Mr. Eternity Read Online Free Page A

claim,” I said, “and then gradually we show that it doesn’t matter what the truth is. He’s ancient in other ways. In outlook and orientation. A metaphor develops. Something about the boat. I don’t know what the metaphor is but it develops and that’s the movie.”
    “Fine, good. As long as you understand that in essence the whole thing for me is that I don’t want to be a cynic.”
    “Why are you talking about cynicism?”
    “I had an epiphany about this because I finally tried kombucha. It’s delicious! I’ve been making fun of everyone for drinking it, but if I’d been less cynical I could have been enjoying it this whole time.”
    He rolled onto his back and stared into the sky. The yard was filling up with light. Palm trees stirred in the soft breeze, a sound like rain, and it was very peaceful, very peaceful.
    “So he comes from the fifteenth century,” he said. “In actual fact or in spirit. It’s a compelling thought. He must think he remembers the discovery of America. He must think he remembers the invention of chewing gum.”
    He closed his eyes. There were banana plants growing against the fence, quail grass and okra and Indian lettuce and callaloo, squash and beans, a sapodilla tree and a mango tree and other trees I didn’t recognize. There were strange mushrooms growing under an ixora bush, where the ancient mariner told me he’d planted Tylenol capsules. The yard was stuffed with plants. It was good for the spirit to grow food, he told us, even though he didn’t eat much any longer. He could make do with one thimble of honey each week, a teaspoon of tamarind pulp, a sniff of lemon blossom.
    I noticed that there was a column of red ants on Azar’s chest. I wondered if I should warn him. But if they were biting ants, they would bite him whether I warned him or not, and if they were harmless it was better not to frighten him. Then he screamed and leapt to hisfeet and I ran forward to brush them off. He stood there with his arms raised and his face twisted in pain. There were already welts on his soft belly.
    “You have to understand,” he said, “that if somehow we could prove he’s telling the truth, it would be more than a world-historical medical discovery. It would also make a difference for me on a personal level.”

    We learned that the oldest person with documents to substantiate her claim was Jeanne Calment, a Frenchwoman who lived to the age of 122. She drank port and ate two pounds of chocolate a week. She’d quit smoking when she was 117.
    But there were other claims. Old Tom Parr was supposed to have lived to the age of 152 on a diet of rancid cheese and milk, hard coarse bread, a little booze, a little whey. Henry Jenkins, a destitute Yorkshireman, lived to be 169. Li Ching-Yuen was either 197 or 256 at his death in 1933. There’s a tradition that for the first forty years of his life he lived on rice wine, goji berries, and herbs. He was seven feet tall, long fingernails, a ruddy complexion. When he was 130 he met a 500-year-old hermit who taught him to breathe. He outlived twenty-three wives and died in the arms of a twenty-fourth.
    Trailanga Swami, the walking Shiva of Varanasi, lived to be 280 or 358. He could levitate and he could breathe underwater. He fasted for months and broke his fasts with buckets of clabbered milk. He never wore clothes.
    At the upper end, wild hearsay shades into mythology. Methuselah and Jared and Noah and Adam and the rest. The Persian shah Zahhak lived 1,000 years, and the kings of ancient Sumer lived for millennia. En-men-lu-na is supposed to have reigned for 43,200 years.
    What’s the secret? Li Ching-Yuen had four rules: Tranquil mind, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a pigeon, sleep like a dog. I learned that some people have success with long-lasting substances like jade, hematite, gold, and cinnabar. The logic is that if you ingest these things, you acquire some of their own properties. Everything has its