“I’m sure that happens sometimes. I’ve always thought euthanasia should be an option if the person wants it. But there have to be safeguards in place to be sure they really want it, that it isn’t just some family member who doesn’t want to be bothered with their elder anymore.”
“Ah, but no one wants to be bothered. You don’t want to admit it, but that’s the way everyone feels. Younger humans put the aged away in small rooms so they don’t have to look at them.They say it’s because the elderly need special care, services they can’t provide in a home environment, but that’s bullshit. The truth is the young just want license to keep living their lives unencumbered while the ones who birthed them shrivel into helpless husks, void of delight and purpose except to wait for the angel of death. And yet I don’t blame anyone who does it. I’d do it myself if I had any relatives left.”
“Not every culture crams their aged into group homes.”
“Most do. Trust me, I’ve seen it all. It’s not just an American thing. In some cultures, they stay with the family longer, true, but there’s a point at which they have to go somewhere else for care—or proper care isn’t provided in the home and they die as a result. As I said, maybe that’s for the best.”
“I think you’re being ageist or ableist, or both,” I say. “These folks deserve respect and dignity.”
“Of course they deserve that!” His words are a blast of passionate exasperation. “There’s no perfect system, Baz. Keep them at home until you can’t anymore, or put them in places like this. Visit every day; don’t visit at all. None of it fucking matters, because the real enemy isn’t a person, it’s death. Death steals their beauty, their health, their independence, their minds, their memories, their senses, their speech, and yes, every shred of their dignity.”
“They’re still people,” I exclaim.
“I know they’re people, Baz. I don’t hate them. I wish them a pleasant and speedy end. But I don’t wantthisto be me. I want to be able to wipe my own ass when I shit. I want to be able to turn myself over in bed. I don’t want to be sore everywhere, in all my joints and tissues. I don’t want to lose my mental agility. I don’t want pieces of my memories to disappear one by one. I don’t want to shrink and wither and ache. I don’t want to tremble when I can’t rememberwhere I am. I don’t want to panic when my failing organs tell me something is going wrong deep inside me.”
“Dorian, stop.” I’m shaking with anger. “What you’ve described—that’s the reality of life for a lot of people, not just the elderly. Sure, nobodywantsthat or chooses it, but your revulsion against weakness or helplessness is so fucking wrong. You have to stop idealizing heath and youth and beauty—those things are nice, sure, but they’re not what’s important.”
Desperation flashes through his eyes. “They are. They have to be, because…”
Because that’s all he has.
Oh…fuck. That’s why he’s so insistent. It’s not just the terror of his body decaying—he’s afraid that if he admits the truth, that his values have been misplaced all along, the pretty husk of himself will crumple into ash and dissipate, leaving nothing behind.
The duality of it grips me, splitting through my heart. In spite of all the polite things I’ve been taught to say about old age, I understand the terror Dorian has been trying to communicate to me. I dread the thought of lying helpless in a bed for hours, wanting something I can’t really remember, always feeling like something is missing, like bits of me are corroding, crumbling away until there’s nothing left.There’s a difference between the Gothic romance of mortality, celebrated in my paintings, and the grotesque reality of human decay. The slow, grinding, irreversible decline down to the end of life.
But the other fear clutches my heart, too, with colder fingers and sharper nails—the horror of someone realizing, when it’s too late, that they devoted their existence to emptiness, to fragility. Like breaking the lovely crust of a crème brûlée to find no satisfying dessert beneath, only air.
My eyes pool with hot, sudden tears.
“Dorian,” I whisper.
He cups my cheeks between his long fingers. His face is an oasis of beauty in a wilderness of death.
“And you want me to rot,” he says softly. “You want me to endure this. To waste away and die like everyone else. Baz, I don’t want to keep living if I can’t be young and healthy and beautiful.”
In this moment, I understand him, and some part of me agrees. I’m not proud of it. It’s ableist as shit. It’s wrong. It’s part of a cultural mania that worships beauty, youth, and health.
He’s right, though—it’s not a one-culture thing. It’s a human thing. In every country, the beautiful, the young, the intelligent, the healthy, and the rich are celebrated. It’s been that way since ancient times, since the Greek and Roman civilizations, and even before that. Humans have always desired beauty, celebrated physical feats, and gloried in all the potential of youth.
It’s a primal mentality, I guess. An evolved attraction to the most desirable, fertile mates, to the physically strong who can offer protection, shelter, and food. It’s instinctive, animal on some level. But we’ve perverted that instinct, like we do everything, and it has become an obsession.
An obsession that gleams in the blue eyes of Dorian Gray as he stares into mine. But there are fractures in his gaze, too, cracks in the surface of his value system, which confirm to me that he’s capable of self-reflection. Of change.
I leave it there, because pushing too hard could make him close up again. I let him sit with that uncertainty, with the crevices in his confidence. We don’t linger in the room with the elderly man, since he doesn’t seem aware of our presence. But before we leave, Dorian kisses his forehead.
25
Baz
I can’t leave the building fast enough.
Breaking out of those cold hallways into the bright heat of the day feels like resurrection.
I inhale instinctively, drawing breath deep into my lungs. The too-hot kiss of the sun on my skin is a blessing; the fluid movement of my legs and hips is a miracle. I’m acutely conscious of my body, its youthful flesh, its suppleness and smoothness, the elegant grace of my fingers.
I’m young for now, and I’m pathetically grateful for that.
“Take me home, Dorian,” I say, looking up at him. “I want to see my cat.”
