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back in every direction and carefully pulled out the shabby
looking chronomatizer from his raincoat.
One of the old men weighed at least a hundred and fifty
kilograms. His jersey stuck out under the pressure from the
mass of fat on his body and rose up, kind of like a girl’s tube
top, over his belly. His face began to turn a deep blue. His
heart was beginning to give out, Torne concluded, when he
placed the bore of the chronomatizer to his immense body.
A spark flashed beneath the translucent covering on the
instrument. And the display of the chronomatizer read:
Time relative to birth date: 68 years, 40 days
Time actually lived: 12 years, 89 days
“They’re ‘zeroing’ children again,” Torne spit out bitter
phlegm. The other boy had the wrinkled face of an old
beggar, his eyes sank, his legs twisted along the ground.
From far off a police siren began to drone. Torne put away
the chronomatizer and took off running – all he needed was
for them to accuse him. After a hundred meters he turned
the corner and clutched his chest. After catching his breath
a bit, he slowly began to move along the walls.
After being forced to give a donation of his own biotime to
his wife, he just couldn’t get used to his new age – 54. His
reflexes and movements remained youthful, but his body
was no longer able to cope with them.