ageing young

Here is a boy. His name can be Todd.
Todd is not unique, but we will use him as a vessel to explore a world not unlike our own - not unlike, but completely different: Backwards. Not in a way that doesn't make sense, or is illogical, or that has missed the point somewhere, but backwards in the literal way. Every hour of every day of every week works in reverse to ours.

Todd lives in this wonderful world. He is 30 years young and feeling better than ever. At birth, he had all the wisdom of a century-liver, and all the wrinkles. Oh, don't worry, he wasn't born in the usual way, he just came to be. Use your imagination here - perhaps he came from the ground or awoke one day as a pre-made being. Nevertheless, Todd enjoyed his undoing all the burdens of arriving. Over time he lost the bad - and the good - aspects of being old (by our system). Arthritis became less of a problem as he aged (remember, he ages backwards). Defects of the mind, too, were less frequent and less troublesome - Todd actually had amnesia, and lost that when he was 10. Although he had little memories to have not know by this time. Even so, he began to imagine a future from what little he knew.

At 30 Todd knows the vanity of the world. People everywhere trying to look old, trying to beat young. At such an age, Todd was in his prime, though he knew what time does to you: eventually you become too young to have memories, too young to think; too young to take care of yourself. You could try and beat it, but the finish line would always be there when you succumbed to the inevitable.

We might wonder how a world would be, and how we could experience it. If it is a mirror of our own lives, we must consider the similarities: Though in Todd's world you don't age, but become young, you still degenerate to a point of being unable to fend for yourself.

For us, we become old men and women. We desperately cling to our youth and constantly try to defy our own existance.
For Todd, he becomes young.

We can wonder whether he becomes physically young as well - does he shrink and lose hair? Is becoming younger better than becoming older when you lose the same advantages in reverse ways?

Either direction has but one master: time. Time giveth and time taketh away. Though we might mark it and think we are the masters of such an eternal concept, we are mere slaves. Time has the patience of a universe, and will always win.

Todd, despite having the novelty of getting younger as he lives, still suffers in the same way. Though I do not think he can hold on to an extra year through exercise, as we do. I think Todd has his timeframe decided already.

Perhaps everyone in Todd's world begins their life with amnesia, so they do not remember that they have already lived before and what they are living now is but a flash in a single moment before their little candle is snuffed out by the breath of time. At 10, Todd may have become privvy to this, though desperately wanted to go back to the beginning.

We don't know, for we have yet to go there - we have yet to experience the last moments in our own minds. Consider the past, at least your memory of it, a chance to grow backwards.

- P

Yet as an eternal audience looks on
And you take your final bow on the grandieous stage
One thing is sure - as clear as crystal:
For all your wise words and all you have heard,
From every short step and long-deep breath
You can almost forget your age.