The other half - John Jones (best free e book reader .txt) 📗

the one who owned the golf club whose meetings rooms they met in each week, eighty-four year-old George Laurence, decided enough was enough. He needed to know, and because he was the eldest member, and took several tablets every day, and always had in his diary a doctors or hospital appointment, he thought he would find out whether or not he was immortal.

 

So, at one meeting, with all members present, George persuaded somebody to shoot him in the chest.

 

They were very reluctant at first, but George thought that if he shot himself in the head, and he was immortal, he would have to live for eternity with half a head. At least if he shot himself in the heart, and he came back, that would guarantee it had worked.

 

So with much debate and musings, the time came. He said his goodbyes to them all in case he didn’t come back, and all raised a glass to him.

 

They sat in a circle with George in the middle having taken off his blazer and opening his white shirt. A housing and policy development officer pressed the barrel of a Colt .38 to his chest where he guessed the heart was located, right against his sternum, and pulled the trigger, sending him crashing back from the wooden chair he was sat on.

 

He had lain, sprawled on his back, unmoving, a bloody hole in his chest, an even bigger one on the exit wound, his heart practically having disintegrated, lying in increasing wet crimson.

 

For a while, there was silence. They all secretly guessed that he had gone, and wasn’t coming back.

 

Until he slowly raised his head and smiled.

 

Of all the experiments and rituals they had performed over the years, none of them knew which one had worked, which one had given them the opportunity to be immortal, and they all knew there was one task left to do before they embraced immortality.

 

They had to die.

 

In order to come back as normal as possible, without any blemishes they needed to commit suicide without leaving any marks, so decided on strangulation. At least those marks were not immediately obvious, and they didn’t know if they would remain or heal.

 

So they fashioned a noose, and took it in turns to hang themselves, and the nameless secret society continued to meet.

 

For three years, Quincy had been immortal, and had not aged a second, so now Sandra had thought she had killed and buried him, but here he was, white, gaunt, dishevelled, smeared with soil, bits of which, as well as blood, had trailed behind him, and his upper-half crawled across the bed to a wide-eyed Sandra who was about to scream. He reached out his hand towards her and said in a rasping whisper:

“Help me”.

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Publication Date: 03-11-2022

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