Get Inspired: Week 3

First seen on the Space Trash blog.

Immortality doesn't mean you'll live forever...(Get Inspired, week 3)

The peaches of immortality ripen only once in every three thousand years. If you find and eat one, you're guaranteed near-immortality. Not unnaturally, the business interests whom I represent would like the opportunity to acquire some. Imagine Hollywood able to buy everlasting good looks? Hell, we could buy some more property. Mars, maybe.

I took another look through my scope, and sighed. Why do people always imagine that immortality means that they're invulnerable as well? Of course, I would never threaten to shoot the Jade Emperor, but this guy wasn't him. Not the Heavenly Grandfather, and most definitely not one of the Three Pure Ones. If he were, the apparent age of the scantily-dressed schoolgirl in his lap would've disqualified him on the spot. This guy, I wouldn't have any qualms about threatening, although not actually carrying through might be tough.

I spent a moment meditating. Fine. I spent a moment remembering how much I stood to make by not shooting the old pervert. Ancient pervert, if the rumours I'd spent the last few years chasing were slightly more accurate than the last ten or twenty times. About 2,983 years old, to be precise. My little pep talk motivated me to fold up my shooting perch and drop down to street-level like a good girl, rather than leaving brain particles ingrained in the wall behind him that someone would have to clean up.

After all, if the guy temporarily still in possession of his brain matter wanted another 3,000 years of fondling teenagers, he was going to have to pick up some supplies soon. When he did, perhaps I could persuade him to take me along. Persuasion is my business. Being part-siren helps. Carrying enough metal on my person to never be able to fly commercial often helps more.

Where did this one come from? 

Actually, the initial line came from Pawn In Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett. I'd been meaning to research that particular reference for a couple of decades, and finally got around to doing it. The underlying story of the peaches of immortality was so adaptable to a modern urban fantasy setting that I couldn't help myself.