The Resident (part twenty-three)

Chapter Three

Tithonians

Now Gemma Quill was in his kitchen. Other voices were Des and Wiss, and the one who’d come to his party…

Deb, Gemma supplied, whispering did she want anything from the fridge?

“No. I feel stuffed. But actually, carrot sticks.”

“Des, are there carrot sticks?”

“If there were, what would I have thought I was buying?”

“Um… Hmm. Oh, here! Baby-cut carrots.”

A shuffle. Des again: “Workmanship not bad. I’d call them more embryonic.”

“Please.”

These people, John thought, ought to be likeable. Himself, as a human being, ought to be attracted to kindness and humor. He wished to be alone in his house.

“So,” Gemma said, “the myth of Tithonus. The civilization, of various city-states united by a language called in English Greek, that occupied a peninsular landmass of the southern European continent, produced what were considered foundational texts for a traditional education, as taught to males for some centuries; eventually females, before educational theory began to incorporate the sciences, and students were expected to choose professional majors. The Greek language and alphabet; also Latin, the Roman language…”

“Gemma. I know the myth of Tithonus. And no one speaks that carefully of the WM canon in 2018.”

“Well. We listers never know what part of history a given subject has been trained on.” And, mildly peeved: “I’m fine skipping ahead.”

“No story? I want a story.”

“Wiss, you certainly know this one… Are you pouting?”

“A goddess,” Deb said, “of the dawn, I think. Named…”

“Eos.”

“Eos, thanks, Des. She fell in love with a mortal prince, and she asked Zeus to grant him immortality so they could be together forever. But she didn’t ask for eternal youth, and so Tithonus aged and aged, until finally they turned him into a cicada.”

“Why was Zeus such a bitch? And what’s a cicada?”

“A, corporate mentality. B, an insect.”

Gemma said, “We got better at tweaking genes. We were able to stop the worst of planet sickness. The cause being that plant senescence is not the same as human senescence. The plants we used were those revitalized when cut to the roots; they had that capacity for immortality. In a loose sense, but lifespans far greater than normal were achieved. During the millennium after the cataclysm our goal had been only to preserve the animal species…elephants, let’s say. Eight elephants—not a ballpark figure, we found eight—could perhaps double their population before their time was up. While eight elephants whose time never was up, could, in a thousand years, restore the elephant to planet Earth. But as you may guess, humans coveted Tithonian genes, too. Hence Dr. Wissary and all I’ve told already.”

36

Tithonians

The Resident (part twenty-four)

(2022, Stephanie Foster)