I just stared, unfortunately, trying to comprehend. It should not have been that hard. I felt bad about it, once I had absorbed what he was saying.

“Yeah, I don’t look much like you, I know,” he said, still with the smile. “One of your grands married into a Korean family. Obviously. My name’s Tae-Gun Kim.”

“I – come in.”

We sat down on the two chairs I had. I started up, then, remembering my manners.

“So, Tae-Gun, it is.”

“Yes.”

“Can I get you a – I don’t even know what it is, some sort of fruity drink thing they put in my fridge – I think it may be carbonated? And it may also have some narcotics in it? I haven’t tried one.”

He laughed.

“Probably a Sarsa. No, no narcotics in that. But I’m fine, thanks.”

“Pardon my gaping,” I said. “I didn’t expect to meet any descendents. I guess my daughter must have had children of her own, eventually.”

“Araceli, yes.”

I started. “You know that name?”

“Well, they told me. The people at the bureau. My times-six great grandmother.”

“Did they? And they told you I was back, too? I didn’t realize they were actually doing that much.”

“Yeah, well, the bureau people work when yih least expect it.” He smiled, again.

“Oh, I don’t mean to criticize them,” I said. “They just looked so busy. It didn’t seem like they would have time to do much more than find me this place. There are so many people returning. But they let you know I was back?”

“Yeah, they let me know you were up and about, just yesterday. They do track down family, when they can.”

“You live around here? Did you have to come far? I don’t even know how I wound up in Toronto. I was from Virginia, as best I can remember.”

“Yeah, we live here. Me, and I have a brother here. They did have you down in the States, I mean in your case, for most of these years, but they transferred it up here when they knew they were going to bring you back. They did that months ago, but didn’t tell us until just yesterday.”

“Not until yesterday?”

He nodded.

“Had you known at all that I was out there? In stasis?”

“No, I’m afraid not. I suppose some other grandfather or grandmother – who knows how far back – assumed you would not return for a long, long time, and just never told anyone else.”

“How long does it take to forget, and who’s the last one to remember,” I said, basically to myself.

“What’s that?”

“Just – I ponder, often, how history forgets things. Not that I was very memorable myself, I’m sure.”

“Well, someone remembered you, right? That’s why they called me.”

When I looked at him, I did not feel I was looking at myself. I knew, academically, that for a descendant this far removed from me, my DNA would be so diluted that it would be extremely unlikely there would be any resemblance, even had he been white rather than Korean. But I couldn’t help look for something – a jaw line, a gesture, an expression – that would remind me of what I saw in the mirror, or in my parents or aunts and uncles. But there was just nothing there. He was just a nice-looking young man of obvious Korean heritage, nothing more.

He did make me wonder what my son would have looked like, had Jen and I had one. I found myself looking at his shoulders, especially; somehow it was shoulders like my own that I pictured in my hypothetical son, more so than a certain face or stature.

Araceli had come along quickly, actually conceived before Jen and I were married, but then we couldn’t get pregnant again. We hadn’t exactly planned to have a child that soon, but as the years passed we were glad that we did; referring to Araceli a few times – not in front of her – as our apparent “just under the wire” offspring.

“Well,” I told him, “thanks for coming by. Nice place to be, I mean for me at least. I had never traveled to Canada, before.”

“Some way to visit.”

“Indeed. Anyway I’ve walked around a bit. Seems nice. Not sure I’ll love the winter, once it starts.”

“It’s not so bad. Of course, I grew up here though. Yih’re so much better off than most of these folks who have come back, yih know. I think so, anyway.”

“Because they’re older?”

“That’s right. This putting down – what?”

He had seen me flinch at that.

“That term, for this,” I told him. “I’m surprised it was taken up. I don’t think they could have called it that when they did it to me.”

“Why not?”

“It’s what we said for . . . euthanizing animals.”

“Eh, is that right. Put down? Well that’s pretty bad, isn’t it? At any rate, this, uh, process here was done more with the very aged, in most cases.”

“So why are so many coming out now? That’s something I’ve been wondering about. And some other people in this building, too. I mean other revived people I’ve spoken with. No one has told us why.”

“Well, we should be clear there are still many who are not coming out. As yih must have seen in the storage.”

“I did, yes. Stacks of those cases.”

“But yes, we have an influx. We’ve made some advances, so we’re able to bring some people out.”

“So it worked, for them.”

“Well, perhaps. They won’t be immortal. We’re just curing more things, but we’re not living particularly longer. So would it have mattered to them? They may have bought themselves ten more years before they get the next disease, the next thing, whatever it is. But does that really make so much of a difference to someone who has lived ninety, a hundred, hundred and ten years?”

“That’s the lifespan, these days?”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

He nodded.

“Perhaps we should have left everyone in their cases until we, or whoever it is, further down the line, can promise them immortality. Or at least a much longer lifespan. Longer than a tortoise, let’s say, or a sturgeon. Who knows. It’s a debate that’s raging right now, yih know.”

“I didn’t. But – still, why are they bringing back so many people now?”

“Well, there have been some advances in science, medicine, you know. People realizing we could bring back many of you. Cell therapy, damage reversal, whatnot.”

“I’m surprised it’s taken this long. Back when I was alive, the first time around, things were advancing leaps and bounds. A lot of people thought aging would be reversed within that century.”

“Well . . . there have been amazing advances. Along the lines of what you were expecting, it sounds like. I have to say.” He had slowed down his speech, choosing his words, and now he grimaced.

“What do you mean?” I asked him. “What’s the problem?”

“Well, actually,” he resumed, “a lot of you could have been brought back some time ago. The technology has been around for a while. Some decades. But bringing all of you back sort of became a political question.”

“How so?”

“Just, you know, how to integrate so many people at once. And if we weren’t going to bring all of you back at the same time, well then, how to choose. So – honestly, you might have been able to come back forty, fifty years ago. Maybe even more. We don’t know how you all will feel about this.” He seemed truly concerned.

I shrugged. “That doesn’t really matter. Jennifer and Araceli were already long gone. I mean, right? You’re not talking that far back, are you?”

“Oh no, no, you’re right about that. This was long after Araceli had passed. But still, you’ve missed out on the last several decades.”

I shrugged again.

“Well, I don’t know what I missed. Literally. Was it – some golden age or something?”

He smiled.

“What, Great Grandfather, you don’t think it’s a golden age now?”

“Could be, I suppose. But I have to admit – I thought a golden age would be more exciting than what I’ve seen so far. Some, I don’t know, some Twenty-Third Century version of Belle Epoque Paris, something like that.”

“No, no. We’re still just Toronto, I’m afraid. But seriously – I don’t know, we’ve had our ups and downs. Now is as good a time as any to come back, if you ask me.”

“That sounds good. I’m glad to be back. But listen – I’ve found it’s hard to talk to the local people here. At any length at all, I mean. Not to the other revived people, but the ones, you know, from this time. In my first life I could – keep a conversation going, you know, but now it’s like pulling teeth.”

“Pulling teeth,” he repeated.

“Difficult. You know.”

He laughed. “I know. We don’t pull teeth anymore, though, so that’s a really old expression. But yih’re right, of course; there are just so many people coming back, that the novelty wore off some time ago. You’re one of the oldest ones, if not the oldest, but people don’t know that of course. But for most of the returned, the huge majority – ‘Okay, you’re another seventy-year-old cancer patient who nearly died a hundred years ago.’ And they’ve been coming back for some time, now. The novelty is off.”

“I see. Well, I can understand, then.

“And there’s just so many of you. For many years, yih know, decades, everyone with a terminal disease was opting to be put into stasis. It added up.

“You know,” he continued, “what I can’t help thinking about: how many little nuclear generators are out there between all those cases? They’re being disposed of properly, supposedly, but you have to wonder.”

“That’s what powers them? Powered mine?”

“That’s right.”

“Hey, speaking of something else going on with these: what are these files I’ve heard people talk about several times? Running files? People seem surprised that I don’t have one. And these files seem to help clear a path, if you have one, but I don’t see how much good any more old paperwork would do.”

“They’re investment accounts, bank accounts,” Tae Gun said. “Many people who were put down – I mean, placed into stasis – set up accounts for themselves to have when they were brought back. With a hundred years or more of interest, many of them are very well set now even if they didn’t start with much.”

“The accounts all held up?”

“Most of them. They had ups and downs along the way, of course, but this is truly investing for the long term. Set it and forget it.”

“Well, I don’t have one. I’ll need to work.”

He shrugged. “Not really. They’ll deliver food to you and let you stay in this apartment for as long as you want.”

“Really? We can all just – be on the dole?”

He nodded. “Although – as I mentioned, for a lot of these people coming back, honestly they won’t be on it very long. These folks who are a lot older than you, I mean.”

“Hmm. Well, I still need to do something. I can’t just sit around. What do you do?”

“I work for government. The water office.”

“Just – the water utility, you mean?”

“Yep. Monitoring quality, quality controls, that sort of thing.”

“That’s excellent. You must feel useful. I’m still waiting for them to tell me what I can do.”

“You were an archaeologist?”

“That’s right. Still am, I guess. Just with a very large hole in my work history, now. It will be an interesting resume.”

“We still have archaeologists, but it’s not easy to find work in that field.”

“Oh, I’m sure. It wasn’t easy in my first life, either. But regardless I just have to wait and see what they come up with.”

He shook his head. “You don’t really need to wait.”

“Is that right?”

“I mean, you can, and they’ll come up with something eventually. It might possibly be in your field, you never know. But you can just start working. So, I actually know someone who works at the city stadium, and she says there’s a spot there she could get for you. It’s just two or three times a week, but that’s something.”

“The stadium?”

“Yes.”

“What sorts of sports do they play there, these days?”

“Soccer, and hurling, and disc.”

“Disc?”

“It’s descended from what you called ultimate frisbee. It’s just ushering, but, you know, it’s fun.”

“So there are still spectator sports.”

“Oh yes. Bread and circuses are still with us.” He smiled. Actually I’m not sure if he ever stopped smiling.

“So, I need to go, Great Greatfather,” he said.

“You can really call me Perry,” I said. “Grandfather sounds strange. And I’m not sure if I’m even ten years older than you, going by years awake.”

“Well, okay then. Perry. I’ll have my friend call you. Her name is Constance.”

“How will she call?”

“What, you mean you haven’t received any calls yet?”

“No. Just those postcard things from the bureau.”

“Really? It will be a light in front of you, a pale light. Just say hello when it appears. You just talk. If you want to see each other, you can turn on sight.”

“How do I do that?”

“You just say ‘Turn on sight.’ I suppose you were used to pressing buttons, eh?”

“I was, yes.”

“This is very intuitive. You won’t have any problems.”

He stood up then. As he did so, first placing his right hand on his knee, I saw the silver ring he wore on his right ring finger. Actually, I knew it was white gold.

“Tae-Gun. That ring.”

“What, this?”

“That’s mine. I mean it was mine. Past tense. My wedding ring.”

He lifted up that hand. It was definitely it: It had an engraved pattern of tiny ripples, like what you would see looking over an ocean or a lake.

“Really?” he said. “You and – Jennifer?”

“That’s right.”

“I had no idea. It came down through the family. I liked it, so I wear it. I didn’t know the story behind it, just that it had been in the family.”

“That’s definitely the one,” I said. “It’s – fairly unique. Was in my day, at least.”

“Definitely is. That’s why I liked it. Reminds me of Lake Ontario out here.”

“You wear it on your right hand?”

“Yes, for the time being at least. No wife yet. Do you want it back?” He made to take it off.

“No, no. You go ahead and keep it. I’m so glad it’s still around. I was annoyed actually that it didn’t come along with me in that case. Maybe they thought it would have corroded. But here it is.”