Be Careful What You Wish For… By: Gaetano A. Nufrio

To whoever may ever find this…

I remember when it all happened, when they said they have found a way for us to live forever. I, like everyone else got excited. Finally, we could be what every human who has perished before us always wanted to ever be, immortal! They said they had found the miracle cures for everything after so many years of research they had made that breakthrough but, they forgot one thing. There was one thing that did not become apparent until a few years after this amazing breakthrough. That one thing is that now that we cannot die, how don’t we age? A simple enough question yes, but one that was left unanswered by science 62 years later, and I am now a 110 years old, confined to a wheel chair, attempted suicide 4 times unsuccessfully because of these miracle cures, when does the insanity end for me?

When I was 48 years of age in the year 2011 I thought to myself this breakthrough is utterly amazing! What could be better? We can now live forever! No more death, no more misery! Wars soon stopped, guns were soon banished 3 years latter and murders stopped because when you killed someone they could be saved and brought back to life, amazing right? This may seem like the utopia that we have always wanted. Well let me tell you my story and you can be the judge. In this world, yes people don’t die any more, senseless killing has become nonexistent but for some reason misery and suicide attempts are at an all time high, always on the rise with each passing week. So I may not be as insane as you may think I am. I am sitting at this desk, old and beaten from aging much like myself, in a house that was once a home. I am sitting here a broken man, one who has seen many troubles and struggles in my life. As I write this, I am wondering if I am wrong and instead am truly insane for being ungrateful and selfish in wanting to end my existence or, if in fact, more sane than I appear.

My first unsuccessful attempt at suicide came at the age of 55 when my wife left me and my children abandoned me. I sat in what was the once happy home we all shared, figuring out how it all went wrong so fast. That’s when I came across some letters from her lover, Jacob Knot, someone she worked with. I felt sick to my stomach, it all made sense; all the times she said she had to work late she was with Jacob! How could she do this? What did I do? My children caught wind of all this and blamed me for all that happened, that I was the reason why she was leaving. I tried to call but have never succeeded, even 55 years later, they still will not speak to me. With my life at rock bottom I grabbed the sharpest knife I could find and slit my wrists. As the blood started to flow, I felt at peace with myself. Than, 8 hours later, I woke under the bright lights of the hospital to find out that they have saved me. They had added new blood manufactured by BloodEX & Fluids and sealed my wounds with this new product called Seal Skin by Skin & Bones Inc. They attempted to give me an explanation of how it all works and I tried hard to figure out what they were saying so that I could somehow reverse it or break it. I remember hearing this vain and that valve and on and on it went. However, it was so long and confusing that I gave up. The doctors also told me I should be careful when playing with knives so as to avoid the “accident” I just had. When I got home I found that they had not even found my note.

My second attempt at suicide was when I was 68 years old. My legs had started to give out and were not able to support me, so I could not walk any longer. I was then confined to a wheelchair. I was already lonely since my wife left me earlier but now I was unable to walk around. I resented the fact that now I had become immobile. I started to get really depressed at my situation so with little resources at my disposal I took all my medications and swallowed them all at once, overdosing. I was dead for 5 hours before they discovered my body lying limp in the chair. What they explained to me later after the various operations and procedures was that they cleaned out my system with new blood made that was immune to overdoses, again by BloodEX & Fluids, that filters any excess medication or drugs so as to prevent an “accidental” overdose happing to me again later on. This new blood would have to be replaced every 3 years to make sure the filters in the bloodstream function properly. Then they attempted to give me an explanation of the procedure which I just nodded with as the medical jargon made no sense to me. When I arrived back to my apartment my suicide note, much like the last time, was left untouched.

My third attempt was my closest encounter with death to date. I was at home, at age 72, listening to one of my favourite bands of my youth, Black Sabbath and their song “Die Young”. What a lovely fantasy that is now to me, to never grow old. That’s when it hit me, suffocation! That’s it! They can’t give me breath! How stupid and naive was I? They mentioned everything else in their presentation of how they can restore life except breath! So I locked myself in the garage, turned on my old 1999 Chevy Corvette, let the motor running and the carbon dioxide take me away from this existence. I was left there for a day before the neighbours broke down my door to discover my lifeless body. I had done it! I had finally beat the system! When they brought me back to life, they explained to me that I must have passed out while I had started my car. They said that they figured that since I was confined to the wheel chair that it was okay if I wanted to start my car and hear the motor running, but that I had to be careful. How stupid are these people? They told me that they had replaced my lungs with these new mechanical lungs that continue to function even with little oxygen entering your body made by Internals & Insides Inc. The doctors also told me that they replaced my blood with new blood from BloodEX & Fluids that filters out all toxins that could be harmful if they were to enter my body. The new blood costs much more than the old BloodEX & Fluids blood they put in me last time but would be replaced every 5 years instead of 3. Then I was given another long winded account of the operations that they had preformed on me which I simply ignored. At this point I think that they just loved to hear the sound of their own voices or just think to themselves how smart they think they sound. For all I knew and cared, they could have been speaking in tongues. When I got home, I discovered that my little suicide note was left, still folded on the windshield of my Corvette.

My fourth attempted happened not too long ago. At the age of 103 years old they discovered that I had heart disease. I was overjoyed! Finally someone had answered my prayers and ended my misery! That was when the doctors told me that since it looked so bad that I required immediate surgery. In me they installed a new Cupid’s Cardiac heart, which beats at a steady pace and is immune to all diseases. It wasn’t all that cheep, but they charged it to me anyways. This time I told them not to bother with an explanation as it was not going to make sense to me anyways. So they spared me the explanation and let me go on my way. So while I was wheeling myself home, I glided onto the street thinking if nature wasn’t going to do it, than I would. That was when the 18 wheeler came from nowhere doing 120 k/h and hit me dead on. My last thought when I thought I had finally beat death was that I forgot to leave a note but I then I thought to myself, who would read it? Then, 8 hours later, I was brought back to life. Turns out he hit the breaks so the only damage was that I broke my neck and a few bones in my body. What the doctors did was grab some Bone Paste made by the Fusing Corporation. The paste can only glue broken bones together so, now my neck cannot move. Again, they did not spare me the pleasure of not hearing the explanation. I simply ignored it bring myself deeper into depression. Not only am I still alive and confined to a wheel chair, now my neck cannot move! Life cannot get any worse for me!

Just the night before, 7 years after those events, I was going through my basement when I came across an old rifle I had stored long ago. I got it! So I searched for the bullets that were stored near the gun and sure enough, they were where I left them. See, one thing they forgot when they banned guns was that they only banned the production of guns and ammunition however, if you had one you could still keep it as they were seen as harmless. Back when they spoke of this “great” breakthrough, I was excited at the thought of being immortal. I, like most human beings, prayed that we could be immortal. We all used to worry that if we died than, we would be some forgotten memory or an afterthought. How childish we were in our thinking! I remember that, as a child, I was told to “be careful what you wish for, you may just get it”, well we all got what we wanted but I don’t want it anymore. I don’t want this life anymore! I don’t want to be some cyborg anymore! It seems that not much of my body is organic except my useless legs and hands. To keep me alive, it costs me over $150,000 a year for maintenance and labour. I did not choose to be like this, others have chosen on my behalf. Sure, some people choose to have themselves enhanced by the various products but they chose and I didn’t! I used to be afraid that no one would remember me when I passed on but no one cares for me now that I am alive. My children want nothing to do with me and my ex-wife is one reason for all my misery. I have nothing left to live for but they still keep me alive! This little note is so that, who ever may come across this, may judge for themselves if I did the right thing or not. Goodbye.