Sam was a normal kid but got into an unusual amount of trouble. Not real bad trouble, not like hurting animals or ending lives or taking sexual pleasure at another's cost. He was actually very nice, but he always ended up thinking that stealing a truck filled with cases of beer was an awesome idea (and did it), or that smuggling the best weed ever from Canada by the shoebox-ful was the best way to go (it wasn't). He did a lot of community service. He was actually known as a real volunteer, kind of a "perfect son" (to a mother) sort of helper. He made the best of paying his dues and did it smiling (genuinely).
He was in good shape, whether from running from the law or regular exercise was never asked. Good enough shape that he didn't feel guilty ordering the Big Buford Combo large size with bacon and a Coke at Checker's, which was at the end of his block. He lived in an apartment building that was full of single moms and bad boyfriends. His life was a sort of perfection-by-contrast. He got along great with, and was often seen with, the "baser" characters of society. He defended them when they weren't around commenting on their intellect or loyalty or sympathizing with a bad family situation. Why get down on dealers, pimps, and runners? He asked. Eradicate them? Let's just all be buds!
It was mid-July, and he had an idea. It was the same idea as before, about smuggling weed from Canada, but this time decided that he would be smarter about it. When packing the those sweet buds he put them in little plastic baggies. 400 little plastic baggies. Then he bought 400 bars of good-sized soap and carefully unwrapped them with flatiron set to low. With a sharpened knife he cut them open, and with a hot spoon scooped out their middles. Each bar got a baggy inside of it, and was re-sealed and shaped and wrapped back up in it's packaging. Then he got blank boxes and stacked them all neatly with packing supplies.
So he got arrested at the border for trying to evade import tax on copious amounts of soap. When they confronted him and he realized they had no idea there were 400 baggies of weed in each one he started laughing. Hard. This pissed them off, and if you know border guards, this is the absolute last thing you would ever want to do. They put him in holding for 12 hours.
After 12 hours, most of which he slept soundly, an officer came in, said little (mumbling) and handed him some paperwork. The officer left, leaving him a pen designed very awkwardly, I think so as not to be used as a weapon. It was sort of bulbous. He read the papers. It was all the usual jargon but at the end it gave him three options:
[_] $2,500.00 Fine
[_] 3 Months Prison
[_] Permanent Exile from Canada (Seriously? No way! Strippers are waaaay better here!)
[_] 6 Months Community Service in the Yukon
[_] Eternal Life
Well it was that last one that seemed like the odd one out. He stared at it for a while, and wondered if the copywriter would get in trouble when he outed him or her. Then he decided that they all probably thought it was an awesome joke. Or was Canada witnessing to him? Were they really trying to force Christianity as a federal punishment? It really was the most plausible idea. He decided not to sign or check any boxes until this was figured out.
7 1/2 hours later the door latch clacked open and in walked the mumbling officer. He grabbed the papers from Sam's hands and looked for a Hancock. Nothing. He stone-eyed Sam for a while then winked. Sam couldn't recall if he had been staring back or hanging his head or what. The officer handed it back to him and said "Choose and sign or I'll leave you in here for 20 more hours. With water though, I'll bring you a giant bucket of warm bathwater." It wasn't the solitude or the time, but the thought of being parched with only warm bathwater moved him to make a sudden decision. "What if I choose Eternal Life?" Sam asked. "What the hell, find out." The officer answered. Sam checked it and signed it and handed it back.
The guard left and suddenly the lights went out. He felt dizzy and went into a dreamy state where he remembered a beautiful, vein woman in a black dress with a doc's coat on over it. She was talking, stuff about a first patient, a human experiment, first of his kind, may as well be an American, soap? really... soap? well at least he's not dangerous...
A car drove by inches from Sam's head and he woke with a start. Actually he woke screaming, he was terrified. He was laying next to a road just a block from his own house. He stumbled home.
He never could decide if it was a dream, really. He remembered back but it was fuzzy. His car was at home like normal, but it smelled like soap. He hadn't told anyone he was going to Canada so had no precious alibi. He had no idea if he went or just got really wasted and mixed something up.
7 years later Sam was "volunteering" at the Salvation Army. Every time he walked in the door he couldn't help but think about his option for Eternal Life which he had in a dream or something years before.
4 years later his friends started to show their age and compliment his genetics, his skin, his youthful nature. Didn't seem like he had their crow's feet, undeflatable guts, cankles, or inability to recover from hangovers.
At age 40 he started to get suspicious of himself. He looked the same in pictures as 10 years earlier. Not a single grey hair. He made younger and younger friends and his old ones got married, had kids, moved on. He was a big social guy, night owl.
Finally at age 50 he started to begin a long slow road of panic. He looked the exact fucking same. Still not a single grey hair. His old friends avoided him in public should their paths cross. He started lying about his age to his new friends a few years before, getting sick of their reactions to his age. One thing he started to hate though, was the sound of his friend's voices. They just kind of screeched. He knew his hearing was getting more and more sensitive, but he found his temper had a short wick. He never blew up at anyone, he was too nice. So he complained of headaches and would shop for more sever sound-dampening devices. The market wasn't fast with it's technology, though. The older people got they eventually had to just bear with it and avoid noise as much as possible. There were special parts of town that were quieter, with noise restrictions, special sound walls to reduce the amount of noise bouncing around. The only problem with all this was that every time he went to these spots he was told to leave. He was made to feel uncomfortable. He looked too young to deserve quiet. He ended up fairly driven out of every bearable atmosphere.
10 years later his friends just started dying. They went, one by one, into their graves. They found eternal quietness 6 feet under. He envied them. He really did have headaches now constantly. He took all kinds of medication for it, even though he didn't like to. He couldn't sleep. He didn't have any friends now. The younger ones "his age" he wanted to murder even when they whispered. His other friends were dead. He felt like a vampire with no special skill set. If he could've turned into a bat he thought he would, then he'd fly so high he couldn't hear anything. Then it occurred to him that he wouldn't ever be able to out-fly the batting of his own wings. What a wretched idea.
Sam died at age 103 in his apartment, which was boarded up with sound-proofing walls. He had ran out of food and starved. He had no way to mail his bills so the water was turned off and he suffocated from thirst. He had no one he knew and died of loneliness. His ears and head hurt so much that every morning he woke with large blood-stains from his ears; he died of blood loss. The electricity was out too and in the colder months died of frostbite. But he couldn't die. Or who knows if he ever did. He was never able to explain it.
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