Hey, buddy.
You don't waste time, do you?
I try not to.
Well, you need help?
Sure.
Would you like to tell us...
what the hell that was all about?
I don't like good-byes.
Kind of the point of a goodbye party, John.
Went to a certain amount of trouble, you know?
Could've at least stayed a few minutes, huh?
Eaten some of the food we so feverishly prepared?
I apologize, Harry.
But why are you moving so quickly?
You only resigned a couple of days ago.
You got the history chair at Stanford.
I wish.
Well, taquitos, chicken wings,
Roastie-toasties and beer.
If we'd had more time,
We'd have done something a little more grandiose.
Candlelight dinner at McDonald's.
Strippers.
Taquitos are fine.
A'right.
Art's gonna be along, too.
He's, uh, talking to a student. Pfft.
Is George taking over for you?
George or Trimbell - Has the Dean made up his mind?
He hasn't called.
My god!
Wh-What is this?
It looks like a Van Gogh,
But I've never seen it before.
Is that an original, John?
No, it's just a gift someone gave me.
Still, it's a superb copy.
Contemporaneous, I think,
May I take a closer look?
Please, yeah.
Yeah, it's the same stretcher as Van Gogh used.
Yeah, there's writing on the back in french.
Oh, "To my friend Jacque Bourne."
Wonder who that was?
Someone he knew, I guess.
Brilliant deduction, Sherlock.
Surely you'll have this looked at, appraised?
Well, maybe sometime,
But I wouldn't really want money for it.
That does it.
Put that stuff in the kitchen.
No, I'm gonna put it in the bathroom, John.
Gas is off, electricity's on.
Get comfortable while you can.
The furniture's going this afternoon.
It's been years since I sat on a floor.
Heh. I can't remember her name.
Eh, it's good for the back.
Can we do yoga exercises?
Tantric yoga, we can.
( Chuckles )
So you're leaving good old "We teach you"?
Rather suddenly, you must admit.
Truth time, John.
Is there a problem?
No.
Oh, come on, you know we wanna help.
That's appreciated, but really--
There's no problem.
Well, now I am curious.
Where are you going?
Givin' up tenure...
a decade of professorship,
In line to chair the department,
And you don't know where you're going?
Call it cabin fever.
After a while, I get itchy feet.
I've done this before.
No, no, no, you're too young to have done this before.
And he hasn't aged a day in ten years.
Every woman on the faculty
Would give anything to have that secret.
Is that what they're after, Edith?
Oh, stop, Harry.
( Giggles )
Wow, can you pull this?
What the hell?
What do you hunt?
Deer, mostly.
Around big bear.
With a bow and arrow?
Most people can't bag a deer
With a rifle and a telescopic sight.
Though, good eatin'.
The best wild game.
Lives naturally, eats naturally.
Well, it's beautiful.
( Motor hums )
Art.
Ah.
So, can I get an "a" for awesome?
Oh, my gosh.
( Chuckles )
That was fun.
Hey, John.
You know Linda. You had her last semester.
Hi. Hey.
She's one of my victims now. I'm taking her home.
She wanted to come by and say hello goodbye.
Is Art as tough as I hear?
Oh, archaeology's tough.
Dr. Jenkins is a fine teacher.
Oh, that's very politic.
It's very true. Uh-huh.
Something for you to read on the road, pal.
"Shadows of the cave: parallels to early man."
Author: M. Jenkins.
Publish or perish.
I'd rather read
Than write another one.
Thank you.
Hi.
Oh, everybody, this is Linda.
Linda, this is everybody.
Linda. Hi.
So.
Where you going, John, like we give a damn?
We've already covered that.
John's got itchy feet.
There are over-the-counter remedies for that, John.
( Laughs )
So there is a problem.
No.
I just like to move on now and then.
It's a personal thing.
Well, not to pry.
I'm sorry I don't have more to offer you.
Got conversation, some seats for your behinds,
And, uh...
Is he ducking out on us again?
...I do have this.
Oh ho ho! Johnny Walker Green!
( Laughs ) didn't even know they made it in green.
What do they pay you?
Nothing is too good for my friends.
But I'm sorry-- We are down to plastic cups now.
That's a sacrilege I'll tolerate.
I will do the honors.
Oh, come to papa.
Ooh! Here, cups, cups.
There we go.
Step on in here.
There ya go...
one for the birthday boy-- Excuse me. Art?
No, not for me.
Oh, no, I don't drink.
( Laughs ) we're not gonna card you, darling.
All right, here, join the circle at least.
Well, to long life and good fortune
To our esteemed friend
And colleague, John Oldman.
May he find undeserved bliss
Wherever he goes.
Here, here.
Skael. Na zdorovye.
One off the top, John.
Mm! Oh, that's good.
Excuse me.
John, we're all sorry to see you go.
Truly.
Okay. Now we're done with that,
What do we do for the rest of the afternoon?
Anyone got a good topic?
Like this, maybe? Heh.
What is that?
It's a burin of a parrot beak.
Inclined chisel point...
probably early Magdalenian.
May I see that? Sure.
Yes indeed, that's what it is.
What's a burin?
A burin is a flint tool
For grooving wood and bone, antlers especially,
To make spear and harpoon points.
Magdalenians weren't noted for flint work,
So this is a very nice specimen.
Okay, what's a Magdalenian?
A later Cro-magnon,
Without gettin' technical.
It's the final culture of the upper paleolithic.
If stones could speak, eh, Art?
So where'd you get that, John?
Believe it or not, from a thrift shop-- A quarter.
You lucky dog!
I gotta go digging for this kind of stuff.
Can I, uh...?
Yeah.
Huh.
Maybe...
I'm glad you did this.
Did what? You mean come over?
Maybe?
Definitely.
Gee, thanks.
Well, so are we.
So are we.
We couldn't let you just run off.
Thanks.
John, what is up, huh?
Are you on America's most wanted?
We won't turn you in.
Yeah, come on, out with it.
You're among friends.
Snoopy friends.
Forget it.
You are creating the mystery here.
Obviously, you have something you'd like to say. Say it!
Well, maybe I...
ten, nine, eight, seven...
Harry, stop.
There is something I'm tempted to tell you, I think.
I've never done this before, and I wonder how it'll pan out.
( Harry chuckles )
I wonder if I could ask you a silly question.
John, we're teachers.
We answer silly questions all the time.
Hey!
What if a man from the upper paleolithic
Survived until the present day?
What do you mean, survived?
Never died?
Yes. What would he be like?
Well, I know some guys.
You ever been to the Ozarks?
It's an interesting idea.
What, are you working on a science fiction story?
Say I am. What would he be like?
Pretty tired.
( Laughter )
Well, seriously,
As Art's book title suggests,
He might be like any of us.
Dan. A caveman?
Well, there's no anatomical difference
Between, say, a Cro-magnon and us.
Except that as a rule, we've grown taller.
What's the selective advantage of height?
Better to see predators in tall grass, my dear.
Actually, tall and skinny
Radiates heat more effectively in warmer climates.
And as for neanderthals,
I mean, we've all seen apish people.
That strain's still with us.
But he'd be a caveman.
No, he wouldn't.
John's hypothetical man
Would have lived through 140 centuries...
yeah, roughly.
...and changed with every one of them.
I mean, assuming normal intelligence.
Well, we think men of the upper paleolithic
Were as intelligent as we are.
They just didn't know as much.
John's man would have learned as the race learned.
In fact, if he had an inquiring mind,
His knowledge might be astonishing.
If you do write that, let me have a look at it.
I'm sure you'll make some anthropological boners.
It's a deal.
What would keep him alive?
What does the biologist say?
Cigarettes.
And ice cream. ( Laughs )
All right, all right, I'll play.
All right, um, in science fiction terms,
I would say...
perfect regeneration of the body's cells,
Especially in the vital organs.
Actually, the human body appears designed
To live about 190 years.
Most of us just die of slow poisoning.
Maybe he did something right,
Something everybody else in history had done wrong.
What, like eat the food,
Drink the water, and breathe the air?
Prior to modern times,
Those were pristine.
We've extended our lifespan in a world that's, uh...
not fit to live in.
You know, it could happen.
The pancreas turns over cells every 24 hours,
The stomach lining in three days,
The entire body in seven years,
But the process falters.
Waste accumulates, eventually proves fatal to function.
Now if a quirk in his immune system
Led to perfect detox,
Perfect renewal, then yeah.
He could duck decay.
Mm, that's a secret we'd all love to have.
Would you really want to do that?
Live 14,000 years?
Well, if I could stay healthy and I didn't age,
I mean, why not?
Yeah. What a chance to learn.
Is anyone hungry?
You know, the more I think about it, yeah, it's possible.
Anything is possible, right?
After all, one century's magic, another century's science.
They thought Columbus was a nut job, right?
Pasteur, Copernicus?
Aristarchus long before that.
Right.
I had a chance to sail with Columbus,
Only I'm not the adventurous type.
I was pretty sure the earth was round,
But at that point, I still thought
He might fall off an edge someplace...
look around, John.
We just did.
I suppose there's a joke in there somewhere,
But I don't get it.
There's nothing to get.
What are we talking about?
We were just talking about a caveman
Who survives until the present time.
As you said, what a chance to learn,
Once I learned to learn.
Did you start the whiskey before we got here?
Pretend it's science fiction.
Figure it out.
Okay, a--( Laughs )-- Very old Cro-magnon
Living until the present.
( Grunts loudly )
Oh!
( Laughing )
What?
John just confided that he's 14,000 years old.
Oh, John, you don't look a day over 900.
Okay, okay.
All right, Spock, I'll play your little game.
What do you want? What's the punch line?
Every ten years or so, when people start
To notice I don't age, I move on.
That's very good, that's very quick, John.
I wanna read that story when you're done.
You want more?
By all means. This is great.
All right, now...
( laughs )
So you think that you are a...
a, uh, Cro-magnon.
Well, I didn't learn it in school.
That's my best guess,
Based on archaeological data, maps, anthropological research.
Since Mesopotamia,
I've got the last... 4,000 years straight.
You're ahead of most people, so please, go on.
Well, you know the background stuff,
So I'll make it brief.
In what I call my first lifetime,
I aged to about 35...
what you see.
I ended up leading my group.
They saw me as magical.
I didn't even have to fight for it.
Then fear came, and they chased me away.
They thought that I was
Stealing their lives away to stay young.
The prehistoric origin of the vampire myth.
That is good!
First thousand years,
I didn't know up from sideways.
How do you know the first thousand years?
An informed guess, based on what
I've learned in my memories.
Most people can scarcely remember their childhood,
But you have memories of that time?
Like yours, selective.
You know, the high points, the low points, traumas.
They stick in the mind forever.
Put down at 3 or 35, you still feel a twinge.
Go on.
I kept getting chased because I wouldn't die,
So I got the hang of joining new groups I found.
I also got the idea of periodically moving on.
We were semi-Nomadic, of course,
Following the weather and the game we hunted.
The first 2,000 years were cold.
We learned it was warmer at lower elevations.
Late glacial period, I assume.
What was the terrain like?
Mountainous.
Vast plains to the west.
West--Something you learned in school.
Towards the setting sun.
I suspect I saw the British Isles
From what is now the french coast.
Huge mountains...
on the other side of an enormous deep valley
That was shadowed by the setting sun.
This is before they were separated
From the continent by rising seas, as glaciers melted.
That happened?
Yes, the end of the Pleistocene.
So far, what he says fits.
Oh, yeah, into any textbook.
And that's where I found it.
How can I have knowledgeable recall
If I didn't have knowledge?
It's all retrospective.
All I can do is integrate my recollections
With modern findings.
Caveman, you gonna hit me over the head with a club
And drag me into the bedroom?
You'd be more fun conscious.
Oh, John.
Let me get this straight.
We're not talking about reincarnation.
You're not saying that you remember
Whatever the hell it would be,
200 separate lifetimes, dying
And being born again and yada yada?
One lifetime.
Some lifetime.
Wow.
Maybe there is something to this reincarnation thing.
You're supposed to come back
Again and again, learn and learn,
And somehow, John, you just managed
To bypass all the other bodies.
Well, what's the point?
What about oceans?
Didn't see them till much later.
So how would you know an ocean from a lake?
Big waves-- Something else
I can only surmise in retrospect.
Were you curious about where it all came from?
We would look up at the sky and wonder.
"There's gotta be some big guys up there.
What else made all this down here?"
At first I thought
There was something wrong with me--
Maybe I was a bad guy for not dying.
Then I began to wonder if I was cursed
Or perhaps blessed.
Then I thought maybe I had a mission.
Do you still think you do?
God works in mysterious ways.
I think I just happened.
( Phone ringing )
( Laughs )
Wow.
Hello?
Yes, Ellie?
What's wrong?
Sandy?
Coming.
Yeah?
Do we have Ellie's midterm here?
Yeah, sorry.
I picked it up with the periodicals.
Got it.
No, you're worried about your parents?
Don't--Don't worry.
You passed, c+.
Take care of yourself.
Good kid.
What does pre-Med need with history?
Got it.
Thank you.
Sorry, guys.
John, please continue.
Come on, I thought we were done with that.
No! Let's go on with it.
It's interesting.
Besides, I think he's making a certain amount of sense.
Like Hegel-- Logic from absurd premises.
That Van Gogh?
He gave it to me.
I was, uh, Jacque Bourne at the time,
A pig farmer.
A pig farmer?
( Laughing )
I like to work with my hands.
He would come out to the place, paint.
We talked about capturing nature in Art.
Turner, Cezanne, Pissaro.
Oh, the Nolde landscapes.
Not in Van Gogh's time.
He would have loved them, though.
Yes.
Well, I don't understand
Why you can't remember where you're from.
Geography hasn't changed.
I learned that in--
Professor Hensen's tepid lectures.
But you're right.
Where did you live when you were five years old?
Little rock.
Your mother, she took you to the market?
Mm-hmm. What direction was it?
From your house.
I don't know.
How far?
Um, three blocks.
Were there any references
That stuck in your mind?
Well, there was a gas station
And a big field.
I was told I could never go there alone.
And if you went back there today,
Would it be the same?
No. I'm sure it's all different and built up.
Thus the saying-- "You can't go home again"
Because it isn't there anymore.
Picture it on my scale--
I migrated through an endless flat space
Full of endless new things--
Forests, mountains, tundra, canyons.
My memory sees what I saw then.
My eye sees freeways, urban sprawl,
Big macs under the Eiffel tower.
Early on, the world got bigger and bigger,
And then...
think what I've had to unlearn.
And now you're moving on.
As you've said, there's talk of my not aging,
And when that happens, I move on.
Well, it might make sense to set up your next identity,
Your next ten years, and then just drop into it.
I've done that a few times,
Even passed as my own son.
"Oh, you're an engineer, too?
You're Ben's son. He was a good man."
Saves trouble with credentials and references.
On the other hand, I've been busted a few times.
Spent a year in jail, Belgium, 1862--
I won't forget that--
For faking a government application.
When'd you come to America?
1890, right after Van Gogh's death,
With some french immigrants...
moving on.
An answer for every question.
Except one, John.
Why're you doing this?
A whim. Maybe not such a good idea.
I...
wanted to say goodbye to you as me,
Not what you thought I was.
Well, since this isn't funny,
We think you might have a problem.
A very serious problem.
I've got boxes to move.
I'll give you a hand.
Wouldn't you have some relic, an artifact
To remind you of your early life?
Like this, maybe?
Thrift shop.
Really.
If you lived 100... 1,000 years...
would you still have this?
What would cause you to keep it?
As a memento to your beginnings,
Even if you didn't have
The concept of beginnings?
It would be gone, lost.
No.
I don't have artifacts.
Keep that.
Interesting.
You could have lied about that.
Don't talk about me while I'm gone.
Is he serious?
If he is, I'm sorry to say he's...
oh, how could he have concealed that for ten years?
Least he doesn't appear to be dangerous.
What are you doing?
Checkin' for a hidden mic.
Candid camera.
He's fabricating these wild stories.
I've never seen him acting like this.
Oh, it's crazy.
All right, all right, as soon as you can, then.
I love you, you know.
I know.
Since my first week at the office.
And?
I care very much about you,
But now you know what you'd be getting into.
Do you really think you're a caveman?
Do you?
Could you love me,
Or don't you believe in that anymore?
I've gotten over it too many times.
Fond of you...
certainly attracted to you.
That's it?
I can work with that.
If what I'm saying is true,
You and any children will age.
I won't.
And one day I'll leave.
You'll go back to your May-December romances.
The simple fact is
That I can't give you forever.
How long's forever?
Who ever really has it?
My parents split up before I was born,
And then my mom's next marriage lasted
What, a whole three years?
Then there's death, illness, acts of god...
no one knows how long they have.
Or how little.
I love you.
Take whatever you can get.
Like ten years?
Ah! Ha ha ha!
( Yells )
Uhn!
Oh.
Why did you do that?
I wanted to see how fast you were. Check your reflexes.
I don't have eyes in the back of my head,
I can't hear a flea walking,
I am not in any way superman.
Well, I'm a second-degree black belt.
Give it another thousand years.
Well. I got it, I got it, I got it.
Jesus.
Smooth demonstration, Harry.
Sit on it, Dan.
I still have questions.
I-I do too, John.
I mean, are we done with prehistory yet?
Remember any of your original language?
A little. One thing hasn't changed much...
( wolf whistles )
Did you ever do any cave Art?
Do you know the rock Art at Les Eyzies?
Mm-hmm.
It was the work of a man named...
Giraud.
He did a pretty good job.
He would draw the animals
That we hoped to find to eat.
One day after a fruitless hunt,
Our chief stomped his teeth out
Because his magic had failed him.
After that, someone had to chew his food for him.
Finally, he got-- I suspect--
An infected jaw,
And he was abandoned.
That's awful.
You have to know what to kill.
Is this why all your students
Say your knowledge of history is...
so amazing?
No, that's mostly based on study.
Remember, it's one man, one place at a time,
My solitary viewpoint
Of a world I knew almost nothing about.
Well, let's talk about
What you say you do know about--
Historical times.
Don't encourage him.
Edith.
Next few thousand years, it got warmer.
A few thousand years--
See, now, I know you're guessing.
You can't get there from here, Art.
Well then, pray, continue.
We hunted reindeer, mammoths--
Bison, horses,
The game retreated northward
As the climate changed,
You got the idea of growing food
Rather than gathering it,
Raising animals rather than hunting them.
Am--Am I getting warm, here?
I bet I am.
Lakeside living becomes commonplace,
Fishing, fowling-- Come on!
John, this is out of any textbook.
Even yours.
You got most of it right.
Eventually I headed to the east.
I'd grown curious about the world.
I'd gotten the hang of going it alone,
Learning how to fit in when I wanted to.
East.
Towards the rising sun?
Yes. I thought it might be warmer there.
That's when I saw an ocean.
The Mediterranean, probably.
It was around the beginning of the bronze age,
So I followed the trade routes from the east,
Copper, tin,
Learning languages as I went.
Everywhere, creation myths,
New gods, so many, so different.
I finally realized that it was...
probably all hogwash,
So I was Sumerian for 2,000 years,
Then finally Babylonian under Hammurabi.
Great man.
And I sailed as a Phoenician for a time.
See, moving on had been easier as a Hunter-Gatherer...
difficult when villages emerged,
Tougher still in city states where authority was centralized.
Strangers were suspect.
It seemed as though I was always moving on.
I learned some new tricks--
Even faked my death a couple of times.
I continued east
To India,
Luckily at the time of the Buddha.
Luckily.
Most extraordinary man I've ever known.
He taught me things
I'd never thought about before.
You studied... with the Buddha?
Until he died.
He knew there was something different about me.
I never told him.
This is fascinating.
I almost wish it were true.
Yeah, if it was true, why are you telling us?
I mean, we might leave here today,
Go out there, tell everybody.
It would vanish in disbelief.
A story that goes around the room.
No credibility.
Even if I could make you believe me,
In a month, you wouldn't.
Some of you would call me a psychopath,
Others would be angry at a pointless joke.
Some of us are angry now.
This--This was a bad idea.
Uh, I love you all, and I do not want
To put you through anything.
Then why are you doing it?
'Cause I wanted to say goodbye--
As yourself.
I think you've done that,
Whoever that self is.
Easy, Edith.
We're just grading his homework.
I see what's going on. You're playing the good cop, Dan.
That's fine. Just enjoy it.
All right, I think this whole thing is just a crock!
I should leave, but I'm gonna stay.
You know why? 'Cause I wanna see what this is all about.
So do I. What is this all about?
Let's ask Dr. Freud, who's just arrived.
Hey, will! Will!
Art. Hey.
John!
I'm glad I caught you.
Someone mentioned that you were leaving--
Called you, told you that I've lost it.
Glad you're here. Things are going in unexpected directions.
Yes, so I hear.
Hi.
Are you hungry?
Uh, thank you, no.
Whiskey? Johnny walker green.
Oh, yes.
( Closes door )
You look very familiar, my dear. Linda Murphy.
I'm in your Tuesday psych 1 class, Dr. Gruber.
Ah, well, this lesson may be something
I could not have imagined.
I regret being so obvious about this, John,
But these people are all very concerned for you.
Yes, I'm cutting out paper dinosaurs.
I really wish I'd been here from the beginning.
Me too.
Let me just say something right now.
There's absolutely no way in the whole world
For John to prove this story to us,
Just like there's no way for us to disprove it.
No matter how outrageous we think it is,
No matter how highly trained some of us think we are,
There's absolutely no way to disprove it.
Our friend is either a caveman, a liar, or a nut.
So while we're thinking about that,
Why don't we just go with it?
I mean, hell, who knows,
He might jolt us into believing him,
Or we might jolt him back to reality.
Believing? Whose reality?
So... you're a caveman.
Yes. Uh...
uh, I was a Cro-magnon, I think.
You don't know if you're a caveman or not?
No, I'm sure about that.
A Cro-magnon, then.
When did you first realize this?
When the Cro-magnon was first identified,
When anthropology gave them a name,
I had mine.
Well, please continue.
I'm sure you must have more to say.
Would you like me to lie on the couch?
( Laughs ) as you wish.
As a physician, I'm curious.
In this enormous lifetime you describe,
Have you ever been ill?
Sure, as much as anyone.
Seriously ill?
Sometimes.
Of what? Do you know?
In prehistory, I can't tell you.
Maybe pneumonia once or twice.
Last few hundred years,
I've gotten over typhoid, yellow fever,
Smallpox...I survived the black plague.
Bubonic?
Oh, that's terrible.
More so than history describes.
And smallpox-- But you're not scarred.
I don't scar.
No, John, that is not possible.
Please, let's take John's story
At face value and explore it from that perspective.
If he doesn't scar, it's no stranger than the rest.
John, would you please stop by my lab,
Suffer a few tests from
Your friendly neighborhood biologist.
I'm leery of labs.
Afraid I might go in and stay for a thousand years
While cigarette smoking men try to figure me out.
You don't think that I would betray you?
Walls have ears.
Medical tests might be a way of proving what you say.
I don't wanna prove it.
So you're telling us this,
The yarn of the century,
And you don't care if we believe it or not?
I guess I shouldn't have expected you to.
You're not as crazy as you think I am.
Amen.
I've always liked you.
Why, thank you, dear.
Now that's changing.
Surely you don't believe this nonsense.
I think we should remain courteous to someone
Who we've known and trusted, Edith.
Here you sit--You can't break his story.
All you can do is thumb your nose at it.
Is that what you're doing, John?
Are you laughing at us inside?
I wish you didn't feel that way.
What you're saying-- It offends common sense.
So does relativity, quantum mechanics--
That's the way nature works.
But your story doesn't fit into nature as we know it.
But we know so little, Dan.
We know so little.
How many of you know
Five geniuses in your field
That you disagree with...
one you would like to strangle?
Strangle them all.
It's bad enough we have to listen
To Harry's idiotic jokes.
Thank you very much, Edith.
Maybe when I'm 110, I'll be as smart as you are.
If you lived as long as John did,
You still wouldn't grow up.
Come on, guys. Take it easy.
How often do we get to meet someone
Who says he's a stone age man?
Well, once is enough.
Edith.
All right. A guy with your mind--
You'd have studied a great deal.
I have ten degrees, including all of yours...
except yours, will.
That makes me feel a trifle lilliputian.
That's over the span of 170 years.
I got my biology degree at oxford in 1840,
So I'm a little behind the times.
The same in other areas--
I can't keep up with the new stuff that comes along.
No one can.
Not even in their specialty.
So much for the myth
Of the super-wise, all-knowing immortal.
I see your point, John.
No matter how long a man lives,
He can't be in advance of his times.
He can't know more than the best of the race knows,
If that--I mean, when the world learned it was round,
You learned it.
It took some time.
News traveled slowly
Before communications were fancy.
There were social obstacles,
Preconceptions, screams from the church.
Ten doctorates.
That's impressive, John. Did you teach them?
Some.
You might have all done the same.
Living 14,000 years didn't make me a genius.
I just had time.
Time.
We can't see it, we can't hear it,
We can't weigh it, we can't measure it in a laboratory.
It's a subjective sense of becoming
What we are instead of what we were a nanosecond ago,
Becoming what we will be in another nanosecond.
The Hopis see time as a landscape,
Existing before and behind us,
And we move-- We move through it,
Slice by slice.
Clocks measure time.
No, they measure themselves.
The objective referent of clock is another clock.
How very interesting. What has it got to do with John?
Oh, he--He might be a man
Who lives outside of time as we know it.
Yes, uh, well.
People do go around armed these days.
If I shot you, John-- You're immortal?
Would you survive this?
I never said I was immortal, just old.
I might die.
And then you could wonder
The rest of your incarcerated life what you shot.
Well, uh, may I?
( Sighs )
Preferable to a gun.
Will, that was a bit much.
Ooh. Books.
Doctorates.
Yes, you have grown and changed.
But there is always innate nature.
Wouldn't you be more comfortable
Squatting in the backyard?
Sometimes I do, will.
Look up at the stars.
Wonder.
And what did primitive man make of them?
A great mystery.
There were gods up there then.
Shamans who knew about them told us.
They still do.
Have you ever wished it would end?
No.
Fourteen thousand years.
Injuries, illness, disasters.
You've survived them all.
You're a very lucky man.
( Knocks )
Come in.
John Oldman?
Yes.
Charity now. We're here to pick up the furniture.
It's all yours.
Here, take this chair.
I'm gonna go drink in the corner.
You're, uh... you're donating it?
Everything?
I'll get more.
Do you always travel this light?
It's the only way to move.
Oh, you--
You've talked a good deal
About your extraordinary amount of living.
What do you think of dying, John?
Do you fear death?
Who wouldn't?
How did primitive man regard death?
Well, we had the practical concept.
You know, we stopped,
Fell down, didn't get up,
Started to smell bad, come apart.
Injuries we could understand--
If someone's insides were all over the ground.
Infections...
they were, uh, mysterious.
Aging...
the biggest mystery of all.
You realized you were different.
Longer to realize how I was different,
To find a way to synthesize
My experience into a view of myself.
At first, I thought everybody had
Something wrong with them.
They got old and they died, animals, too...
but not me.
( Coughs pointedly )
Oh, forgive me, my dear.
You live simply.
I've owned castles, but why leave a lot
If you're always leaving?
I have money.
What, you get into at&t at 50 cents, John?
As one grows older,
The days, weeks, months go by more quickly.
What does a day or a year
Or a century mean to you?
The birth-death cycle?
Turbulence.
I meet someone,
Learn their name, say a word, they're gone.
Others come like waves. Rise, fall.
Ripples in a wheat field, blown by the wind.
Do you ever get tired of it all?
I get bored now and then.
They keep making the same stupid mistakes over and over.
Hey.
Then you see yourself
As separate from the rest of humanity.
I didn't mean it that way.
But of course...
I am.
( Chuckles )
Are you comfortable knowing that you have lived
While everyone you knew-- Everyone you knew, John!--
Has died?
I've regretted losing people...
often.
Have you ever felt guilt about that--
Something akin to survivor's guilt?
In the strict psychological sense?
I suppose I have.
Yeah.
But what can I do about it?
Indeed.
I'm sorry, ma'am.
Gentlemen, I'm--
I'm gonna keep the couch.
Thanks.
Ladies? Will? Oh, no...
you've got a heart condition. Don't grump about it.
Hey, how about changing the subject, will?
Enough with the-- With the dying.
But this is the flip side of his coin, Harry.
I'm very curious to know his feelings.
Would you prefer I asked him about his father?
I thought you always started with
"Tell me about your mother."
Yes, but prehistory was strongly patriarchal.
Surely you remember your father.
I seem to remember a figure,
Perhaps an older brother, a social father, maybe.
Well, no matter.
I can scarcely remember mine.
Do you feel a vacancy
In your life about that, John,
Something you wish could be filled
By a face, a voice, an image?
Not at this late date.
There must be someone-- Probably many--
That you valued intensely.
Loved.
You saw them age and die--
A friend, a colleague, a wife.
Certainly you've had wives and children?
I'd move on.
I had to move on.
Making him history's biggest bigamist.
( Chuckles softly )
Have you ever in your life thought
"It should have been me"?
Maybe.
Yeah, Art has told me
That some of your early fellows
Feared you were stealing their lives.
Have you thought that perhaps you were?
Perhaps you are!
There have always been legends of such a thing,
A creature not quite human
Taking not the blood, but the life force itself?
My god, will.
Unconsciously, perhaps,
By some biological or psychic mechanism
That we can only guess at.
I'm not saying you would do such a thing deliberately.
I'm not saying that you would even know how to...
would you?
But would such a thing be fair?
So you believe me now?
I'm only exploring what you have said.
Whether I believe it or not is of no importance.
We will die...
you will live.
Will you come to my funeral, John?
Hey, will...
you've gone too far.
John didn't ask to be what he is.
And we did not ask to hear about it.
But if it were true,
Is there one among us who would not feel envy,
Even perhaps a touch of hatred?
You told us of yourself, John.
Can you imagine how we feel?