That afternoon he went home and packed. It took ten minutes. Then he stood groggily in the empty apartment. There on the stove-top was the frying pan, the only sign of his former life. He took the frying pan over to his suitcases, thinking he could fit it in and take it with him. He stopped over the cases, full and shut. He went back and sat down on the single chair, the frypan hanging from his hand.

After a while he called Sharon, hoping partly to get her answering machine, but she was home. “I’m going to Mars,” he croaked. She wouldn’t believe it. When she believed it she got angry. It was desertion pure and simple, he was running out on her. But you already threw me out, Art tried to say, but she had hung up. He left the frying pan on the table, lugged his suitcases down to the sidewalk. Across the street a public hospital that did the longevity treatment was surrounded by its usual crowd, people whose turn at the treatment was supposedly near, camping out in the parking lot to make sure nothing went awry. The treatments were guaranteed to all U.S. citizens by law, but the waiting lists for the public facilities were so long that it was a question whether one would survive to reach one’s turn. Art shook his head at the sight, and flagged down a pedicab.

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