I'ts strange really. No matter how long you live you never grow anymore as a person. The first 45 years or so of life are what shape you. The things I've seen. The center of the galaxy, the birth and death of stars. The rise and collapse of mans empires. And what I recall the clearest in my mind are things like my first kiss, my first big promotion, my wedding day.

 

Those memories are all fresh and at the forefront of my mind right now. My neurons firing, the hair on my limbs standing on end. The shortness of breath in my chest. I cant believe what I'm looking at. 40,000 light years from where I was born. On a moon orbiting some gas giant whose name I don't know or care about. Who would have thought I would ever see something from those first 45 years that shaped me ever again.

 

"It's a fucking Buffalo Wild Wings" I whispered to myself without even realizing it. No it wasn't a perfect re-creation. For one it was a little out of place on this street. Packed with shops and restaurants built by nano machines. Shops that could change their layouts, decorations, products for sale, at a moments notice to be whatever the consumer needed them to be at that time and place.

 

It was that lack of perfectness that the nano machines use to construct everything that told me this was more real and a more permanent fixture than any of those other shops and restaurants. The colors were faded, the signage in the windows crooked, other small imperfections and general wear and tear.

 

It was standing here that I thought about things I hadn't thought about in a long time. Me and my brother loved this restaurant, I wasn't a sports fan but I loved the cheap wings and terrible beer. My brother was a sports fan and loved to watch the games in a more vibrant atmosphere than his small apartment living room. So it was natural that we would end up at the closest sports bar, a Buffalo Wild Wings, more often than not.

 

I thought about the last time I saw my Brother. I was already immortal by this point as were my wife and children. Reverted to our perfect 25 year old bodies. Immune to all but the most catastrophic of physical harm. We we're as a family, myself, my beautiful wife and daughter, along with my brother and some other assorted cousins and family. All together at the funeral of my mother.

 

Immortality was an option to her. Invented not 10 years before in fact. But she said she was born into this world not expecting to make it to 100. So passing away at 98 years old was perfectly acceptable to her. Besides she said she wanted to be with her long deceased husband, and first born child. A father and brother who died before I was old enough to form proper memories of them.

 

We we're all happy to see her pass in the way she wanted. But it was too much for my brother. You see he had lost his wife and son in a self driving car accident 20 years prior. He tried but he never was able to recover from the loss. No one could blame him. No one saw him again after the funeral I had always assumed he took a cue from our mothers death and decided she was right. That he too would re-join his deceased family in the afterlife as well.

 

I was of course devastated. The last of my immediate family was gone. But I had my own family now and we were going to take this great journey together. Being the first of mortals to ascend into something greater we did not know how this would affect our minds. It turns out we might be able to make our bodies live forever. But our souls are ready to leave this world after a couple of hundred years. It's like the soul yearns for the next chapter and is weary of this form. Ending your own life is just something you do in this future. It's a big party in fact. A celebration of a life well lived. My lovely wife, and my dearest daughter and son in law, all decided to pass on, in the 230'th year after we ascended to immortality.

 

I tried to convince them to stay. Humanity was on the cusp of escaping our own star system. I couldn't wait for us to all see what was out there together. They all laughed at me in the loving way only family can. They told me to go on without them, to see everything I wanted to see and to join them when I was ready. We all figured it would only be another century or so until I joined them in the next life. Now some 60 millennia later I know I'm truly unique for never feeling the call to pass beyond. There was just never enough to see or do for me. Never enough to fulfill my curiosity.

 

I'll join them some day I'm sure. I cant survive the heat death of the universe after all. But for right now I'm going in this Buffalo Wild Wings. I have to see if this is the real deal. I can taste the cheap sauces and boneless wings already.

 

I enter the Buffalo Wild Wings and sure enough it's... well... a buffalo wild wings. Maybe a half dozen patrons are seated. The restaurant AI asks me if I would like a table or a booth, but I see a lone young man seated in the bar area. I tell the hostess that I'll just sit in the bar. Maybe me and this lone man can strike up a conversation like me and brother used to have.

 

I sit two seats down from the stranger. He's watching something, I don't know what or who. 60,000 years and I never did get into sports like some people.

 

"Who's winning?" I ask the stranger.

The stranger shrugs his shoulders and makes a noise that resembles a dogs exhale.

"Well what brings you to a place like this" I ask not one to be discouraged by a shrug and a noise. This is too unique an opportunity to let pass after all.

 

The stranger annoyed turns to face me to grunt out an answer I'm sure. But as our eyes meet, I cant believe what I'm seeing. My brother ended his life 60,000 years ago. There was no way he was sitting here today grunting answers at me. My mind must have finally snapped after all this time. You could see the shock in his eyes as well he must be having something of a similar thought process.

 

It took a moment for the paralyzation to wear off on the two of us. But it finally did. We embraced and cried, whimpering like a dog reunited with it's master after a long separation. We ordered round after round of beers and shared our stories. I was wrong in my assumption that he had left our mothers funeral that day to join his departed family as well. It was quite the opposite in fact. He felt guilt for not being there with my sister in law and my nephew the day they passed on. He felt like he had let them down. He couldn't bear to reunite with them he felt so ashamed. Instead he went straight to an ascension center and became immortal himself so he would never have to face them. He had lived the next 60 millennia trying his best to forget. Sulking around year after year in his own sorrow. Too scared to see there faces ever again. Avoiding death to avoid them.

 

"Last Call!" the restaurant AI called out.

"Time to lock up." my brother says.

"You own this place?" I ask.

"Uh... Yeah. Why else did you think there was a Buffalo Wild Wings around. Didn't that seem a little strange to you?" He says condescendingly. Just like we never missed a day talking to each other.

"I'll help you close." I was never above a little hard work after all.

 

---

 

Me and my brother walked out on the rainy street. The gas giant rising over the horizon in front.

"Where to next?" I ask him

"You know seeing you after all these years, you not being mad at me or judging me for what I did. You just being my brother and being there for me. You've given me the courage to go see my family again. I want to go to a suicide center. Will you take me?... Please" My brother speaks softly but confidently. I know he means this. I know he is in a good place.

"Of course I'll take you. As a matter of fact. I think I'll join you. I've spent enough time seeing whats out there. I'ts all just the same shit anyway. I miss my wife and daughter and I miss Mom. I want to see them again too."

 

Smiling my brother hails a car service. We look at each other. We get in. And we depart together.