I chose the film because it goes with the aesthetics of this week’s posts–that madly hypnotic LA glamour. Neon-noir: so bright, yet so dark. LA is a place where fantasy and nightmare can happen simultaneously.

The emphasis is so much on the obsession with youth and having that special “thing” that could be also ephemeral.

How far would one go to obtain physical beauty that won’t fade? As the story emphasizes, like so many others like it, being pretty won’t make you happy.

The heroine of my novel seems to possess everyone’s dream, but she longs to be mortal. Because her price for eternal life and unlimited wealth is to never fall in love.

***

“The Philosopher’s Stone”

What if you never had to grow old nor die?  Not lying in bed plugged to a machine with a face pulled taut by surgery but living for centuries at the peak of your health, doing all that you ever wanted in many life times? The Fountain of Youth tapped. What if you could be rich forever? Never worrying about money—a secret better than a flock of geese laying golden eggs.

I have both. I have it all, and I owe it to one man, Daed. Before he made the world my oyster, I had lost everything. I loved Daed but not as a lover. He was my only friend and taught me almost everything I know. I was on the verge of being undone before he found me. He created me into what I am, up to this moment.

Now, he is missing like he said he would be someday.

And the Great Work is still incomplete.

So how does it feel to be immortal and astronomically wealthy?

As the Cumaean Sibyl said, ἀποθανεῖν θέλω (I want to die).

-“Pearl’s Labyrinth,” unpublished novel.