The younger generations would at this point go on their phones to tap away the time until it was their turn to be serviced. Getting lost in my thoughts as I pondered Quint's words was more than enough for me.

  I can only imagine the upheaval the Sensates' arrival caused in the world at large. It all happened so fast and while I was deep in mourning. The only thing I felt about this alien business back then was resentment. Resentment for them not arriving just a tad earlier to give Mary the opportunity to fix the heart defect she didn't know she had.

  This resentment is perhaps why it took so long for me to avail myself of revitalization services. What was the point in living so long when I had no one to share the days with? Cooper the neighbor also didn't help. He maintained that the aliens were shifty and there had to have been a catch to their generosity. If something seems too good to be true, it usually is, he liked to say.

  While I didn't quite share Cooper's longing for the truth that was out there, he had a point. The Sensates objected to there being any cost to revitalization and insisted it was made available to anyone completely free of charge or inconvenience.

  The likes of Quint and their endless conspiracies about how the Sensates were either a ploy to control the population or an unholy perversion of the natural order muddied the waters even further.

  Then weeks, months, and finally years went by. I found myself living in a world that would be considered unrealistic in any but the most cloyingly uplifting story.

  Eventually even Cooper admitted he may have been hasty with his judgment and dashed to get revitalized. He came in as a pudgy glasses-wearing slob and came out a few hours later resembling, as he himself put it, a gigachad.

  That was when Billy Joel, looking like he did back in the '70s but taller, announced his new album. It was to be one of many.

  Mary would've loved to hear it. Only she wasn't here. Looking out the window at a world I no longer recognized, I was the only thing connecting this strange new place to the memory of my wife. There was no way I was throwing in the towel now. No matter what anyone said.

  This bout of reminiscence allowed me to pass the time until my number appeared on the narrow display right below the ceiling. The number was accompanied by an arrow. A series of similar displays guided me to a nearby room on the second floor.

  The room was dominated by a capsule with a sliding door and a lattice of tubes encasing its rear end. Illuminated sections near its top and bottom pulsed with a steady rhythm of different shades of purple.

  There was also a desk and a nurse sitting behind it. When she got up to greet me, I was happy that at my age I wasn't that easily excited. Working at the clinic, the nurse had easy access to a revitalization machine as well as a lot of practice using it. This allowed her to perfect her appearance.

  Now that she had, she wasn't about to obscure it with baggy scrubs. She was closer to the kind of nurse you'd find at a Halloween party with a very loose dress code.

  The nurse looked me up and down like she was about to give me the enema of the state, then changed her expression to an empty smile.

  "Buck DiGriz, right?" she said upon consulting with a computer on her desk.

  "Last time I checked."

  "What took you so long to come see us?" the nurse asked. My natural appearance clearly didn't meet her standard for looks worthy of preserving.

  I told her about my desire to keep following Billy Joel's renewed career. She didn't know who that was.

  The nurse then ran me through the particulars of the procedure. And either she didn't quite understand the inner workings of revitalization herself or I was too far behind in my technical literacy, but her explanation passed through me without leaving a lasting mark.

  I only snapped out of my sudden drowsy spell when the nurse cleared her throat. Coming from her, that sounded melodious.

  "Here's how this is going to go," she then said. "It's a three-stage process. First, we deal with whatever maladies you might have. Then, we restore your vigor. And finally, once that's all taken care of, you tell me how you'd like to look, and we'll try to get you there. Unless you're very particular about your appearance, this shouldn't take longer than half an hour in all."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Half an hour. Merely half an hour between curing every disease known and not known to man, and dying from an untreated heart defect. I shook my head.

  The nurse interpreted the movement in her own way. "Nothing to be afraid of, Mr. DiGriz. You won't feel a thing. Please step inside the machine and we'll get started."

  I didn't need to undress to use the machine, but I did have to leave the cane behind. According to the nurse, such a distinct foreign object would interfere with the process. I put the cane on the windowsill, looked down at the street below, then entered the chamber.

  The nurse slid the door closed. It clicked behind me, submerging me in total darkness. Before my eyes could acclimate to this new environment, a soft buzzing noise surrounded me. Then came the colors. Or rather one color in many hues. It was like this rich purple tinted with an otherworldly opalescence. The light show didn't help me see any better inside the chamber, and if I closed my eyes, it was still there. The color was streaming right into my brain, bypassing my vision altogether.

  After what felt like an eternity, but could just as easily have been mere minutes, the light faded and the machine's door opened. I stepped outside as a reflex. This first unsure step was steadied by the nurse who caught me and gave me a glass of water. My whole body tingled, like I was one giant limb that had fallen asleep.

  By the time I finished drinking, the tingling stopped. First thing I noticed was how crisp everything looked. I've always been proud of my vision and not needing glasses at my age. Looking around that room made me realize I'd been deluding myself.

  Having come to terms with that, I stopped to listen to my body for a second only to hear total silence. Nothing ached or throbbed. All the niggling injuries I'd learned to tune out weren't there. What was there was the feeling of blood flowing to the nether regions in response to the low cut of the nurse's uniform.

  Catching my glance, she responded with a knowing grin and ushered me back into the machine.

  "You just wait and see what's coming," she said before closing the door.

  I came into the clinic with a healthy dose of skepticism that was only bolstered by Quint's preaching. Feeling the results of revitalization, even if it was only the first stage of it, pumped me full of anticipation. Humans are great at adapting and getting used to discomfort. But if all that discomfort you've accumulated over the years suddenly disappears and you can once again experience life on the easy mode of youth, it's hard to stay bitter.

  As the purplish hues swirled around me, I was beginning to understand those people outside who wanted the new them to be absolutely perfect.

  The machine's doors opened again, only this time the purple haze remained. It was swirling all around me. Lost in the excitement and new sensations, I ignored it.

  I didn't need to be steadied now. My legs were like tree trunks, sturdy yet limber. My hands balled into fists. The seams on my t-shirt around the biceps area were on the verge of bursting. I could tell even through my jacket's long sleeves that I now had forearms that would put Popeye to shame. At my personal peak fitness, when I went through a gym rat phase, I was never anywhere near such physique.

  "You weren't kidding, hon," I said to the nurse. The words came out smoother and steadier than they had in years. Hearing them was like the reverse of listening to yourself on a recording. I still barely recognized myself, but it was a slide in a positive direction.

  When the nurse didn't respond, I finally stopped admiring the new me. The nurse was frozen solid with her mouth agape, the entirety of her attention directed at the window.

  The purplish tint which I attributed to a residual effect of revitalization wasn't coming from the machine. It was streaming in from outside like an ominous fog.

  I pushed past the stunned nurse and looked out. In the distance, close to the airport, a colossal waterspout of energy streamed upwards into the air. Even from numerous blocks away I heard its steady hum as it bent and spun, coloring the sky with billowing clouds of purple. There was something unnerving about that color. Like I wasn't able to fully perceive its entire spectrum.

  "Is this supposed to happen?" I asked, hoping I was suffering from revitalization side effects.

  My answer was a clattering grunt.

  Startled, I swung around.

  Whenever things turned sour, I had this odd habit of switching to Spanish. As far as I was aware, I didn't have any roots in Latin America, or Spain for that matter. I barely even knew the language, my attempt to learn it having stalled the moment the distinction between tu and usted got introduced. And yet without fail, when presented with the unexpected, I couldn't help myself.

  "Puta madre," I swore.

  The shapely nurse was gone. In her place was a naked skeleton. There was no sign of the nurse, no gore or clothes on the floor. Just a figure of pristine ivory and two malicious lights glowing in its eye sockets.

  Preempting my nervous breakdown or a panicked attempt to diffuse the tension with a corny joke about boners, the skeleton grunted again and swiped at me.

  I jumped backwards, avoiding the skeleton's knuckles but hitting my lower back on the windowsill. My first return visit of pain in the newly revitalized body reminded me of my cane. Not taking my eyes off the skeleton, I reached behind me and felt for the familiar stick.

  Grabbing it below its midpoint, I immediately had to dodge another grope. This time I dashed to the side. I bumped into the machine, my powerful frame knocking it over. This put me out of immediate reach of what I had to reluctantly describe as an undead creature.

  I did a little jig to regain my footing and sucked in a deep breath. All my screaming had to be internal while I waited for an opening. The moment I saw it, I bashed the skeleton. With my new strength, the cane's dragon handle left a gaping hole in the skull.

  When the cane made contact with its target, a white number 9 floated above the skeleton before dissipating in the air above it.

  "Que?.." I trailed off as the lights inside the skeleton's empty eyes went out and it collapsed on the floor with a rattle, leaving behind a motionless pile of bones.

  Billy Joel Facts - Chapter 2:

  Vienna

  And So It Goes

  You May Be Right

  She's Right On Time

  Scenes From an Italian Restaurant