Immortality

I received news of the burglary while I was in London, far away from home dealing with the acquisition of a new company. The notification did not come from my alarm system, however; that had been bypassed. Instead, I had to step away from a meeting due to vertigo, and any physical distress for me could mean only one thing. I called my trusted financial planner, Mr. Thorne, and asked him to check on my home. He had had dinner with me at my place on countless occasions and would be able to recognize if anything was out of place. He was also a discrete man, one who never asked pesky questions like, “You’ve been my client for 40 years, so why don’t you look a day over 25?”

When Mr. Thorne arrived, he told me that nothing of value was stolen. He did, however, ask me when I’d had the pear tree removed. My home was designed as a square that surrounded a courtyard, a villa of the Roman style, and at the very center of that outdoor space was my pear tree. To remove that tree from the earth would be the equivalent of cutting out my own heart, but these were details Mr. Thorne did not need to know, so I merely thanked him for checking and told him to have a good evening.

After a quick stop at my London home, I chartered a flight back to New York. My only request of the crew was that the plane be well-stocked with bottles of water. Somewhere over the Atlantic the thirst hit me. I knew the water would not alleviate the actual problem; the fools who stole my tree (and I was fairly certain I knew who at least some of them were) had not immediately replanted it. Still, the temporary comfort that drinking the water provided was worth it.

Towards the end of my flight the thirst began to abate, and I received a call I’d been expecting. I answered, “I thought you’d call sooner, Ms. Gray.” She was the head of my security team and the only one with the unique mixture of access and stupidity necessary to steal from me.

“Yes, well a bit of gardening held me up,” she replied. I listened closely for any noises in the background that would give me clues, but I heard none.

“I trust that went well?” I asked in turn, though she and I wouldn’t be having this conversation if it hadn’t.

Her smile came through, even over the phone. “In fact it did. I’d love to let you see it, but there are some details we have to work out first. Shall we meet at your place? I trust your flight has almost arrived.”

“I’ll be home within the next couple hours,” I told her, trying to hold my rage at bay and appear calm.

“See you soon,” was her only response before hanging up.

I let my anger boil over and threw my phone against the cockpit wall with a satisfying crunch. It seemed silly for someone to hold a fruit tree hostage, but to most people, including myself, that tree would’ve been the most valuable thing on Earth.

Driving to my house, I made sure to control my speed to maintain the illusion of calm. Every movement was measured as I entered the garage, pulled the car to a stop and stepped out. I could see the small camera in the corner above the door but did not look directly at it. It was portable; easily removed within moments when they were finished here. There was no reason to tip my hand that I knew about their surveillance, however, or that I was also quite sure what was waiting for me inside.

As I entered my home, Ms. Gray had music playing. I strode confidently into the living room where Ms. Gray was waiting, viewing my vinyl collection, evidently choosing her next record to play. The ambience was that of a friendly meeting, though the gloves, disposable booties over her shoes and stocking cap she had on to contain her hair suggested something else. She was the head of my security detail; her prints and hair would be all over my house, yet her attention to detail and refusal to leave any accidental trace of evidence was impressive.

“Care for a drink?” I asked her, walking to my liquor cabinet.

“Not tonight,” she answered. I knew her appreciation of my whiskey selection, but she wouldn’t be tripped up that easily, leaving a glass with her DNA at what was soon to be a crime scene.

“Just for me then,” I said as I opened my whiskey decanter and poured far more into a glass than would be socially acceptable. “Am I to assume you have my tree?”

“It’s safe,” she answered, turning to face me. Her demeanor was different than I’d seen in her before. She’d been playing a part up until now.

I tried to see if I could rattle her. “And why would that concern me?” I asked as I took a long pull from my glass to settle my nerves and sat down on the couch.

Faster than I could react, she took a pistol out of a holster on her back that I hadn’t seen and shot through the glass. The bullet passed through my hand, taking shards of glass and bone with it. Pain for me is a muted thing, but it had been many years since I’d felt this kind of pain and it was startling. I’m sure some indication of my discomfort crossed my face before I collected myself and made a show of wiping drops of whiskey off my shirt and couch, even as blood poured from my hand.

She gently took the needle off the record. “This will go much easier if we skip the foreplay,” she said calmly. I had gotten lazy in vetting my security hires. She was too calm, too collected in a situation like this to have come from the unassuming background I’d believed.

“Very well, what is it you’re after?” I asked, fearing my voice would tremble, but relieved it didn’t.

She bounced the gun in her hand slightly. “The combination to your safe.” My safe was in my bedroom upstairs, meaning her accomplices were in the house as well.

“Very well. 1-5-4-2. You could’ve just asked, you know,” I answered.

She took a walkie-talkie from her back pocket and relayed the combination into the microphone. A few seconds later, it crackled to life. “We’ve got them.” The voice on the other end was referring to my diaries.

Ms. Gray seemed impatient. “And?” she barked into the walkie.

Her cohort answered, “Hang on. We’re reading. There’s a lot of them in here.”

Ms. Gray rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Focus on the ones that look the oldest.” She turned her attention back to me. “I don’t suppose you just want to tell me how it works.”

I smiled coyly. “I don’t know what you mean.” She raised her gun, so I held up my good hand and blurted out, “You wouldn’t believe me anyway,” with a little desperation in my voice than I’d meant to let through. Ms. Gray sighed and took a seat across from me. I let my curiosity get the better of me. “How did you find out?” I asked.

“What, that your safe combination is probably when you were born?” she replied in kind. “Mr. Thorne may be a complete pushover, but he’s not an idiot.” So Mr. Thorne had been in on this too. Truly I had let my guard down to exasperating degrees.

Her accomplice came over the walkie again: “We got it.”

Ms. Gray stood up. “Well then, sir, I’m afraid I must bid you ‘good evening’.” She raised her gun again, this time firing twice into my chest. Surprisingly, these hurt less than when she’d shot my hand, though I knew they were fatal. As she bent down to retrieve her three shell casings, her cohorts came down the stairs one-by-one all dressed in the same evidence-preventing getup as Ms. Gray. First, there was the timid, old Mr. Thorne, who took one look at the bloody mess that was me and looked like he was going to throw up, hurrying past me out the front door. Then Mr. Bly, Ms. Nguyen and Mr. Craig came down the stairs after him; the entirety of my security team, splitting up when they reached the first, scurrying in different directions no doubt to retrieve their cameras. Truly, everybody I’d let into this life had been a part of the betrayal. Ms. Gray raised the gun slightly higher, this time towards my head. The slightest hesitation passed over her face before I saw her finger start to pull back and everything went black. Her two shots to my chest had been mortal wounds, but the headshot turned out the lights instantly.

So how am I here? How can I recall my tale for you? Because my diaries, the ones that hinted at how they could use my tree to gain immortality were a lie; a carefully crafted decoy planted years ago when I still guarded my tree as if, well, my life depended on it. As soon as Ms. Gray burned my tree, the pear I had planted before leaving my home in London took root and began to grow. At that moment, I awoke on my couch, covered in blood and with a pounding headache, but alive.

At some point since, Ms. Gray and her associates would have gone their separate ways and planted their pears, taken from my tree before the burning, all hoping to live forever, and all been disappointed to learn the seeds within those pears wouldn’t grow. One of them might’ve grown impatient and dug up their fruit only to find it withered and rotten with no life left in it.

Still, I did not let Ms. Gray kill me merely because I knew their plan would fail. If I had spoiled their little theft that night, one of them might’ve slipped away and I would not have known the extent of their betrayal. And since I have made sure that each of them will receive a link to read this story once it’s posted, I may as well address them directly.

Ms. Gray, Mr. Thorne, Mr. Bly, Ms. Nguyen and Mr. Craig, I would like to thank you for reigniting my passion for living. I had grown sloppy, complacent, and weary in this life, but having it taken from me so brazenly has reminded me of its joys. In return, I’ll tell you the two things my diary left out: First, the tree can only belong to one person at a time. Second, whoever you decide should take control of the tree (and I would love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation) must bury me with the pear to take control of it. For that though, you’ll have to kill me again, and I promise I will not be such easy prey this time. Indeed, I now consider myself the hunter in this story.

There is no sport in most hunting, however. To die at the hands of your quarry would suggest a grave misstep. Therefore, I will level the playing field. I’ve given you clues as to the whereabouts of my new tree. You will undoubtedly have the resources of my old life that Mr. Thorne’s Power of Attorney will grant you, but I will have the funds from all the other lives I cycle though to live as an immortal. I will also not enlist help in my hunt; there is no honor in that. You have numbers. I have guile. The stakes couldn’t be higher: to be found is to be killed. Let the games begin.