Mabel rubs her temples with her fingertips and momentarily shuts her eyes. The fluorescent lights in the clinic’s waiting room are starting to give her a headache. Four middle-aged women are waiting in the room with her, each one looking more defeated than the last. The air is dry and sterile, making Mabel’s skin itch. The chairs are glued together in rows, lined with turquoise fabric worn down from the stress of thousands of people having sat down and gotten up on them. In an effort to re-vitalize the room, there is mediocre art on the walls, and a fake plant in the corner. Finally, after forty-five minutes of waiting, Mabel’s name gets called. She follows a woman into a smaller (but equally as bleak) room as the one she just left. Mabel sits down in the plastic chair opposite the doctor’s desk and places her purse on her lap. The man across the desk reaches out to shake her hand.
“Hi, Mabel, is it? My name is Doctor Phillips. I see you’re here to learn more about Amaranthine, and to understand if this is the right time in your life to be taking it, correct?” His voice is cold and shallow. Not unlike the many other doctors Mabel has seen in her life.
Mabel glances down at her hands. She twists the ring on her index finger, a nervous habit she picked up in college. “Yes. I’m not sure when I would like to start taking it, or if I really want to yet. I guess I need more information,” Mabel shyly answers.
Doctor Phillips picks up the hesitancy in her voice, and gives Mabel his warmest smile. “Great, well, let me give you an overview of how it works, and you can ask me any questions you might have,” he briefly stops to straighten a stack of papers on his desk. Mabel gives a slight nod, and he carries on, “First of all, it’s normal for first time users to be nervous about the results. Many people feel more comfortable once they’ve met someone who has been taking a steady dose of Amaranthine for many years, and can see the benefits with their own eyes,” he pauses again, this time to straighten a pen lying at the slightest angle, “I personally have been taking it for thirteen years now. I wish I had started sooner, honestly. If I hadn’t started it then, I would be nearing fifty right now and would look, and feel, much different.”
“So it doesn’t just change how you look on the outside?” Mabel leans forward, “You feel thirty five as well?”
“Yes, Amaranthine will completely cease aging both physically and mentally for as long as you keep it up. Think of it as a way of telling your brain to freeze a version of yourself in that exact moment in time. Mental, emotional, and physical development will come to a halt.”
Mabel pauses and glances around the room. She narrows her eyes on photos of patients hung up on a wall behind the doctor’s desk. The banner across the top reads ‘Happy, Healthy, Youthful’. The faces are all smiling down at Mabel, but there’s something unnatural to the untold expression hidden behind their eyes.
“But you don’t live forever, right?” Mabel asks, without taking her eyes off of the photos on the wall.
“No, human lifespan remains the same, even when you are Amaranthine. Most of our oldest users live out their full life and generally pass from old age, as they normally would. We tend to see people start taking it in their mid-twenties, and continue on well into their seventies and beyond.”
“So, I can stop taking it at any time?” This time she peels her eyes away from the wall and meets the doctor’s steady gaze.
“Yes,” Doctor Phillips reassures Mabel. “However if you stop taking the bi-yearly dose, your aging will resume, and we cannot guarantee the rate at which that happens. We have clinics set up across the country, so it’s very easy to up-keep the dosage. Any other questions?”
Mabel takes a moment to process the information. She swallows hard, trying to keep her nerves in check. “Yes just one - why do you call it Amaranthine?”
Without skipping a beat, the doctor answers, “Amaranthine means eternal, everlasting, infinite. We believe one day we will be able to extend human life well beyond what we have now,” He flashes Mabel another smile to try and mellow his icy voice, “But for today, the best we can do is delay the aging process.”
A silence falls between them. As Mabel begins to thank the doctor and stand up from her chair, he quickly starts writing something down.
“Let me write you a prescription for it. That way you don’t have to come back another time. You can go straight to the clinic that administers it when you’re ready to get started. Sound good?” He holds out the prescription towards Mabel.
Mabel forces out a weak smile, takes the slip of paper and a pamphlet he hands to her, and leaves.
A buzz-buzz in Mabel’s back pocket startles her as she waits for the bus to get home. Still lost in her thoughts, she pulls out her phone and checks the messages.
Alice: Dinner at Lavelle’s tonight? Heard the food is great. Cocktails even better!
Mabel chews on her lower lip. It has been awkward ever since her friends have been on Amaranthine for the last year, making Mabel the outsider of the group. She mulls it over on the bus ride home before responding.
Sound good, I’ll be there.
The restaurant is nearly overflowing with people. The dim mood lighting makes it hard for Mabel to spot her friends sitting in a booth near the back wall. She squeezes by the flocks of seated people, accidentally rubbing her elbows on strangers’ shoulders and back of necks as she passes by, muttering ‘excuse me’ and ‘so sorry about that’ under her breath. Mabel shimmies her way into the booth and lets out a sigh. She immediately starts twisting her ring again, her heart beating out of her chest.
Thirty minutes go by before Mabel musters up enough courage to mention her appointment. She waits for a break in the conversation, then blurts out, “I had an appointment at the clinic today to get some more information on Amaranthine,” Mabel avoids eye contact with her friends as the words come out of her mouth, pushing the lettuce leaves around on the plate with her fork.
Alice chimes in when the shock of Mabel’s statement lands. “Well, it’s about time! You’re twenty-nine now, and you don’t want to be turning the big three-oh next week, do you? You know they say that twenty-nine is the new thirty right? If I were you I would get it started as soon as possible. I don’t know what you’re waiting for at this point!”
The others at the table nod mechanically in agreement. Mabel already knew how her friends felt about Amaranthine, but she still feels disappointed with their responses tonight. Something about being in her twenties for the rest of her life doesn’t feel right to Mabel. She’s excited to grow up, to learn new things about herself and about life, and in her eyes, aging is a natural part of that.
She looks around the booth at her friends. “You’re not worried about the long term effects it could have?”
“It can’t possibly be worse than getting old. Imagine how much botox I would need to continue to look twenty-eight for the rest of my life!”
Laughter at the table fills Mabel’s ears, but she’s not finding anything about this conversation particularly amusing. “But what is so bad about looking your age?”
“If you want to go ahead and get wrinkly and grey, be my guest. I’ll be partying and looking amazing for the next forty years.” Alice raises her empty cocktail glass. “Another round of drinks?”
The night continues on, and her friends continue to try and convince Mabel that time is running out for her. Mabel finishes dinner feeling more conflicted than when she left the clinic that morning.
Mabel quietly opens the door to her home and tiptoes past the living room, but her grandmother is still awake, waiting for her.
“How was dinner, dear?” She asks Mabel.
Mabel collapses into the couch and rests her chin in her hands. “It was all right, I guess.”
Her grandmother sets her book down and adjusts herself in her lounge chair. She tilts her head slightly, gently eyeing Mabel in the moonlit room. “What’s wrong?”
Defeated and exhausted, Mabel caves. “My friends are pressuring me to take Amaranthine. I don’t understand why they are afraid of getting older.” Mabel can see her grandmother fighting to stay awake, her eyelids heavy when she blinks, “Anyways, I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I need to figure it out before I turn thirty, or else my friends might shun me.” Mabel scoffs, trying to hide how she truly feels about the situation.
“You know, my thirties were some of the greatest years of my life. I would never trade them for more years in my twenties. And honestly, I would say that about every decade of my life,” Mabel’s grandmother pauses, she looks at Mabel and sees her own life, reflected back at her, “Besides, with Amaranthine nowadays no one knows how old you truly are. So if age means nothing to anyone, why should you care if you turn thirty?”
Mabel’s grandmother is eighty-seven years old, and had not been on Amaranthine for a single day of her life. Mabel admires that about her grandmother, the way she seems to think that aging is a luxury in her life, and she is not bothered by what anyone else thinks of it. Mabel considers the words of her grandmother, but struggles to come to terms with them.
“I don’t want to be the only one of my friends left behind,” Mabel stops herself before she can say more, feeling as if the words got stuck in her throat.
“Mabel, why don’t you come with me to visit my friend Julie at Blue Haven Care tomorrow? I want to show you something.”
Mabel nods, wishes her grandmother goodnight, and heads off to bed.
Read next week to find out what Mabel does with her prescription for Amaranthine…