tone suggests a phrase that has been repeated at least every day for most of her career. "In addition, during these ten years, you have also received review materials that we sent you to remind you of the obligations and responsibilities that you need to bear when enlisting in the army.
"Now, do you need more information and a refresher introduction, or do you think you have fully understood the responsibilities and obligations you will assume? Please note that whether you ask for review materials or choose not to join the colonial army at this time It's not a violation of the law."
I still remember the enlistment training session.The first segment featured a group of seniors sitting in folding chairs at the Greenville Community Center, eating donuts and drinking coffee while listening to a colonial soldier babble about the history of human colonization.Then, he distributed pamphlets about life in the colonial army, which was not much different from military life elsewhere.It wasn't until the question-and-answer session that we discovered that he wasn't actually a Colonial Army commissioner, but was hired to give lectures in the Miami Valley.
The second part of the military training session is a simple physical examination.A doctor came in and took a blood sample, scraped some cells from the walls of my mouth, and gave me a brain scan.Obviously, I passed.Since then, a copy of the brochure given out at the enlistment training meeting has been mailed to me every year.From the second year on, I threw them out of the house and never read them again. "I understand." I said.
She nodded, reached out and took out a piece of paper and a pen from the drawer and handed them to me.There were several paragraphs on the paper, each with space for a signature.I recognized the paper.Ten years ago, I signed a similar paper stating that I knew what was going to happen to me ten years from now.
"I will read the following paragraphs to you," she said. "After each paragraph, if you understand and accept what I read, please sign and date the line below the paragraph. .If there is a problem, please bring it up after I have read this passage. If you do not understand or accept what I have read or explained, do not sign. Do you understand?"
"Understood." I said.
"Very well," she said, "first paragraph: I, the undersigned, confirm and understand that I am enlisting in the Colonial Defense Forces entirely of my own free will, without threat of any kind, and that I am willing to serve for at least two years. This period of service can also be unilaterally extended by the Colonial Defense Force for eight years under the circumstances of the state, or when relevant orders are promulgated.”
This "ten years in total" extension clause is not news to me.I have more or less carefully read the materials handed out to me once or twice.But I think that many careless people have probably never read this clause; and among those who have read it, not many people think that they will really be forced to serve for ten years.My feeling is that the Colonial Army wouldn't have mandated a ten-year service period if it didn't feel it was necessary.Because of the segregation laws, we hear very little about the colonial wars.But the limited rumors are enough to prove that the universe outside is not peaceful.
I signed it.
“Second Paragraph: I understand that volunteering for the Colonial Defense Forces means that I am willing to bear arms and use them against the enemies of the Colonial Union, which will likely include other human armies. duty as a pretext for refusal to bear or use arms for the purpose of avoiding participation in combat."
How many people would volunteer to join the army and then declare their conscience against war?I signed it.
"Third paragraph: I understand and agree that I will abide by the "Colonial Defense Forces Uniform Code of Conduct", faithfully and spare no effort to implement the military orders and instructions issued by the superior officers."
I signed it.
"Fourth Paragraph: I understand that volunteering with the Colonial Defense Forces means that I agree to undergo any medical, surgical, and medical treatment deemed necessary by the Colonial Defense Forces to enhance combat effectiveness."
And that's the point: That's why countless seventy-five-year-olds enlist in the military every year, including me.
I once said to my grandfather that by the time I was his age, humans must have figured out how to greatly extend lifespan.He smiled and said to me that he thought so too, but he was still old in the end.And now, I've come to this point.One of the biggest headaches about aging is that it's not one trouble at a time—it's all the damn trouble coming on suddenly, in all directions.
You can't stop aging.Gene therapy, organ transplants, and plastic surgery are effective at combating aging, but it can quickly catch up to you again.Transplant a new lung, and your heart valves go awry; Transplant a heart, and your liver swells like a child's inflatable bathtub; Transplant a liver, and a stroke hits you hard—this is aging's trump card: Humans haven't had a brain transplant yet. ability.
Human lifespans climbed to nearly ninety years ago and have stagnated since then.
We have broken through "", God seems to have made up his mind not to give human beings a chance.Humans can live longer, they can - but they can only survive as old people.This has never changed much.
Look: when you're twenty-five, thirty-five, forty-five, or fifty-five, you can still feel good about your chances in this world.When you are sixty-five years old, your body foresees the impending decline, and those mysterious "medicine, surgery, and health regimens" start to become interesting.Then, by the time you're seventy-five, your friends are dead, you've had at least one major organ transplant, you're up at least four times a night, and you have to hobble up a flight of stairs—and people say it's up to you At this age, such a physical condition is already considered good.
With such a body in exchange for ten years of youth on the battlefield, this deal is beginning to feel like a good deal.Especially, even if you don't, ten years from now you'll be eighty-five, and by then you'll be no different from a raisin: you'll be wrinkled and your prostate will be useless.There's only one difference: Raisins never had a prostate.
And how could colonial armies successfully reverse aging?No one here knows.Scientists on Earth have been unable to explain how the Colonial Army did it; while attempts at this are not uncommon, they have never been able to replicate the Colonial Army's success.The Colonial Army doesn't operate on Earth, so you can't ask Colonial Army veterans.The colonists recruited by the Colonial Federation on Earth also don't know; this assumes you can ask the colonists, which doesn't exist at all.The healing measures taken by the Colonial Army were done within its own sphere of influence, far from Earth and governments, neither this nor any other.
Every once in a while, some legislature, some president, or a dictator decides to ban conscription in the colonial army until it reveals its secret.The Colonial Defense Force never argues, it packs up and walks away.What happened next was that all seventy-five-year-old citizens of the country would go on an extended vacation abroad, never to return.Colonial Army never offers any explanations, rationales, or clues.If you want to know how they rejuvenate people, you can only sign up for the army.
I signed it.
"Paragraph 5: I understand that volunteering with the Colonial Defense Forces means that I am terminating my citizenship in the national body polity (which to me is United States citizenship) and the citizenship that allows me to settle on Earth. I understand my citizenship Thereafter will be transferred to the Colonial Union and, specifically, to the Colonial Defense Force. I fully understand that the termination of native citizenship and Earth residency means that I will be barred from returning to Earth. After my service in the Colonial Defense Forces expires, I will Settled by the Colonial Alliance and/or the Colonial Defense Force to live on a designated colony planet."
In a word, you can never go home again.This was an integral and important part of the Quarantine Act, enforced by the Colonial Union and the Colonial Army to protect Earth from this type of cosmic biological catastrophe.At least that's the official word.At that time, people on Earth supported the law without exception.Funny how a planet becomes parochial and conservative whenever a third of its male population is sterile within a year.But now, after the forgotten grandparents without a man and a woman in their knees, people are less enthusiastic about the segregation bill.They are tired of the earth and want to see other places in the universe, but only the Colonial Alliance and the Colonial Army have spaceships equipped with jump thrusters that can travel to the stars-then go to the Colonial Alliance and the Colonial Army.
(Agreeing to colonize your planet with the Colonial Federation thus becomes redundant - they're the only one with starships, and you can only go where they take you anyway. They obviously won't let you pilot them spaceships.) Quarantine Acts and the monopoly of jump thrusters have had the side effect of making communication between Earth and colony planets (and between colony planets) impossible.The only way to get a timely reply from a colony is to send the message to a ship equipped with a jump drive.The colonial army reluctantly agreed to use this method to transmit messages and data for the governments of the planets, but no one else enjoyed this treatment.You can also set up a radio antenna and wait for a communication signal from a colony planet to pass by by chance.The problem is, Alpha, the closest colonized planet to Earth, is also 83 light-years away.This makes active gossip between planets rather difficult.
I never asked, but as you can imagine, the most people were put off by this passage.It's one thing to want to be young again, but it's quite another to let go of everything you've known, the people you've met or loved, and the past you've experienced in seventy-five years.Saying goodbye to your life is not easy.
I signed it.
"Sixth paragraph—last paragraph," said the recruiter, "I understand that in order to strictly abide by the law, seventy-two hours after signing this document, or after being taken off Earth by the Colonial Defense Forces, whichever comes first, In all relevant polities (as far as I am concerned, in the State of Ohio, United States of America), I shall be deemed dead. All my property shall be divided in accordance with the law; all duties and responsibilities legally discharged upon death shall be hereby Cessation; all previous legal records, both good and bad, are hereby voided; all debts are fully discharged by law. I understand and agree that the Colonial Defense Force will provide me with legal and economic counsel at my request if the distribution of my property has not been properly arranged , make proper arrangements within seventy-two hours."
I signed it.Now I have seventy-two hours to live.you could put it that way.
"What if I don't leave Earth within seventy-two hours?" I said, handing the paper back to the recruiter.
"Nothing." She said, taking the form, "It's just that since you are legally dead, your property will naturally be distributed according to the will, and your health and life insurance will be canceled or paid to your heirs. Also, since you are legally dead, you have no legal protection from defamation or murder."
"Then others can come up and kill me without having to bear legal responsibility?"
"Well, no," she said. "When you're legally dead, if someone murders you, I think it's a crime of mutilation in Ohio."
"That's interesting," I said.
"But," she went on, in a more oppressive tone, matter-of-factly, "it doesn't usually get to that point. You have seventy-two hours from now to change your mind about enlisting. Just Just give me a call. If I am not available, the automated message machine will record your name. As long as we can confirm that it is indeed you who requested to cancel the registration, you will be released from liability. Remember, such cancellations will permanently ban you again Enroll in the army. You only get one chance."
"Got it," I said, "do I need to swear?"
"No," she said, "I just need to process this form and give you the ticket." She turned to the computer, typed on the keyboard for a few minutes, and hit enter. "The computer is generating your ticket," she said, "and it will be ready soon."
"Okay," I said, "mind me asking a question?"
"I'm married," she said.
"That's not my question," I said, "Is anyone really teasing you?"
"It's been there all the time," she said, "and it's really annoying."
"My sympathies," I said.She nodded. "What I just wanted to ask is, have you ever met a member of the colonial army in reality?"
"You mean except for those who came to apply?" I nodded. "No. The Colonial Army set up an agency here to handle the conscription, but none of us are actual members of the Colonial Army. Not even the executive director of the agency, I think. All our information and materials are from the Colonial Union The embassy staff got it, not directly from the colonial army. I don't think they came to Earth at all."
"Aren't you worried about working for an organization you've never met?"
"No," she said, "it's a good job. Compared to what they're spending on renovating here, my salary is amazing. Besides, you're going to join an organization you've never seen before." Are you worried?"
"No." I said honestly, "I'm old and my wife is dead. There is no reason for me to stay here anymore. When you get old, will you enlist in the army?"
She shrugged, "I don't mind getting old."
"I didn't mind being old when I was young," I said, "Now that I'm really old, I understand."
The printer connected to the computer hummed softly, and a piece of paper like a business card slid out.She picked up the slip of paper and handed it to me. "Here is your ticket," she said to me. "It proves that you are John Perry, a soldier in the colonial army. Don't lose it. In three days your plane will take off from right in front of this office." Go to De Ayden Airport. The departure time is 8:30 in the morning. It is recommended that you come early. You can only bring one piece of carry-on luggage, so please choose carefully among the items you want to bring.
"In D'Eden, you'll take the 11:00 am flight to Chicago and then the 2:00 pm Delta flight to Nairobi. Nairobi's time zone is nine hours ahead and you'll arrive at midnight local time. A Colonial A military representative will meet you there, and you can choose to take the 2:00 AM flight to the Colonial Space Station, or take a break and take the 9:00 AM pod. Once there, you are under the control of the Colonial Army.”
I took the ticket, "What should I do if the flight is delayed or delayed?"
"I've been working here for five years and I've never had a flight delay," she said.
"Wow," I said, "I bet the Colonial trains were on time, too."
She looked at me blankly.
"Hey," I said, "I've been kidding you since I got here."
"I know," she said. "Sorry, my sense of humor was surgically removed as a child."
"Oh." I said.
"I'm kidding," she said, standing up and holding out a hand.
"Oh." I stood up and took her hand.
"Congratulations, recruit," she said. "Good luck out there among the stars. I mean it," she added.
"Thanks," I said, "thank you very much." She nodded, sat down again, and turned her eyes back to the computer.I can go.
As I was leaving, I saw an elderly woman walking across the parking lot toward the recruiting office.I walk up to her. "Are you Cynthia Smith?" I asked.
"It's me," she said. "How do you know?"
"Just wanted to say happy birthday to you," I said, pointing to the sky, "I might see you up there again."
She understood what I said and smiled.On this day, I finally made someone laugh.Everything is getting better.
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