Diary of a Theologian

Theology has an interest in the arts and entertainments of culture; it is often there, in cultural form, that ideas become visible and we can see and feel them more clearly for what they are. This is the case, for instance, with the film Freud’s Last Session, currently in theaters, which poses questions about belief in God through an imagined encounter of Sigmund Freud and C. S. Lewis. I was glad last week when Bishop Sumner suggested we invite people to see it and talk afterwards. 

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Yours truly is always on the lookout for how people think about being human in our age of biotech, and some of the most interesting work was done long before we even had computers. Recently, “The End of Summer,” a short story by Algis Budrys from 1954, was recommended to me. Let me tell you about it.

The protagonist is Christopher Jordan Fay, nicknamed Kester, whom we meet as he disembarks from a long flight from Europe. He was the only passenger. Attached to his wrist is his memory vault which, we eventually learn, each night records on miniature, indestructible tape the events of the day past. He had refreshed his memory of his previous time in America during the flight. The agent at the gate in America is slow to let him through—he is the first passenger in a long time. How long? The agent says “in a hectoyear and a half.”

So there are a lot of things we don’t understand: different kinds of people, for instance; the agent is a Homebody; Kester is a Dilly. And there are other kinds. We gradually learn that people live very long lives—forever, in fact, if no accidents befall them. So just a few pages in it dawns on the reader that this is a story about being immortal.

The technology is vague, but it seems to have something to do with one’s bodily cells being restored every night. They are put back to where they were the day before. With this invention there is no more cancer, for instance, and also people simply do not age in appearance or anything else. That’s why the memories have to be stored; the process will take brain cells back to their condition on the previous day. This technology has been around for 10,000 years, and everyone is the same age as he or she was on the fateful day when it was implemented.

Kester figures out that he bears responsibility for all this.

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After getting past the gate agent, he takes possession of a car that has been provided him and starts driving south. He rapturously travels down empty highways at what everyone else thinks is an irresponsibly fast speed, 50 miles per hour. “The law of averages” is what others say, wagging their heads. The reader figures out that, if you drive in a way that introduces any risk to your life, then, given that you are going to live for thousands of years, at some point that risk will be actualized. Most people prefer to get around in safely-cushioned slow vehicles. Kester is odd.

And the law of averages happens. As he drives through what seems to be an unpopulated wooded area, a dog suddenly darts out and starts chasing his car. He tries to swerve, but fails to save the dog. A boy comes out, weeping. Although he has thousands of years’ experience, Kester cannot find appropriate words to say. The boy’s father appears. At the end the father says to Kester that he doesn’t need to worry so much about it. “I’ll edit the dog out of his memories tonight. My wife and I’ll clean the place up, and he won’t notice anything.” He also says they will probably cut it out of their own memory tapes too.

The body of the story is about Kester trying to get a dog for them, which is of course a very hard proposition. Can anything new happen? Finally, at the end, something new does happen: he acts surprisingly. As a result of his action, everyone will start to age again. “There [has] to be an end,” he says; if the wonderful, beautiful things of this world never complete, then nothing new can start. It is necessary “that others could come after.” 

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I do not know who recommended this story to me; if it was you, please let me know—my own memory vault is leaky! Budrys plays out a short story where nearly every detail reveals yet another conundrum contained in the desire to live forever. Theology teaches us that for sinful human beings, death is a necessary blessing. Here is a story where our imaginations are opened to that truth.

It’s apparently widely available; I found it in Writers’ Choice, vol. 2, ed. Stanley Schmidt, Davis Publications, 1984. The book says of itself: “more top writers’ own favorites from the leading magazine of science fiction.” So, 30 years after he wrote it this story was still a favorite of its author. One sees why. Writer’s Choice, vol. 2 is in the Dallas Public Library.

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Out & About. The next Good Books & Good Talk seminar will be on The BFG by Roald Dahl, on Sunday, February 11. We will meet at 5pm at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas; everyone who reads the book is welcome.

On the web. An essay by yours truly was recently published online as part of the Living Church’s “Covenant” blog: “Children and the Public Interconnectedness of Marriage” https://covenant.livingchurch.org/2024/01/18/children-and-the-public-interconnectedness-of-marriage/