Towards a Cure for Death

We know how hard it is to contemplate the end. There is a variety of paperwork to negotiate for one thing, a lifetime of your current existential framework to overcome, as well as the unmitigated inconvenience of death itself.

But, what if the end all was not the be all we believed? Scientists recently made a breakthrough in the field of posthumous quiddity – until now, an arcane philosophy of the inherent nature of existence. What’s more, a new discovery means that the natural process of entropy, where everything degrades into chaos, can be halted or even reversed.

And converted into a very large audio file.

So far, according to leading negentropy researcher, Dr Tod P. Keinlieben, the results on anything more than the standard procedural decay of a sock drawer have been so complex as to be outside the normal range of audio filters to process.

“When we reversed the entropy of a bowl of rotting fruit, it was extremely loud and dissonant, but then – using a suite of parametric equalisers and high- and low-pass filters – we were able to successfully distill the essences of banana, apple and grapes into separate files. The banana made a surprisingly percussive, rhythmic beat, the apple was strong in the midrange. The grapes only whined, unfortunately. I mean, it was beautiful, from a scientific point of view, but still exceedingly unfriendly to the human ear, so we christened the separate files ‘Stock’. ‘Aitken’, and ‘Waterman’.”

Now, scientists at start-up NegEnt, Inc, have announced a product they say will defeat the ultimate entropic process, death. In a new academic paper, published in the June edition of Proceedings from the QVC Beauty Channel, Dr Neinlieben’s product, Entropy Antagonist-B ™, claims to make the moment of passage across the Styx “as easy as a down-stream journey to the cerulean sea of tomorrow”.

Similar claims have been made before. In 2005, a company Dr Keinleben co-founded with the teen cosmeceutical brand Innit Yeah?, marketed the explicitly confrontational skincare product Facial Fortifusion. Fortifusion allegedly combatted wrinkles by erasing the face, though all mention of this alarming method was shrouded in euphemism.

Laugh?

Laugh?

You’d laugh too, if you’d just mainlined enough Beluga Smack™ to make a buffalo boogie.

And, let’s face it, that’s the only way you’re going to look as gaunt and wasted as me, you pie-eating, moon-faced blob of lard. Got it?

But hey, live life and buy product: Emulsion your face using L’Orgarnelline Facial Fortifusion with Pro sudopopsiphetamine to visibly challenge the appearance of visibility. Quickly.

Laugh lines can make me look as old and fat as you, so l emulsion my face with L'Orgarnelline Facial Fortifusion. Its Pro sudopopsiphet-amine Quantum Electron Cloud works on the underlying construct of beauty itself to make me look glamorous enough to sell this gack to the vaguely paranoid, aspirational classes engaged in a futile struggle against the daily erosion of their dignity and misplaced confidence.

Voted top skin product by a panel of cocaine addled beauty journalists trying to hide in a minimalist bathroom.

Introducing Entropy Antagonist-B ™

Now, Doctor Tod has announced Entropy Antagonist-B ™ and is claiming that the next-generation treatment can fight death itself by reversing entropy, a key tenet of physics and cosmology in which systems become increasingly more chaotic until the heat death of the Universe.

Entropy, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, states that everything falls apart in the end. Moreover, says Keinlieben, “nothing will ever be this good again and even if things are pretty bad right now, they will inevitably get worse. In essence, entropy is the ultimate utter chill-kill.”

Though the scientific details are hidden in a layer of patents and non-disclosure agreements, there is some scientific consensus that the way to reverse the process of aging and death is by organising the random products of breakdown into magnetically channeled data streams that can be fed back into the system anew, normally via a topical cream or, for those still wed to the notion of ‘no pain, no gain’, via an injection into the eye or, in the case of a more holistic remedy-focused approach, a homoeopathically-infused cricket bat to the solar plexus.

While the system is alive, endless entropy reversals or ‘reboots’ can be applied, but can NegEnt Inc really bring back its clients from the dead?

“If the entropy is fresh, but final”, says Dr Keinlieben, “there is only so far we can reverse it. In these cases we harness the data we can into a virtual loom and repair it with AI. Once we have a data stream that the next of kin is satisfied has a non-negative similarity to their loved one, we can then stream the data into a synaesthesia generator using a process akin to multitrack recording. We can then issue a box set of music, literally written by the soul of the dearly-departed – or at least the spectral analysis of their exhaust gases.”

It might be hard to believe, but there have been unintended consequences during early experiments in varicose vein operations. An elderly woman’s leg had to be removed after a persistent outbreak of La Marseillaise on her shins. Nobody knows how the French national anthem grew there and noise-cancelling stockings were unable to block the music from the second verse on. The elderly woman had no previous association with France.

A similar case in which selected works of Stockhausen were the result of an Entry Antagonist-B ™ colonoscopy is yet to be verified, but sources close to the case are, reportedly, a little further away from it, now, while it is also alleged that they are “sitting by an open window”.

Now the processes have been fine-tuned and the market for acoustic isolation underwear has peaked, there is a growing trend among the middle aged to seek treatment, while the library of posthumous tunes, now marketed and played as entire DJ sets under the brand name of Essential Selection has blossomed.

Reversing entropy is no small feat. However, one note of caution remains: Nobody knows if the reversal can be reversed itself.

Further future