The Pill

Was it a panecea? A cure for everything? Or a curse.

“The process extends homeostasis for at least fifty years,” quoted Doctor Enrique Emanuelle.

Andrea Darton, assistant medical specialist took notes. “Is it ready for mass production?” She had an in with one of the major drug companies. This could make her fortune.

“It needs to be field tested. I’m researching volunteers among prisoners who might be interested in sentencing time off.” Doctor Emanuelle studied his assistant with sudden interest. “I need a control group to make sure my results aren’t biased by those having criminal tendencies, are you interested?”

It took Andrea completely by surprise. “Homeostasis means I’d stay as young as I am, at least body wise, for the next fifty years? And I’d be resistant to disease or organ failure, stuff like that?”

Doctor Emanuelle smiled and nodded yes. “All the above. Results should come in long before the half century mark. I can publish in a matter of months. The homeostatic process will be evident by then. Computer simulation for the next fifty years of body composition will do the rest.”

“One pill will do all that?” Andrea couldn’t believe her luck. She was in an advanced stage of terminal pancreatic cancer, the most painful way to die. It was all she could do to force herself to get out of bed. She hadn’t told anyone out of fear she’d lose her job and her health insurance.

“I’ll do it.” This would give her fifty more years time for medical science to come up with a cure for her condition.

“Fine. I’m offering you two pills. One is a placebo. The other is the real thing. I have to do it this way to make the stringent research variables necessary to complete my study. I’ll know which one you have taken but you won’t. Ready?”

Andrea felt the shock of only having a fifty-fifty chance of success. She gulped, blindly took a pill out Doctor Emanuell’s open palm and swallowed. “How will I know if I got the real one?”

“You’ll have to give it time. You’ll stop getting colds, aches and pains, then no more aging will be the first indication.”

The news her mother sent her about a new international cure for pancreatic cancer the next day made Andrea feel like the weight of the world had just lifted from her shoulders. She immediately applied for the treatment and found out they could administer the treatment without delay..


“The pill works.” Andrea stared into the mirror. The tired wrinkles under her eyes had disappeared. Her muscle tone was matchless and there was a renewed youthful sparkle in her eyes. “I’ve got fifty years living just the way I am today.”

That night she realized the negative side of the pill as a wave of what felt like sharp daggers dug and twisted inside her gut. Her call to Doctor Emmanuelle confirmed it. “Homestasis means your body will stay the same as it is. Your pancreatic cancer won’t go away for the next fifty years. You’ll have to wait to take that new treatment until then.”

It was confirmed by her new cancer doctor during her next few visits. “The new cancer treatment that cures your condition isn’t making you better. The good side is the disease isn’t progressing. You won’t die, in fact, in many ways your body is more healthy than it has ever been. Every nerve is more alive. You’ll feel everything more intensely.”

Fifty years. That night Andrea slit her wrists. She watched as her body healed itself almost as fast as she’d sliced it open. Suicide was out. Somehow, she’d have to manage through the excruciating pain and last it out.

The mindless horror of it all wrenched her soul, twisting her into an almost catatonic like state.

It skewed the results of the final research report of Doctor Emmanuelle, making the drug companies lose interest in the pill’s potential until the bugs were worked out. He lost funding and interest, going on to study the effect of mental conditions on the body, luckily already having Andrea, volunteered by her mother.

Wc 680