Aging

We all grow old in different ways. Let me tell you my own experience.

I started out life as an infant, with ten toes and ten fingers. I suppose I was typecast as a writer from the very beginning, because I had a hard time talking to people. Anyway, then I grew older. Entering adolescence was not fun: I grew hair and had hormones. Next I reached adulthood, which is extremely old. I lost all my hair, and my skull turned gray. 

Then I reached the milestone age of 100. I kept creeping under death and successfully dodging it. My skin and teeth were now wrinkled, and my posture was bad. These things grieved me, but I kept going until I turned fifty thousand years old. That’s a long time to be alive, if you think about it. At this point, I was deceased. I got down onto my knees and became grizzled and dying. Then came my ninety-billion-year anniversary. I’m now hard of hearing, and my teeth are even falser than they were earlier. My brain has rotted to the core. 

Fast forward a bit, and now I’m celebrating my next big birthday: each candle on my cake represents another year that I’ve lived — I’m now a googolplex. There’s little left of me: I’m just a head with a bit of spine hanging out. They got me hooked up to a life support machine, by a cord that is annoyingly short. 

Eventually I reach the same age as God. I mean the True God, not the God of Religion — the True God is much older. 

Long ago, I surpassed my own parents in age. You can tell I’ve been around for a while, because of my appearance. I’m a handful of dust, buoyed up by the wind. But now the unthinkable has occurred: I’m even older than myself. I feel great, tho; and the doctor says that I’m in perfect health, for a man of my size. I am presently a molecule. That’s small, I know. My official age is now listed as “Negative Time Zone”, I’m not sure why. In this stage, all my bones develop weakness. My hair is all powdery, and I am wise and ancient. I’m the tiniest atom, with beady little eyes behind my thick glasses. I’ve arguably been around longer than The Rolling Stones rock band. Even naysayers must admit: that’s pretty old — I could be the Geezer Gig of the Week, if I still did live tours.