J. Nguyen

     His phone rang insistently.

     The figure hunched lower in the wheelchair several feet away.  Hands wrinkled with age repetitively squeezed the armrests in bursts of annoyance. His eyes refused to stray from the book sprawled in his lap.

     The phone continued to ring.

     Finally, the intercom clicked on and a woman’s shrill voice screeched at him over the sound. “Pick up, it’s the journalists! They’re asking for you, Dillinger!”

     “I’m reading,” he grumbled.

     “You’ve been staring at page fourteen for the last fifteen minutes.”

     He groaned and dropped his head in his hands. He had been so invested in side-eyeing the phone that he completely forgotten about the cameras.

     “Dillinger!” she yelled. “I swear, if we get any more bad press, I’ll call the govern - ”

     “Okay! Jesus Christ.” It would probably be best not to anger his landowner.

     Dillinger turned the little joystick on his right armrest and his wheelchair smoothly rolled in front of his nightstand. He had knobbly, weak joints that came with his age.

     “Dillinger Davis,” he said into the accursed, gray cellphone.

     “Mr. Davis, hello! My name is Hox Andersen, I’m a journalist from The Key Observer and I’ve been sent to interview you. I wanted to send you a hologram, but - ”

     “I don’t use holograms,” Dillinger interjected. “A face-to-face interview or none at all, that was the deal.” If a journalist wasn’t there in person, why bother? It didn’t matter how shiny or electric blue the holograms were, they were more creepy than pleasing.

     Though, compared to recent inventions, they weren’t the worst.

     “Ah, yes - I uh, I’m at the front desk, can I come up?” the journalist said nervously.

     “Whatever.”

     He threw the phone on his bed, ran a hand through his gray-speckled hair, and made way down the hall. Swiveled around to face the door, he waited.

Not two minutes passed when some fancily dressed, tall, middle-aged man opened the door. His stark white suit contrasted from his chestnut skin.

     The journalist grinned. “Hello, Mr. Davis. My name is Hox - ”

     “You said that already,” Dillinger interrupted yet again, placing himself behind the table in front of the couch. “Listen, just sit there so we can get this over with.”

     Hox’s smile faltered a bit. He awkwardly placed himself on the horrible lime-colored piece of furniture between a bag of potato chips and a mountain of pillows. Then, he proceeded to stare at Dillinger for an unnervingly long amount of time, as though expecting him to say something.

     Dillinger raised an eyebrow. “What are you, an owl?”

     Hox blinked, eyes still wide like the extinct, nocturnal animal. “A what?”

     “Nevermind. Get on with it.”

     The journalist slid a recording device over the table in a gesture that gave no room for negotiation. Dillinger glared at his palms in his lap. The little red light started blinking and Hox brought out a tablet, clearing his throat. “I’m going to start with some clarifying questions first. For professional purposes.”

     “Fine.”

     “What is your full name?”

     “Dillinger Conan Davis.”

     “Can you tell me the year?”

     “What, do your colleagues not have a calendar?” he asked dryly.

     “Just please answer the question, Mr. Davis.”

     “It’s 3041.”

     “And what does it feel like to be the oldest person on Earth?” Hox suddenly asked, eyes shining.

     Dillinger frowned. “I don’t - I’m not. I’m only sixty. The woman living across the hallway is ninety-five.” It was technically true.

     “Sorry,” Hox said. “Let me rephrase that. How does it feel to be one of the last people who will ever die?”

​

⁂

 

     After a torturous hour of staring at the blinking, red light on the black microphone and giving vague answers to strangely specific questions, Hox finally folded his tablet in half so that it was about the size of a glasses case, before placing it in his breast pocket.

     “Thank you, Mr. Davis. I’ll be on my way now - ” The journalist’s foot suddenly caught on a loose floorboard and he toppled over, head smashing into the edge of the table with a sickening crack. Dillinger’s instinctive reaction kicked in and he let out a shout of surprise, wheeling over to him so fast the rubber tires made a loud screeching noise on the polished, wood floor that would no doubt be covered in blood.

     A hand shot up and grabbed the edge of the table. Hox stood effortlessly, as though he hadn’t just fallen face first into a piece of wood at terminal velocity.

     “No worries, I’m fine.” The floor was spotless. Dillingers eyes zeroed in on the large chunk that had been taken out of Hox’s head.

     Jesus, I’ll never get used to this.

     The artificial skin on his temple was torn - the dark, chestnut complexion of his face fading out into the light gray of metal as it approached the cavity. The exposed wires inside of the maw of broken metal sparked angrily like electric snakes.

     Hox felt his head. Dillinger expected - wanted him to wince, but there was no sign of any feeling. “Wow, that was wild. I’ll have to go to a doctor to get this fixed.”

     You mean a mechanic, Dillinger thought dryly, looking for any sign of pain in Hox’s eyes. No, not eyes. They were just blank, spheres of plastic suspended in a tangle of wires and sealed in a cage of metal.

     “Well, thanks for the interview!” The door slammed shut.