Madge’s Journey
Madge wanted to keep feeling young, but at eighty it had grown increasingly difficult. Staying young involved finding something new every day. Being around grandchildren helped. She lived across the street from a small park with a playground, and hearing the children play helped. Even so, she no longer had the energy to walk across the street and sit on the bench and listen to the laughter and squeals. ? She accepted aging but not the results. Not until she croaked. How could she find something new each day at eighty? How, after decades of seeing the new each day
Ending One
Madge took up painting. Her work was not very good, not at first, but she had little else to do and each day she saw something new on the canvas. She also began taking photos with her cell phone–when she looked at them later, she often saw something she had missed at the time. She saw live theatre and concerts whenever she could, as each performance was unique. Same for sporting events. To continue the experience, and being a decent violinist, she got a licence and became a street busker. It was a different experience, every time and she loved her life.
Ending Two
Madge purchased an inexpensive time machine with a gas engine, believing the only way to see something new every day was to go into the future. She chose one hundred years, enough to ensure a lot would be new and different. She arrived in the middle of a busy street—everyone was walking. Madge was arrested for operating an ungreen vehicle and sentenced to twenty years in prison. It was a green prison, the inmates given courses and training for outside work, so each day she learned something new–and no longer had to cook.
Ending Three
Madge realized her memories were the problem. She could not encounter anything new if she remembered whatever it was from before. She took a variety of psychoactive drugs and police found her wandering on the street and she was put in an institution. She had sobered up and remembered everything when she was subjected to regular rounds of shock therapy. Incapacitated, she was never released, but everything was now new.
Ending Four
Madge purchased a gnu.