A MEETING WITH MARGUERITE
There’s a version of this story that sees Marguerite in a museum, laid on her bed behind a glass wall, while tourists file past to gawp at the only wonder of the world that’s breathing. Marguerite has had to work hard to keep herself from becoming a museum exhibit, or a fairground attraction, or a government secret, or a subject of scientific enquiry. But she hasn’t had to work hard to stay alive.
Her bones by now should be dust. They would be, but for all the surgery and the replacements. With each operation the replacements get better, as medicine advances, so each time she feels more comfortable and more mobile.
Compared to how long she has spent in retirement, her working age was negligible. But she need not work, because the interest accrued over centuries in her accounts more than supports her modest needs. The bank tellers are discreet.
She looks old – so old your head would turn to stare despite yourself. She looks like parched leather, thrown crumpled over a rusted frame held together loosely by string and wire. But she can get about all right, so long as there’s no rush. And though she would tell you, with a self-deprecating smile, that she hasn’t learned much: one thing she has learned is that there is seldom any rush.
She has, of course, lost almost every friend she ever made.
