Day 3

After I woke up, I began to question how my dad lived like this. I felt like I was going to throw up every second, but only threw up like a third of the times I felt like it. I somehow managed to get up and chug a gallon of water. I would most definitely regret this later, but I didn’t feel like I had time to regret.

DING!

I got a message from my friend Jane. She was a bit younger than me, always reaching out to me before I could reach out to her. I barely texted first no matter who it was though.

「you wanna do anything today?」

I stared at this message for a bit. I, of course, needed to do something today. I couldn’t sit around like yesterday. Actually, I spoke to my dad yesterday, so I was pretty productive. Even if I only did one thing today, I would still be productive.

I thought about what I wanted to do. The immortality in 8 days was still the main thing on my mind. My dad wasn’t religious at all, and I never really had great experiences with religion when I was a kid, so I wasn’t really keen on speaking to anybody like that, except for Jane. But, now, I had a reason.

I needed to see the viewpoint of somebody with an opposite view of reality compared to the people I usually speak to.

I typed into my phone and sent a message.

「Can I go to church with you?」

She texted back faster than my brain could register.

「REALLY?! YOU WANT TO?! YOU?! SIRIUS PEGASI WANTS TO GO TO CHURCH WITH ME?!」

My expression softened with concern.

「It’s not that odd…」

「Jane has shared her location with you.」

She sent her location, and then sent another message, and another message, and another message.

「i have a lot to do today, so i won’t be able to be with you the entire time, but im really exci」

「ted」

「holy shit i cant spell」

「how do you spell exited?」

I sent a message back.

「Excited.」

I turned on silent mode, turned off my phone, got in my car and drove down to the location she sent. It was around 8 in the morning, I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and I drank 12 beers the night before, so I was a little terrified to drive, but it’s not like I had any other options, right?

That was a lie actually, I could’ve taken a uber, but it would’ve been incredibly embarrassing if I took an uber to church.

Since I wasn’t as drunk anymore, the thoughts I tried to chase away yesterday began to come back. I ignored them to the best of my ability.

I thought that, and yet I muttered under my breath anyway.

“…If I killed somebody who didn’t want to be immortal, I’d be saving them, wouldn’t I?”

I made it to Jane’s church after a bit. I hopped out of my car and walked towards the door. My head was still spinning a bit, so I couldn’t think straight. I was afraid I was gonna end up saying the wrong things to one of these people.

Jane spotted me almost instantly and frantically waved towards me in joy. She was rather short, and her hair was a boring brown. She had a cross necklace and a gray sweater on.

I walked towards her.

“SIRI! You came! I’ve gotta go, but you should go to confession right now, I- Wait! Here! Bye!”

She handed me a piece of paper with a step by step tutorial on how to do confession. She knew I wouldn’t have understood a word she said if she actually tried to explain it to me.

…

Two minutes later, I was sitting in a booth, a screen between me and the priest I was supposed to be speaking to. My eyes nervously shot down back to the paper as I did the sign of the cross, failing horrendously. I decided to skip past it and speak.

“B-Bless me father, for I have sinned. My last confession was… um… never, actually, I’m new here, sorry. A-Anyway.”

The priest wasn’t talking, which was making me a bit nervous. I thought they were supposed to help me, but they probably thought speaking to me wouldn’t help much. I spoke again.

“M-My sins… I drank 12 beers last night and drove here. This is all I can remember. I am sorry for this and all my sins.”

Without any hesitation in his voice, the priest spoke to me.

“Thank you for your confession. Your penance will be to help clean up trash in the community.”

What the fuck? Penance? This wasn’t a courtroom. I didn’t know about that. I didn’t even come here for confession either, I came here for questions. I spoke to the priest.

“A-Alright. Before I go, I want to talk to you about something.”

“Ask away, my child. But please, before you leave, I must absolve you.”

“Y-yeah. Alright. My question is… if all living beings on earth became immortal in 8 days, what would you do? Would you choose to survive, or would you choose to stay alive, and be immortal?”

He chuckled.

“Well, at first, it seems like a bit of an easy question. I would choose eternal life, just as all of God’s children would. There are two reasons. The first is that choosing to not live would be throwing a precious life away. We are all God’s creations, and an act of self-harm such as that is an insult to him. And, the second reason is that the eternal life would surely be Heaven if it happened. If one cannot die, their souls cannot go to either Heaven or Hell, so if God chose to make everybody immortal, it would be turning this earth into the kingdom of Heaven. It’s an interesting hypothetical, but it obviously wouldn’t be true.”

I spoke, my eyes wide and trembling as I responded.

“Why couldn’t it be Hell? And since nobody is dying, it couldn’t be Heaven either, right? So you wouldn’t be able to go to Heaven or Hell either way. It would just be your life now, but infinite.”

The priest coughed, and then responded.

“In this hypothetical, we wouldn’t know either way. It’s all speculative. I would like to believe that the eternal life presented here would be Heaven.”

It’s not. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not.

“It’s not Heaven. I’m telling you. In this example, it’s not Heaven. Please listen to me. Please.”

The priest laughed nervously.

“Well, then I’m not sure, haha. I’ll absolve you now, there must be other people waiting. You know what to say, right?”

I looked down, embarrassed, and began to speak.

“My God,

I am sorry for my sins with all my heart.

In choosing to do wrong

and failing to do good,

I have sinned against you…”

After a few words, my voice began to get quieter and quieter, and I think he couldn’t hear me by the halfway point.

The priest responded.

“God, the Father of Mercies,

through the death and resurrection of his Son,

has reconciled the world to himself

and sent the Holy Spirit among us

for the forgiveness of sins;

Through the ministry of the Church

may God give you pardon and peace,

and I absolve you from your sins

In the name of the Father, and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

“A-Amen.”

I got up and walked out of the booth as fast as I could. I walked past Jane, went back to my car, and drove back to my house.

When I got home, I plopped down on my bed, laid on my back and got a text from Jane.

「I heard your stomach hurt and you had to go home. Thoughts and prayers!!!!! Feel better xoxo」

I put my phone down.

All of the people in that church would choose to live forever. They aren’t allowed to kill themselves. They would surely suffer, never being able to go to Heaven if the supercomputer made them immortal. They would never have their salvation.

Somebody needed to do the job for them. They’d need to be saved by somebody else.

…I wasn’t going to kill them, obviously. But I felt horrible for them. There… there was nothing I could do, right…?

I wish I had more beer. But, I didn’t, so all I could do was sit and rot in a puddle of my own thoughts.