Rate of Return by Adam Cavanaugh

A short story.

Rate of Return

Years ago my friend James told me how his father was planning to be cryogenically frozen. He had been diagnosed with a degenerative condition and could not stand the thought of a premature death. The family patriarch was universally respected. His charities were revered and locals from business and government alike sought his counsel. Once or twice a year, high school students interviewed him about his foundation to purchase and protect old growth forest on mainland British Columbia. He had already been retired twenty years and still sat on boards, but his true passion was for sailing and triathlon. His days were usually a combination of these two, beginning before dawn with a run and a swim along the shore by his home on Galiano Island, and ending with a friendly race with other retirees between the islands in his twenty foot keelboat. For a seventy year old, the man was in tremendous shape. He had mastered all domains of life and was not ready to let go of any.

His family were surprised because even if the procedure went according to plan, when he awoke, it was unlikely any of them would be alive. It seemed to prove a certain egotism that had gone unseen. I tried to convince my friend that this is not exactly true, that his father could love his family and still wish to live on. This was not persuasive. My friend's respect for his father was permanently damaged. He and his siblings all spoke to the father about their misgivings. Their doctor was sceptical. The science was not trustworthy. There were risks. Wouldn't he rather trust the treatments and continue to spend time with his grandchildren? His prognosis was still quite good, ten years of quality life by any estimate.

The way the procedure worked, their father would be eased into a coma and frozen before his natural death. If medical advancements had produced a cure to his particular illness, they would unfreeze and revive him. Though as my friend pointed out, so much would have to go perfectly for this to succeed. As far as he knew, no patients once frozen had been recovered. His father countered that the company was only thirty years old and medical advances hasten by the year. Still, he would need money when he came out of cryogenesis, enough to live on. Who could say what that amount would be. The notion of freezing yourself into a globally warmed future spoke its own improbabilities. This also meant that for the rest of their lives, the children of this man would need to protect investments in his name.

Months later he went through with the process. In most people's view, the father had abdicated life, since he was hardly sick at all. Nevertheless he decided that if the future was to be worth the exorbitant cost he should begin the process earlier than later and preserve a quality specimen. He approached this as a challenge, and in the six months prior to his appointment trained more than usual, adopting strict eating habits and cutting out his few remaining vices such as red meat and wine. His kids pleaded with their father to enjoy himself if only for their memory. But he continued to swim and run and cycle most hours of the day. "If you're so worried, put on your running shoes," he'd say. There was no arguing.

All five siblings out at dawn running along the ocean trail with their father. It did bring a certain peace. In this respect the father was right. Language held no key to acceptance. It was better simply to share motion while they were able. The facility was in Minneapolis, and the family went down together. Cryonic Wellness Solutions was off the 694 in an industrial region along the Mississippi river. They shared a parking lot with a brewery and a dye factory. The company would only allow the family to be present for the anesthesia—the next step could seem violating to those who did not understand the cryogenic science. The father was enthusiastic on the drive, but leading up to his intravenous drip he became grave before his final message: he hoped with all his heart that they would all make the same decision when their time came, that it would be wonderful to see them again, but he would understand if they chose nature's course. His wife, spritely for fifty-five, clasped his hand as consciousness left him.

Under general anesthesia the father's organs slowed until he was dead by law. His blood was replaced with a proprietary fluid designed to prevent cellular decay and his temperature dropped. He was then lowered into a tank of liquid nitrogen. In normal circumstances, this is the point when the bureaucracy of death sprung into action, finalizing estates and signing certificates, though because he and his next of kin signed away the rights, he became property of Wellness Cryonic. This arrangement made their business possible. His body was reclassified as medical research material and a contract ensured that the company would preserve the specimen within fiduciary obligation until directed otherwise. $750,000.00 was paid for the procedure and the first twenty years of preservation, after which point a new contract would be drawn up for the next decades and so on.

The facility allowed visitors twice a year. No one could enter the storage pod area, which was temperature controlled and sealed from contact. Instead, family were invited to congregate in a waiting room with a large conference table. An employee loaned tablets to each family member and staff provided video feed into the holding bays. Ecstatic choir music piped into the room. Before their arrival, a dossier was prepared with the latest medical advancements regarding a cryogenitor's condition. Included in the document package were laminated pages of conversation topics to shift talk from the gloom of absence.

i) What do you think ____ will choose for their first meal?

ii) What would your first question be to ____ when they awaken?

iii) What would you choose as your first activity upon waking?

iv) Are you satisfied with the services of Cryonic Wellness? 

The homepage of the company displayed serifed testimonials. A midwestern couple had their son processed after a bike accident resulting in brain death. Now they were co-authors of several best selling YA novels imagining their son's emergence into a distant utopia. A daughter, having bought her mother twenty years at Cryonic, began documenting her own life for her mother to watch down the line. In doing so she worked through emotional scars that had been irresolvable when her mother was here. "This service," she blurbed, "is changing our relationship with past, present and future—and I can barely wait my turn."

Over the years, James came to appreciate his father's decision whereas at the time, he considered it a deluded act amounting to an expensive suicide. Now he felt that no matter the outcome, his father had gone to sleep with a sense of peaceful joy. What more could anyone ask? When pushed, he acknowledged that he might consider the procedure himself to apologize for doubting the old man.

Now that their father was gone, James assumed responsibility over his investments. The other siblings were nervous at the thought of squandering the nest egg. James found the process calming. His father had written instructions about what markets to avoid as well as his favoured industries. Each morning, James intimately readjusted stocks, a form of care he saw akin to checking vitals. As the numbers grew and the years passed, my friend found himself gently speaking to his father during the financial calibrations.

In his years managing the investments, James became familiar with the winners and losers of the market. He was only so surprised, then, when changes in the regulatory environment became too much for Cryonic Wellness to shoulder. The facility was shut down and their clients were informed in a letter of bankruptcy. All assets, including my friend's father, were liquidated. Relevant paperwork arrived notifying the expungement of contractual obligations in accordance with the limited liability agreement. Relevant documentation arrived promptly for tax season. At the funeral, his family did not seem terribly upset. Over their yearly visits they had come to see their father as neither dead nor alive, but as a shrewd man, they knew he would understand how hard decisions need to be made.

The chief executive officer moved operations to Switzerland and rebuilt the facilities where there was better climate for business. The Swiss population accounted for most of their clients anyways. Now approaching middle-age, my friend still maintains his father's financial interest as something of an afterlife. When asked about the events, James said he would consider the procedure down the line to honour his father's final wish. 

---

Adam Cavanaugh is a writer and public librarian living in rural Ontario. His writing has been published with Art Metropole, Commo Mag, Long Con, The Baffler and is forthcoming in The Dalhousie Review. His short story "Haggler" was runner-up for the Wind & Water Writing Contest in Prince Edward County.