Anatolie was awakened by the annoying sound of his alarm. He scattered, his eyes still half closed to locate his phone and turn it off. As he did so, he started snapping into reality and frustratingly let out a groan. He absolutely hated waking up in the morning. Being a night owl also didn’t help his cause, because he had a calculus exam to write in two hours, and only got about four hours of sleep.
He lived about an hour from Velany University, where he is a third year student, studying engineering. His apartment was very spacious for one person. A big living room and a separate bedroom. Many of his friends from school paid the same price for a tiny bachelor apartment right beside the school. He liked having the luxury of space. So much so, that he did not mind having to commute. In fact, he actually liked the commute too. Not being a morning person, it gave him a chance to breathe before his day started.
As Anatolie finished showering, he made his way to the refrigerator while still pulling up his trousers. Opening it, he was disappointingly greeted with an emptiness, save for the few eggs in the door shelves. He prepared and ate the eggs, and made a mental note to stop by a grocery store after the exam. Afterwards, he made his coffee in a mug to take with him to school and began packing his things.
Packed and ready to go, he gave a quick glance at the mirror and checked his pockets for all the necessities of life – phone, keys, wallet, and left his house.
Since he lived very close to the bus stop that took him to school, every morning, he would light up a cigarette the moment he left his building, and would be finished just as he arrived at the stop. This minimized the risk of him having to throw out a half smoked cigarette. He hated the fact that he smoked and tried to quit on a regular basis, but unfortunately to no avail.
As he approached the bus stop, he put out his finished cigarette by stepping on it with his shoe, and looked for signs of an approaching bus. There was very few people at the bus stop, and no bus visible, so he assumed that it had probably passed a few minutes ago. He would be waiting for ten minutes or so. Still slightly sleepy, he looked around at the people at the bus stop. Anatolie loved analyzing people. It wasn’t a critical form of assessment but more of an appreciation for the various walks of life. He saw an old man at the bus stops that he sees very frequently around this time. The man looked to be about 70, wearing a dark-beige homburg hat and a vest, with a clean white dress shirt underneath. His posture was slightly frail, but he did not use a walking stick, and his high spirits always overshadowed his aging body. Whenever the old man saw Anatolie he would always give him a gentle nod and a smile and Anatolie would always do the same in return. There was also an attractive girl there this morning. He would see her once in a while, but they never exchanged more than a fleeing glance. The other two people at the bus stop were unknown to him, but both looked like they were heading to an early shift.
Finally the bus arrived, and Anatolie went in by the order that people arrived at the stop, at least to the best of his abilities. He looked around, and saw a few vacant seats in the back, and sat down to relax for the forty minute bus ride. Beside him was a middle-aged woman, who was looking out the window and seemingly gazing out into nothing with her headphones on. Anatolie wondered what she was listening to. The thought didn’t last long, for now was the time to read useless junk online while passing through the city on his way to school. He opened up his phone and routinely clicked on a shortcut to an online news website, Vela Posts. It was an open-source news website, made and updated by the community. It wasn’t as consistently accurate as your typical news outlets, but would often features very interesting stories that would never make it to the mainstream media otherwise. Sometimes, a news story would gain a lot of popularity, only to be discredited by someone else in the community later on in the day. At least once a week there was a post about a cure for cancer, reversing aging, you name it. All of these stories were always discredited within hours and ultimately getting blocked by the volunteer moderators. Since the site never claimed to be an official source, they were not held responsible for any news that was falsely published.
Anatolie quickly skimmed over the top stories of the morning, one about a big chain going bankrupt, one about declining employment rates and feeling his boredom fast approaching, went to look at the newest posts. The newer posts were mostly mundane, but there would be a few funny ones with obviously fake news. Sometimes it would be a story about a Godzilla sized cat, clawing at city buildings, other times about how someone just gained a new super power that allows them poop gold. Those were Anatolie’s favorites, and he loved reading them before they got deleted. Today someone got very creative it seems, for there was a post titled “The Last Letter”, and a very long one at that. Anatolie, looking at the sheer length of the post and strongly debated whether just to skip it, but with nothing else to do, he started reading the article.
Dear Vela Post readers
My name is Samuel Rodger. I have been working on something for the better part of the last two decades. I have discovered the composition necessary to reverse aging, through an injection I have created. I am not a certified scientist, engineer or a doctor. I now hold this drug in my hand, but do not know the repercussions, negative or positive of its effect. I have had it for over a year now, as I was testing it on myself as well as smaller species. I am positively certain that it works, but I am at a loss of what to do with it. Having had it for a year, I have been constantly thinking about the day I would release it. At first I thought of all the joy I would bring to people. As time went I realized that human nature was not designed for this drug to exist. After many nights of seldom sleep I have decided to share it, for to share it may be evil, but to not share it would be cruel. I cannot foresee the future, but the world is about to undergo a transition, the size of which has never been witnessed before. I have submitted the drug to a university for testing two months ago, and expect the results today.
I wish all the best.
Sincerely, Samuel Rodger
Anatolie smiled with intrigue. He knew it was fake, but he loved to fantasize about the idea of it being real. The post also had many diagrams in it, with what looked to be some DNA diagrams and various formulas. Anatolie decided to stop reading when the technical part started, because although he was bored, he wasn’t that bored. He put down his phone and spent the rest of the bus ride in silence, picturing a world where aging wasn’t a problem. He agreed with Samuel that humans were not designed for a world where aging didn’t exist, and pondered what would happen if it did exist and what the immediate repercussions of such a drug on society would be.
Time flied, and as Anatolie neared his school, he stopped day dreaming and headed to the dreadful exam room.