[ WP ] You live on a world full of immortal beings . For the first time in the history of the world 's existence , somebody has died .

Joe set his cup on the counter and bent over his notes again. He moved his eye back over the cylinder and squinted the other closed for a moment before moving back to his notes and adjusting a figure on the screen. 
 
 `` How's the family, Tom?'' 
 
 Tom shifted his weight in the seat and lifted his face away from his own identical cylinder. After a few blinks he nodded and made note of something he saw, typing it into the device so that it read out on his own screen. 
 
 `` Debbie is taking Martha to the bureau to get registered. She grew up so fast.'' 
 
 `` Count me out. Your family seems nice enough, but complicated. Five hundred and sixty seven years, just waiting to have a child. And then twenty years later, she's a new addition to our great big family.'' 
 
 Tom grunted and pressed an eye back to his cylinder. He murmured. 
 
 `` This one really seems like the one. I know, I know. I've said that probably a million times before. But, we're almost there! All thanks to you. If you had n't seen it so long ago, none of us would really be here.'' 
 
 `` I got lucky, finding it. Serendipitous I suppose. But our journey is far from over.'' 
 
 `` Mm-hmm. I know. Here, come look at what I'm seeing.'' 
 
 Joe stood and pushed his seat away as he did. It lazily slid backward and rebounded off of an adjacent counter with a soft bump. Just above the seat was a minuscule window, from out of which the occasional flicker of light could be seen. 
 
 Tom leaned back and motioned to the cylinder. There was a slightly triumphant look on his face, like he had won a bet. 
 
 As Joe leaned in and pressed his eye to the lens, Tom reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a folded piece of rich, well appointed paper. Tom ran a thumb over the embossing of Joe's full name, centered on the front. 
 
 `` Alright, what am I supposed to be seeing here J --'' 
 
 `` Happy Anniversary, buddy.'' 
 
 Tom held out the folded paper and inclined his head slightly to his coworker and friend. 
 
 Joe made a face, part chagrin and also something else, maybe... happy? 
 
 `` You know we're not supposed to do things like this. It's a waste of resources.'' 
 
 `` Still, how long have we worked together on this project? Six hundred ninety? Seven hundred years? It's hard to keep track but we've been a team practically since registration day. You deserve it.'' 
 
 Joe accepted the card and began to flip it open when Tom stopped him with a hand on his arm. Joe froze in place and looked at Tom. 
 
 `` Before you open it, I want you to know that if anyone deserves this, it's you. You got us all here.'' 
 
 Joe nodded and looked Tom in the eye, confusion mixing with his emotions and crossing his face like a shadow. He started to open the card further when Tom squeezed his arm, firmly. 
 
 ``... and I found out how many times you petitioned. For, well, you know? Look, we're all exhausted. We all want our rest. I'm sorry they denied you every time. I sent out a special petition for everyone to vote on and sort of forced the issue, got you the permission you needed.'' 
 
 Tom's eyes glistened and filled for a moment, looking up to his friend. He refused to look away from his companion. 
 
 Joe slowly drew his eyes down and examined what the note contained. He began to weep. Light from outside the little window flickered off of his tears. One dripped off of his quivering lower lip and landed onto the laminated, artificial flooring. 
 
 -- -- -- -- 
 
 Twenty six years later, as their ship neared their new home and the wardens of all the life the ark contained were preparing to settle on the planet, a lush green thing that was similar to their own home but lacked sentient life, a young woman stepped up next to her father. He, like all the other wardens, had stopped taking his supplement, and was beginning to show the last few years in his graying hair and laugh-lined features. 
 
 `` Why did he do it, Dad? Heck, why did you do it for him?'' 
 
 Her father turned to look at her and smiled in a sad way that carried so much weight. She thought it looked crushingly so. 
 
 `` We get tired, Martha. Josef got tired, but he had a duty to do. For the first time in so long that it feels like forever, a man has died. He got to see his world - our world - though.'' 
 
 A large screen flicked on and showed the green and blue planet, frosted with clouds and ice at the poles. They had been waiting a year, to finally start settling it. 
 
 Between the screen and where the father and daughter stood, an old, old man lay in repose on an altar. His hair had grayed and then silvered, and then mostly left him. His skin was appropriately wrinkled, and he looked like he was sleeping comfortably. 
 
 Tomas stepped forward and lovingly draped a symbolic flag of their people over his friend's body. 
 
 `` Why did n't he just wait?'' 
 
 Tomas furrowed his brow, a wrinkle of thought. He was beginning to understand how large the generational gap was between people like him and Joe, and the younger wardens - the children of the first ones like him. 
 
 `` Some weight is just too great, some responsibility is too debilitating. He waited until he was sure he had pointed us in the right direction, and then finally gave in to it all.'' 
 
 Martha smiled a little, a sad sort of expression. 
 
 `` Will we bury him down there?'' 
 
 Tomas smiled brightly, suddenly. He thought back to the moments after his gift to his best friend. 
 
 -- -- -- -- 
 
 `` Promise me, Tom. Promise me you wo n't put me down there. We're from our world. Let this new world be truly new.'' 
 
 Joe chuckled, still wiping tears from his eyes. His left hand carefully held onto that card, that anniversary card marking so many, many years since this journey had begun. 
 
 Tom squeezed his friend's arm again, reassuring. Inwardly, he sagged with relief that the gift was well received and that his friend was in such good spirits again. It had been centuries; literally. 
 
 `` Okay. Then what will we do with your old bones?'' 
 
 `` Send me into the sun. Send me back to a place like the one that started all of this.'' 
 
 Tom laughed awkwardly, not sure how to take the dark joke. Their own star had destroyed everything. 
 
 `` Promise me once the supplement wears off and I start forgetting - promise to remember!'' 
 
 It seemed deathly serious, all of the sudden. This, it seemed, was important to his friend. 
 
 -- -- -- -- -- -- - 
 
 Martha had left to attend navigation, and Debbie was helping with embarkation plans. 
 
 Tomas and Josef were all that was left of the first wardens. 
 
 Here they sat together again; one dead, one old and dying. 
 
 Tomas pressed the button to seal the blast doors, and then pressed another to launch his friend off onto his final journey. 
 
 `` I remember, Joe.'' 
 

