Magical Realism - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. The Secret to Living Forever Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

THE SECRET TO LIVING FOREVER

Death was on Lance Heels’ mind a lot. The sicker he felt, the more the notion of forever bubbled beneath the surface. Leaving the world. Leaving his life. Leaving his wife. Leaving their children. Gone, permanently.

Were kids bastards if they’d once had a father?

“Is it there? It is, isn’t it?” Lance pressed a Samsung to his face with his right hand. A bloodied tissue was in his left. “Tell me—” He coughed, scarlet fluid climbed over his bottom lip in a throaty outburst.

“There’s much to treasure in the San Juan. Might be something for you, mate.” The voice on the far end of the line was a tease, but promisingly so.

“Daddy?”

Lance looked down at the doe-eyed boy. Tim was four. Lance doubted the boy understood what that blood and coughing meant. Though even at four, he suspected the kid was starting to get an idea.

“Daddy, are you okay?”

Lance said, “I’m on my way, have it ready,” and hung up. He bent down to look at his son, face-to-face, ruffled his blonde hair, careful not to drop his sweat-slippery cellphone. “I’m not okay, but I will be soon.”

“Lance.” Silvia Heels only used his given name when angry, crying out while lovemaking, or when concerned. Concern was an ugly bug in the belly and it grew more all the time. “What do you mean you will be soon?” She’d gotten good at holding back tears.

Lance offered a weak smile, his lips shiny red. Silvia opened her mouth to speak, but the baby began crying from the nursery.

“I will be soon, I promise.” No part of his plan involved telling his wife where he had to go or what the hired man had found. The Aliento de Siempre was not something to discuss until he saw it with his sick-tinted eyes. A secret until he had it in his hands.

—

“That’s the Breath of Forever?” Lance stared at the wrinkled grey corpse sprung from its barrel coffin.

The two doctors on hand looked like brothers. The third man was a hired treasure hunter named Jacques.

“Nah, mate, that’s the map.” Jacques was a Canadian who’d spent most of his life Down Under, but came to learn the Atlantic better than the Pacific or Indian oceans. He’d studied the likely whereabouts of the San Juan for more than a year before stumbling onto a handful of clues in the ancient logs of a sister vessel. He’d already suspected what remained inside. The lore was fantastic and in a rare turn of archaic history, seemingly true. “That’s why we have these gents.”

The doctors were small men in white coats. Both had round glasses and brown horseshoe pattern growth around shiny scalps. “Fascinating,” one said. “Truly,” the other said.

“I paid for—” Lance began to bark a horrendous cough. He’d done well on the flights over to Labrador, but the damp cold sank daggers into his throat and chest as he stood in the hatchery warehouse.

“Chill, mate. You two, follow the cut line, like a cereal box.”

The doctors each wielded a scalpel and cut the tight, healed-over former stitch lines running from head to foot of the little, water-greyed corpse.

Lance watched.

His cell vibrated with a text.

Where are you?

He closed his eyes, considered answering the text message, but powered down instead.

“Incredible,” one doctor said. “Truly,” the other doctor said.

Intrigued, Lance stepped closer. The doctors pulled the two huge flaps of skin away from a strangely preserved corpse. The flesh stretched. Interior side up, they stood back to let the bright overhead lights reveal a series of green ink markings.

“What in the hell is that?” Lance rubbed his chin.

“They gotta link ‘em, like so.” Jacques pointed to the legs and then made a crossing motion with his fingers. “Link ‘em, see?”

The doctors did and the map revealed itself. “Someone kept this man alive, cut hunks of flesh, drew the route, and sewed them back on. Amazing,” one doctor said. “Truly,” the other said.

“See? X marks the spot, that’s where we find the Aliento de Siempre.” Jacques wore the kind of grin a man wears when he knows his ship has come to port loaded with shiny bits from the treasury.

“What’s all this then?” Lance pointed to the inscriptions along the arms of the flayed skin.

“Instructions. Spanish. Umm…only a…uh, mouthful from the…fountain…no more.”

—

“Where the hell is he?” Silvia had Jacques by the lapels of his brand-new three-piece Hugo Boss suit and white Oxford.

“Lady, he was sick. Maybe it’s better this way.”

“Tell me!”

Jacques exhaled a heavy breath. He’d only gotten half his payday because of what went down, but perhaps he could still get the rest of it. “There’s a matter of debt due.”

“You damned snake,” Silvia said, wishing to say more, but both Joyce, the baby, and Tim were present.

“It costs, the journey isn’t cheap. You’ll all need to come, have to talk him into leaving.”

“He’s okay then?”

“My guess, he’s better.”

—

Jacques figured that maybe it was for the best. The Aliento de Siempre was exactly as advertised, but it had some sticky rules. Bringing the children would let him keep the money and be free of nagging relatives. He doubted Silvia talked to anyone about what her missing husband spent money on before he’d vanished. The only reason she knew about Jacques was a check made in his name and her husband’s cellphone call trail.

“Mommy, it smells in here.” It did smell in the tiny submarine, and their ears had popped without release more than 20 minutes earlier as they dropped into the frosty Atlantic 100 miles off the Newfoundland coast.

“Almost there, then you can get out and walk around a bit.” Jacques stared into the abyss as fish darted around the headlights.

“What?” Tim asked.

“He meant when we get back topside.” Sylvia rubbed his back. Joyce was in a papoose over her chest.

“Not quite,” Jacques said without turning to face his passengers.

Through the glass, a strange green glow began eating up the dark. A rocky outcropping blocked much of the light, but beneath it, was an opening. The fish avoided the shine.

“Mommy?” Tim began crying again. The expedition was hard on him and he had a strong imagination. Too strong.

“Shh, shh.” Sylvia rubbed harder. Joyce began crying too.

Jacques steered the sub up under the outcropping until light washed over the vessel. He stood, stretched his back, and then began opening the overhead hatch.

“What in the heck are you doing?” Sylvia’s expression was pure terror.

No water rushed through the opened hatch, though the sound of it was constant. A gentle splash and wash.

“This is your stop. Wanna see your husband, don’t ya?”

“How? What’s out there?” Sylvia stood to look out into the green shine. There was oxygen, and it was much warmer than expected. It smelled like low tide. The pressure had lessened.

“Your husband, for one.”

“Mommy?”

“Fine, can I leave—?”

“No. I’m no babysitter. He needs to see them, I’m sure”

“Come on, Tim, let’s find your dad.” Sylvia guided the boy to the ladder.

“Forty minutes and I’m leaving.” Jacques opened an app on his cellphone. Numbers began to count down.

Sylvia looked at her watch. It was 2:50 PM.

“Is that enough time?”

“He’s not far. Just hoof the path.”

—

Incredible and impossible in the same breath. The rocky floor beneath their feet was dry and the cave walls glowed green effervescence, water alive within translucent stone surrounding them. Ahead was a narrow tunnel. Sylvia held Tim’s hand, leading him. She wore Joyce in the chest carrier. Joyce had gone silent.

Through the tunnel, the trio came onto an opening. It was painfully bright. Sylvia called out, “Lance. Lance!”

“Daddy?” Tim was in the shadow of his mother and saw what she did not. “Daaaah-deeee!”

Sylvia’s eyes worked to level out as her ears grasped the sound of her son’s voice. She squeezed the boy’s hand as her eyes adjusted.

Lance was right there.

But so was a 40-foot baby with green skin and deep pink lips. The chest and abdomen were bare but for two nipples; it had no bellybutton. Its eyes glowed like radioactive milk saucers. It had no hair. Lance was in its lap. A pudgy baby hand behind him.

“Lance?” Sylvia stepped closer, slowly. Tim was tight to her leg.

“I’m so happy you came. Meet the Aliento de Siempre. The Breath of Forever. The Fountain of Youth. I haven’t coughed since I sipped.”

“Sipped what, Lance?” Using his name now was in concern. She could’ve said it 50 more times for how screwed up this image was.

“It’s a little weird, but I feel better than ever. The ancient scroll said one sip will let you live two hundred years. I’ve had three times that, but I only sip. It’s important to only sip.”

“His fountain?”

“Mommy,” Tim whispered into Sylvia’s pant leg.

“Hey, Tim. How’s my big man? Thirsty?” Lance reached for the baby’s rotund belly.

“Lance, what are you doing?” Sylvia’s Apple watch beeped the hour. She looked. It had already been 10 minutes.

Lance began scratching at the soft-looking flesh as if the giant baby were a dog. “It’s a little weird, yeah, but it’s the Fountain of Youth. Don’t you want to live forever?”

The baby bounced, smiled a wide, toothless mouth. Lance slipped off its lap, a practiced descent, fingers and palms busy on the belly, itching and slapping playfully.

“Daddy?”

Sylvia looked at her watch, wondering if there was any point in attempting to pull her husband away from… “What the heck is going on?”

“I told you.”

“Lance, what in the heck—?”

“I told you.”

“Lancewhatinthefuckisgoingon!”

The baby wailed laughter, shaking the cavern. It then squinted, forcing a viscous greenish-white blob from its right nipple. Lance climbed up and made a cradle with his hands. The secretion was like a crystal ball. Liquid, but solid. “Sip with me, honey. You too, Tim, come here. Have some medicine with Daddy.”

Tim took a step because good boys obeyed their daddies.

Sylvia grabbed him. “No, Tim.” She spun and raced back the way she’d come.

Through the tunnel. Lance’s voice echoed, begging her to return.

Tears began to spill from her eyes. Joyce howled tight against her chest. Tim was in shock and silent. Around the final corner, they reached the opening.

Sylvia looked at the lapping water and then her watch. They had 23 minutes left. 23 goddamned minutes, so where was that damned…? “Snake,” Sylvia hissed.

—

Jacques maneuvered the sub up to the light.

“How did you find out about this?” asked Carol, a wealthy octogenarian.

“Luck.”

The hatch opened and Carol and her third husband Darrell, a spry 40-something, climbed out.

“Forty minutes,” Jacques said, opening an app on his armband.

The passengers looked to the path and began walking. Jacques watched them go. Once they were beyond sight, he closed the hatch and dropped into the oceanic abyss.

The Aliento de Siempre was real, his 200 nearly ageless years was proof, but just smelling the air of the cavern brought that nasty salty, briny taste back to his mouth. It made him gag every time. He had a thermos of the stuff and he dipped his tongue into it once every few years.

—

The octogenarian followed the comparatively young Darrell into an opening. It was incredible. Insane. An enormous baby sat at one end while dozens of average-sized babies rolled and crawled around the floor, faces coated in slimy, greenish-white goop.

“Welcome,” a young man said from the giant baby’s lap. “I’m Lance. It’s very important that you only sip. A little sip. Most get carried away after they’ve been here awhile.” He began to scratch and tickle the bulbous belly anew.

The giant baby bounced and clapped his hands, huge baby smile on its baby face.

XX