“Have you heard the name Lucien D’Adamo?”

“Of course, it’s an infamous case. Despite the death of Lucien and his wife Bea having being chalked up to an unfortunate and fairly rare motor collision, the case has spawned a large amount of controversy among the TSA. Every 5 years or so someone reopens the case again suspecting foul play. It’s a bit of a problem – or so I’m told.”

There is a moment of silence, the old man who had been sipping on his sweet tea moments before had suddenly stopped. He was staring intently at me, but I couldn’t quite place the sentiment behind his eyes. Curiosity?

Then the wires connected in my mind, and I let out an audible gasp of disbelief. Lucien simply nodded. The gasp reverberates through the empty diner and somewhat startles me. Then, like nothing had happened, he simply gets started on his jiggly mountain of gravy and biscuit.

“You faked your deaths? But why?” I whisper in reaction to the earlier gasp. “You were a pioneer of the Turritoptic beds we still use today!”

“Patience,” Lucien says as he chews through a bite. “Ooh, sausage crumbles!” He immediately goes in for another bite like an overexcited kid working on a birthday cake. Somehow, I find his nonchalance less frustrating.

He wipes his face, and without looking at me jumps into it. “Are you familiar with the concept of Turritoptic shock?”

“Yea, it’s brand new? They just released a -”

“No not even, though I’m glad they’re finally admitting it exists.” He waves a fork disapprovingly. “I – or I should say we – knew about it fairly early on with initial prison tests. The technology was first funded for capital punishments.” He puts down his fork and takes a small sip of tea from the corner of his mouth. Folding his hands, he continues. “While the body is fairly malleable to the reverse aging of turritopsis, the mind is not so much so. This creates a situation where the mind slowly gets over stressed by the imbalance until it snaps. My colleagues weren’t bothered much by this, but I was.” He goes back to digging at his food. I pour myself another cup from the carafe. “By the way, are you aware of the way the beds work? Like how they know when to perform the reverse aging process?”

I sip my coffee and shake my head.

“There’s a little chip in the bed that reads a chip in your body, usually at the small of your back – make it hard to remove.” He reaches behind himself and attempts to scratch at his back.  I make a mental note to check his back for scarring later. “The chip is set like a bank account where you’re allotted a certain amount of time before a reset. However, the chip rounds up for the final day – this gives us about an 11-hour buffer to make sure some clerical errors wouldn’t cause too many problems.”

“And this is relevant because?” I question.

“This safety net allows for time theft. Of course, given only a select few knew about this idiosyncrasy of the chips, we felt time theft wouldn’t be an issue. Hence why the respective code isn’t given a roman alphanumerical designation like the others and why it doesn’t show up in those policy quick guides you probably still get.” He pulls out a small device from his pocket, it looks like a credit reader. He shoves it across the table to me. I pick it up and begin examining it.

“How does it work?” I say, setting down the device.

“It’s able to read chips within a set radius and skim a few seconds from each chip,” he picks up the device now and begins to fiddle with it. “Of course, I put in safeguards to prevent taking more than 11 hours from one individual chip. It was never my intention to harm anyone.”

“Just seconds? That doesn’t seem like a whole lot.”

He stretches backwards and picks up some biscuit crumbs of his plate. I’m a bit surprised he has any crumbs not covered in gravy at this point. “Imagine just sitting on a bench during a rush hour commute, a constantly moving wall of pedestrians passing you by as if the world itself is simply flitting by. How many chips could you grab, even with just a 10, 20-meter radius on that device? All those people, unaware of your existence, living their lives – completely unaware of the little stream of seconds falling from their pockets. Like the wind picking pollen off a neglected handkerchief.” He lets the crumbs tumble out of his palm as he says this.

“Wow, quite the poet now, aren’t we?” I snark into my coffee cup. But I see his point, if one was smart about how they used the device it wouldn’t be hard to see how those seconds would pile up almost undetectably from the constant crowds of the city.

“Ah well, when you live for more than ten years at a time you pick up a few things.” He winks genially at me. I kind of like his smile.

“Well, maybe we were wrong about the whole seven years to master a skill thing then.” I’m not particularly sure why I said it. He just shrugs nondescriptly. I put my cup down and get back to business. “So, why’d you leave?”

“Why do you think?” He says somewhat gesturing over to the other end of the diner where the wait staff and that scrawny manager are milling around wistfully. “Most everyone here never gets beyond 30. A few years past my scheduled ‘rebirth’, I figured I couldn’t do this forever – soon enough I’d stick out like a sore thumb –“

“Like now.”

“ – and I had to figure out something else.” His face suddenly becomes dark and almost spiteful. “Were you aware of the noncompliance raids recently occurring outside the city? Carried out by, oh I can’t quite remember the name of the enforcement squad …” he snaps his fingers and puts on a sort of grimace, I have a feeling he’s toying with me.

“Firebird, it was the Firebird team.” I say quietly.

“Ah, so you are aware.”

“Firebird’s debrief claimed a few hikers came across some ‘wild men’ in the woods around one of their favorite trails, reported it to the proper authorities and Firebird was tasked with tracking down these ‘wild men’ and well … yeah …” my voice trails off, something in his face tells me it’s best if I don’t finish that thought. “Probably explains the sasquatch urban legends going around,” I say hastily trying to fill in the silence.

I sip my coffee awkwardly and look at him over the rim. Despite his storming eyes telling me everything I need to know, he’s keeping his composure remarkably well.

“Those good people helped me and Bea escape. After cutting out each other’s chips and dropping the car into the river they gave us shelter until I could get my feet under myself. All they wanted was a quiet life with just a little something to call their own – isn’t that the least any of us can ask for!” He raises his voice at this last remark. Given how calm and quiet he’s been up to this point, it feels like he’s screaming.

“Wait, what do you mean ‘until I could get my feet under myself’? Bea disappeared with you – right?”

He looks away, his raging sea grows misty “She was already too accustomed to her life in the city – to the rebirths. She couldn’t …” His voice cracks slightly, “she couldn’t handle it.”

There’s a brief pause as I process this. Tentatively I reach out and pat his hand. He grabs my glove and squeezes it briefly. It tells a story all in itself.

“Is that why you came back?” I ask softly.

“They gave me one of their pups to keep me company. A beautiful brown chocolate lab with gorgeous deep orange-ochre eyes.” He wipes his eyes and giggles a bit. “A stupidly posh dog that both hated pets or cuddles, and ever being without me right next to him. He did have this odd quirk that he loved standing backwards between your legs and if in that position would tolerate scratches on his backside. Jeez he was such a piece of work …”

I stay silent and let him just talk. Simply nodding occasionally to let him know I was still present. I feel like this is what he wanted all along. He goes on about how when he first moved to his homestead, this small posh dog would stay up nights to keep the wilds at bay to the point it almost killed him out of exhaustion. That Lucien had to force the stubborn dog to rest and eat. The end of the story was already clear to me.

My mind wanders to what happens next. I’m not entirely sure, but I had heard rumors of a special solitary room reserved for special noncompliants; possibly political dissidents, or other VIPs the TSA had a particular interest in. A vantablack room with special acoustic paneling to absorb all sound. The room would have no furnishings except a rumored in-built sensory deprivation tank. Noncompliants would then be sentenced to live out their allotted time until they broke and gave in to re-education or until – more likely – they died from psychological or physical stress.

“Then it came the day I had to put my only companion left in the world in the ground …” Lucien finishes.

There it is I think to myself.

“Of course, I didn’t return right away. But the stillness has a way to get to you – just you and your thoughts. I suppose if there’s any proof of a god it’s how penitent we can become.” His sentences have become noticeable longer, perhaps it’s him thinking more about what he’s saying, or simply its becoming harder to get the words out.

That’s all, I think to myself as I look at the empty dishes on the table around the old man and my own empty coffee carafe. Then I lock eyes with Lucien. There’s a palpable fear emanating from those eyes that had – up to this point – boasted everything from rage to confidence to humor. Now it was all replaced with fear. Perhaps, I think to myself, perhaps he knows what will happen to him.

One of the wait staff tentatively comes by our table.

“Um … the kitchen just wanted me to let you know that, well, they’re … uh … closing soon …”

“Just a little longer,” I barely hear Lucien murmur as he faces his now empty plate.

“Any … uh … last orders?”

I look down at the empty bottom of my coffee cup, and Lucien’s empty glass of sweet tea. Gently, I turn off the recorder on my radio and look at the frail old man sitting across from me.

“I think we can spare time for one more drink.”

The conclusion to this story we both know is inevitable. But, perhaps at the very least I can buy him some time to keep living for that much longer – even if just a fistful of seconds.