July 2042.

By the waning light of the evening she stood with her feet making whorls in the hot sand and her face pressed up to the dark sky and squinting against the narrow sun on the horizon waiting for Irene to come back from the tuckshop way back along the beachfront. The air had come in cool in the long days of summer, long trails of wind peppering the copper dusk. Somewhere in the open night an owl hooted. The sky had gone a dim purple and there in the pockets of the constellations the stars in their faint tangled fates glimmered oblique and very white. Here the holes in the roof of the world looked like windows to another place, another time. Seulgi bent down and held a palm to the coarse sand and felt it run between her fingers as if it were alive. As if she could feel it move, yearn to be something more. A soft foam had washed up from the silent lapping waves and she made a circle in the sand and a shape within this shape like the makings of some extant hieroglyph that come the end of the day no man would ever see or know again, consumed entirely by the tireless pursuit of the shore. She made another circle in the middle of these like a diagram and erased it and drew again. With her other hand she took a palmful of sand, rough and filled with bits of stone, bits of debris from the sea left behind. She let it fall between her hands and she tried for a moment to count each mote of it, each individual nodule there in that momentary gap. There existed in the sand as in all things some eternal communion or coda without words as to address the natural order of the world, of all of it. And of that which inhabits it. As if in that pact the delineation of man’s standing is in such a way as to never be known by any man, for what can man truly know of himself? And where he belongs. Of his place in this as in all things. But as she sat there crouched with the sand running between her fingers she thought she was not of this tribe nor of any tribe because in all men exists a commonality that can never be traded or refused or denied and it is death, the end of all men, all things. And she and she alone was removed from that sacred bond. She held in more stead the trees, the sand between her fingers, under her feet, the current of the sea, the rhythm of the world all around her. And it was a thing that hummed of great mystery and untold sadness.

Irene came back with two icecream cones and gave one to Seulgi and they walked along the beach taking of them idly. She was wearing a dark jumper and a pair of old jeans and had her hair done up in a neat ponytail and when they had finished with their icecreams they stood side by side solitary and desolate in the vast area of that place gazing out at the crimson cusp of the visible world in silence. A flock of seagulls went soaring overhead. Out of the coming dark they could see the stars more clearly now and the shape of the moon like a great hook in the blue and thin darkness. ‘I was watching the news earlier,’ Irene said. ‘When you were out.’

‘Yeah?’

‘They said something about a new cure being found for brain cancer. Apparently it was something they’d tested on human patients with almost a hundred percent success rate. They said it didn’t treat all types obviously, and not patients who were on death’s door, but it worked on others. I can’t remember the technical stuff they said about it. But it gets you thinking. It got me thinking.’

‘About what?’

‘I don’t know. Just about things.’

Seulgi looked at her. ‘Say it,’ she said.

‘Say what?’

‘Whatever it is you want to say.’

‘Well,’ Irene said.

‘Well go on then.’

‘I don’t know. It just got me thinking about you, is all. Maybe they could find something.’

‘Something for immortality.’

‘Right.’

‘Why would they even be looking?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t think that far ahead. I just got thinking like I do.’

Seulgi didn’t respond. She just looked at Irene for a long time. In the last whimpers of bronze light her face looked suitably tired and old. The lines around her eyes had become more pronounced, the shape of her nose changed in such a subtle way as to not notice it much at all, the curve of harder, her skin creased with a myriad of winkles. And there were thin wisps of grey in her black hair, at her temples and high on top and some in her ponytail around the back too. They had not been there long. ‘I’m sorry,’ Seulgi said.

‘For what?’

‘That came out a bit strong.’

‘It’s alright.’ Irene smiled softly. They watched the sun until it was gone and they stood for an hour more and they savoured the peace of the moon out of its hollow shell. They listened to the alien hum of the sea waves and when it came nipping cold at their sandaled feet they went on back up to the slopes and along the walkfront to the café. Only a handful of customers shared the quiet with them and it was dimly lit and cool. They sat out watching the moonshimmer distend on the water face and they ordered coffee and cake and ate in silence, a comfortable, often silence. Inside the radio played a tune they didn’t know. When Irene looked up Seulgi was looking back at her and had been for a long time. ‘What?’ she said.

‘Are you okay?’

‘What?’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah,’ said Irene. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘I don’t know. I was just asking.’

‘Are you feeling alright?’

Seulgi nodded. She had a finger on the edge of her coffeecup and she picked it up and drank until it was empty and stretched and turned out to where in the postlight terminus of the world the sun’s scarlet maw leaked over the distant land. ‘What?’ Irene said. ‘You’re thinking of saying something, I know it. I know you too well.’

Seulgi turned back to her again. ‘Do you ever think about what happens after we die?’ she said.

‘What? Where’s this come from all of a sudden?’

‘I don’t know. It was just something. Do you?’

‘Not really. Why? Do you?’

Seulgi pushed her cup across the table. ‘Sometimes,’ she said. ‘I sometimes get these thoughts about what might be there. About what might be on the other side. You know, I’ve never been religious or anything. Not in all the time I’ve been alive. Never really been spiritual either. But I often think. Think maybe it’d be better to be like that. To believe in something. In something after something. Maybe it’d be a consolation of sorts, like something to hold onto no matter what, you know? Don’t worry. That sort of thing. There’s always that thing waiting for us on the other side of life, wherever that is, wherever it takes us. I sometimes wish I could believe in something like that. I really do.’

‘Well,’ Irene said. ‘I don’t know about that.’

‘Because you’ve never been religious either?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. I just tend not to think about it often. I try not to.’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why don’t you think about it.’

Irene folded her arms on the table. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t think it’s because of ignorance or anything. I don’t choose to purposely ignore it. I just think of it differently, is all.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t want to dwell on death or what comes after we’re dead because I don’t believe there’s any use for it, practical or spiritual or otherwise. Because once you’re dead you’re dead. That’s it. You can’t change it. You can’t remove yourself from death. You can’t deny yourself whatever comes next, if anything comes next at all. You just can’t. So, what use is dwelling on it? On devoting time to something forever out of your control? I read something a long time ago that I quite liked the sound of and I thought it was relevant. I think I read it in a novel somewhere, can’t remember. Maybe a magazine.’

‘What was it?’

‘That life is a lot like a holiday. Something like that. Can’t remember exactly.’

‘How so?’

‘Well. When you’re on holiday, you spend time thinking about that holiday. About what you’re doing, what you want to do, the times you’re enjoying. Things like that. You don’t spend time thinking about what you’ll do when you get home, or what’s waiting for you there. Or at least you shouldn’t. Because it ruins the mood. There’s no point in it. Home is home. It isn’t going anywhere. It’s static, it’s there for you at the end of your travels. Your choices, your conscious thoughts while you’re on holiday – they don’t affect what happens once you go home at all. Or they won’t. So what’s the use in that? The more time you spend worrying about home or thinking about something other than the moment you’re in on that holiday, the less time you have to savour it, to properly take it in and enjoy it. And you end up ruining your time then. I think life is much like that, in a way. That’s what the story was getting at. That’s what I liked the sound of. That whatever comes at the end of your life, or beyond it, or whatever, is your home, so to speak. That your life is a journey, and when you’re on that journey it should be all you think of. All you worry about. What comes next, comes next. There’s no changing that. If you don’t live for today, you’ll regret yesterday.’

Seulgi smiled.

‘Why?’ Irene said. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well.’

‘Well.’

‘Well what do you think?’

‘About what?’

‘About life. Death. You said you thought it’d be easier to take if you were spiritual. If you had something to believe in.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why can’t you?’

‘Why can’t I what?’

‘You said you wished for it. For something to believe in. Why can’t you?’

Seulgi was quiet for a long time.

‘Seulgi?’

‘There’s this statue,’ Seulgi said. Her voice in that space was very quiet, very small. Almost not there. ‘It’s a statue in Cleveland. A war memorial, to the fallen soldiers of the second World War. It’s called the Fountain of Eternal Life. That’s the official name for it anyway. It’s a beautiful piece. I got reading about it a couple years ago, just out of the blue. Can’t even remember why. It’s the image of a man reaching up to God, reaching out his hand for something in the sky. It’s very striking. I think you’d agree if you saw it. And I remember the inscription at the base of it, I remember reading it in this article. And it always stuck with me. Still to this day I remember it. It said – it says – that the figure represents mankind rising out of the destructive elements of life. That it symbolises man reaching for eternal peace, for a new and better understanding of life. Or of life after life. A sort of celebration of everything, of man rising above death. It said that. It said: of man rising above death, reaching upward to his God, and toward peace. Rising above death.

‘I thought it was kind of a piece on immortality, in a way. I thought it was relevant. It’s a memorial to those of the past but it’s also something else, something more. On a more abstract scale, it’s a celebration of some sort of life forever. It says that. Says eternal peace. Eternal life and peace found in God. That’s what it is. And I still remember it to this day for that reason. It’s not a world-famous statue or anything like that. You could ask a thousand people on the street and I doubt you’d get one response of recognition, but I remember it. Because I read it maybe fifteen or twenty times and it stuck with me because I thought it was just wrong. It was so wrong. I don’t know if that’s why I can’t believe in anything or if it played a part in reinforcing that idea but I just thought the entire message of that statue was wrong, on a sort of level I can’t really describe. Because as a tribute to those now gone, it’s beautiful. But as a tribute to eternal life? To God’s blessing of youth forever? Of that? I can’t stand by it.’

‘Why not?’ Irene said.

‘Because I don’t believe in that,’ said Seulgi. ‘I don’t know if I believe in God or not but I don’t think I believe in that version of Him. I never could. That idea of his blessing of some life infinite, life eternal.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I can’t understand it like that. Eternal life? That’s not God. I don’t think God would wish that evil on anyone in the world. I don’t think he ever would.’

*  *  *

It was a cold day in the end of that year and she sat crosslegged on the couch waiting with a smile on her face for Irene to come back from the other room. She said she had something with her, something special. When she came back in a minute later she was carrying a box under her arm and she set it down on the table and opened it up. There was a cake inside, a spongecake with white icing and chocolate fondant decorated around the rim and over the sides in a sort of gothic patternwork of confectionery. ‘What’s this?’ Seulgi said.

‘Surprise.’ Irene pushed the box away and slid the cake carefully on its plastic base across the table and with a smile she said, ‘I thought about getting one with numbers on it but they said they didn’t do cakes for people who are turning one hundred. I can’t ever imagine why. I thought maybe it was a bit discriminatory.’

‘You didn’t have to get me a cake, you know.’

‘I didn’t know what else to get you. I thought about what I’d get my grandma if she lived to a hundred and I thought you probably wouldn’t appreciate that. So, a cake.’

Seulgi smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said, leaning in and kissing Irene gently. ‘I’m not saying I like to be reminded of it, but thank you.’

‘It’s a big event,’ said Irene. ‘A big number. I think it’s pretty rare people get to say they’re a hundred years old.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You don’t like it.’

‘I do.’

‘You don’t. I know.’

‘Irene. It’s fine. Thank you.’

She held a hand up to Irene’s face and Irene smiled. There she looked so fragile, so unbearably different. And in truth she was. She felt the hard skin of Irene’s face against her palm and she looked at the cake and back at her and she said, in a small voice, ‘Seriously. Thank you.’

‘A hundred,’ Irene said. ‘You’re getting old now. Real old.’

Seulgi didn’t say anything. She just sat there in the cold and lightless dark with her hands folded in her lap and she said to herself I wish. Oh God. Please. I wish I was. I really do. I wish I could die.