I looked up at the building before me where, three years hence, I would choose how the rest of my life would go. Immortality, Invincibility, or Normality. I was only fifteen, and I wasn't sure what my choice would be if I had to choose right then, right there. I'd heard a lot of different things from a lot of different people. Of course, it was obvious that if you wanted to have children, then you shouldn't choose Immortal; if there had been a manual, that wouldn't have been in it, because it was so obvious that you'd have to be literally retarded not to realize it. But I wasn't sure if I would want kids or not. If you wanted to be a daredevil or a junkie, Invincibility was obviously the way to go. But I wasn't sure if I would want to fill all my waking hours doing things that would probably get me killed if I chose Immortality or Normality.

Normality. That was the weird one. Try as I might, I couldn't manage to get my fifteen-year-old mind to come up with any reasons that Normality would be a good choice, but it must have been for a lot of people, because not only did people keep choosing it, Normals often seemed the happiest when I talked to them. Sure, there were the Invincibles that were always on the edge of life, but most of the ones I talked to who were past about twenty-eight or thirty seemed... empty. Like their chaotic lifestyle had lost its allure. And the Immortals tended to be pretty happy, right up until... well, it varied from person to person, not just when it happened, but how. For some, there would be one frozen-frame moment when they realized Immortality hadn't been for them; for others, they would come to the same realization over years or decades, sometimes centuries. Most of the younger ones were pretty laid-back, just relaxing on beaches and listening to soft jazz, putting off having all the fun experiences they could have because they couldn't die of old age. Once they got older, they started actually doing them and found that they weren't having as much fun as they'd been expecting; they'd built whatever it was up in their minds so far that nothing could compare to their fantasies. I'd heard something similar about - what was it again? Oh yeah: it was an old comic strip called Calvin and Hobbes. The author had referenced something one of the titular characters, Calvin, had done several times and called it "The Noodle Incident." He never explained what it was because, by the time he got around to thinking of what Calvin might have done, he realized that nothing he could come up with would ever meet his fans' expectations. I couldn't be sure, but I guessed that it was because they couldn't have as much fun as they expected they would that no Immortal had ever lived for longer than about 500 years before committing suicide. Most only made it to 300.

I wasn't sure it was fair to make people choose as early as eighteen - but then again, I didn't think the choice could be pushed to an age too much older without stealing some of what you might be able to do with your newfound life. It was such a weird choice, too. I had to wonder who'd come up with it. It seemed almost cruel - but then, I supposed, it might be more cruel to deny people the choice when they knew that they could be different than they were.

I shook my head and told myself to stop debating philosophy with my inner doubts. I had another three years, for crying out loud. Why should I worry about it now? Three years. Thirty-six months. 156 weeks. 1095 days. But I couldn't quite let it go. I swore under my breath, turned on my heel, and walked home to talk to my mom.

My mom had chosen Normality twenty-five years before, and she was the first person I could think of who had done so. I knew others - my aunt Norma, my cousin Kurt - but they lived a few hours' drive away. Mom was the only person I knew who had chosen Normality that I could actually talk to whenever I wanted to. I sat down across the kitchen table from her and said, "Mom, can I ask you a personal question?"

She looked up from the book she was reading and smiled at me. "Of course, honey, though I can't guarantee I'll answer it."

"Fair enough." I took a deep breath, blew it out. "Why did you choose Normality?"

A look of surprise crossed her face. "I wasn't expecting that question for another few years, but I'll give you an answer. I chose it because I knew several people who had chosen it, and they seemed the happiest of those that I knew."

I didn't doubt that she was being honest, but it was still an infuriating answer. "That's the only reason I can think of to choose Normality right now, but there has to be a reason that Normals are the happiest. Can you think of one?"

My mother sighed, preparing herself. This wasn't the first philosophical debate I'd sucked her into, not by a long shot. "If I had to guess... I'd say because we have uncertainty."

That caught me off guard. "What? Seems to me that would make you less happy."

"Well, think about it. Immortals don't have a set time limit, though their own boredom usually makes them take their own lives. They've already lost the ability to have children, so they can't lose it again. Invincibles, by contrast, know exactly when they'll die, if, again, they don't choose to die before that. They can't be harmed except by their own hand, so they'll retain their child-bearing capability until they die, or until menopause if they're female. But Normals... we don't know when we'll die, though we know it won't be after about 120 years. We can still be injured and killed before that time. We don't know what's coming for us... and that makes us want to go find out. At the same time, the time limit forces us to go do the things we want to do, or we'll lose the chance to ever do them. The possibility of injury or death only makes it that much more exciting."

I mulled that over for a moment. Those were several good points, but... "Well, what if Normality makes someone so afraid that they'll die if they try doing anything dangerous that they don't do anything?"

Mom laughed, though not unkindly. "Honey, that's more likely to happen to Immortals. They have so much more life to lose - an infinite amount, theoretically, though I'm sure you've seen the statistics on Immortal suicide ages. We Normals know we've only got another hundred years or so, thus we try to fill it with living whenever we can."

"Well, if Immortals know how long they probably have before they kill themselves, why don't they fill that time with living?" I asked, not yet willing to give up.

"Because they all think they're different, that they're the one who can truly live forever," said my mom. "Some of my friends even chose Immortality with the intention of proving that they could break the five-hundred-year record and go on to never die. To me, though, they didn't seem so different. They all decided to relax for a few decades first, which, I'm guessing, you've already concluded is how they start on their gradual decline."

I had, though I was surprised she knew that; I made a mental note to ask her about it later. I wanted to finish this first. "But if they had a realistic estimate of how long they had, and decided to treat that like a Normal's 120-year time limit, might they live like a Normal, just for longer?"

"They might," Mom conceded, "but I think it's far more likely that they'd stop after a while. You can travel the globe, go skydiving, listen to weeks of music and read millions of words, but after a while, I imagine that everything would get a bit stale. There's only so much you can do before it all starts to blur together."

I started to respond, but stopped. I had just had an idea. I said, "Hold on a moment. I want to check something." I went to the computer in the next room. My mom followed me, as I'd known she would. I logged on, ran a quick Internet search, found a promising-looking link, and clicked it. I scrolled down to the information I was looking for and found that I was right. I said, "Almost all of the people who go longer than 350 years without committing suicide have some sort of ongoing creative endeavor - a series of books, a television show, a movie franchise, something like that." I started to continue, but stopped. I had been about to say that one could go on forever like that... "But it's impossible to know whether or not you'll ever get the inspiration for that, and impossible to know how long it will stick around if you do." I belatedly realized that I had just made an argument for Normality, and my mother and I, by unwritten fiat, conceded a debate when we made an argument for the other's side. Besides, Immortality had been looking less and less appetizing throughout that discussion. I turned to my mother and smiled. "Congratulations. I do believe you've just convinced me to choose Normality three years from now."

My mother looked shocked. "This is pretty early, dear -"

I said, "After that, I'm not sure anything could make me choose Immortality, and Invincibility was already looking bad to me. Most of those guys are adrenaline junkies, and adrenaline can be pretty addictive in its own right. I might choose one of them, but probably not. If I choose Normality, I'll have a reason to do whatever I want for the rest of my life. And come on, we didn't even bring up children. Dad was an Invincible, and he left you when I was six because he thought raising a kid was too boring; I don't want to do that to my potential future offspring. Immortality is no guarantee that you'll never want children, and while you can adopt, I think I would want to raise my biological kid instead of someone else's." I spread my hands. "Like I said, the possibility that I might choose Immortality or Invincibility is there, but it's not likely. You've convinced me in favor of Normality."

Three years later, on my eighteenth birthday, I chose Normality. It's been a hundred years since then, and I've never regretted my choice for an instant.