Leon Bois switched of the engine of a John Deere X749 3-cylinder diesel gas powered lawn mower at the base of a now clean cut hill of bluegrass turf. The sun was sinking its orange head behind the hill, the smell of fresh cut grass was thickly wafting from Leon’s mustache, muddy leather cowboy boots and dirt stained blue jeans. Pushing back his straw cap to run his hands through his sweaty balding white crazy old man hair-style, Leon chuckled as he dismounted the mower, his feet drifting down slowly to the ground of the moon that Leon decided yesterday to name Castra IV, circling some gas giant orbiting a pair of twin stars in the A1689-Z81 galaxy.

Leon was just about to begin a nice session of smoking one of his custom made, custom down to the molecular level that is, Baitoa brand imitation Toro cigars when he spotted Mary-Ann Ultranostic bobbing and skipping over the hill. A phalanx of fire fly bots hover around her as escort, her red curly locks falling around her porcelain face and prophetically vacant eyes, her face quivering as if to smile or frown or form some facial expression but not quite reaching it. She was dressed in her typical undersized little Boo Peep outfit, revealing enough young supple skin to send a three hundred and sixty something year old man like Leon straight into the Ye-Olde-Heart-Replacement-Shoppe.

Leon was one of the first, one of the truly old ones, to undergo the now common “Youth Extension Therapy”, under the guidance of the long gone Dr. Olsheski. Also at that time, some three hundred thirty something years ago, it was a very risky and expensive “therapy”. How times change Leon thought. Nothing is expensive anymore. Even in his true youth the word “luxury” had begun to erode its original meaning. But in the world of today, GUST 5.26(General Universe Standard Time), except for the incredibly extravagant or for the incredibly picky, luxury had little meaning. With the abundance of molecular copy cat nano-bots in a bag, instant knowledge transfer base ball caps, googols’ of autonomous electronic buddies, cyborgs, home grown clones, custom made viruses for transfer of genetic information and the like within easy reach, the ability to waste one’s life in what was once a tyrant’s luxury was now and had been for some time now within reach of Joe Blow. The exponential explosion of devices and techniques to build your own personal planet and fill it with whatever flora and fauna you desire, sit on top of a golden palace of your design, smoking your golden pipe with the finest you-name-it throughout your immortal years, the idea of true luxury and scarcity was a hard one to come by. Of course the Universe was still nice and plump with societies where the idea of luxury was oppression and control for its own sake but now it was possible to build a clone army of yourself and oppress that if you wished, or go the traditional route and oppress your neighbors.

But my how things have changed from my youth, reflected Leon. Shadow memories of a barbaric time and so many meaningless or changed words: government, family, corporation, power, death and so many more long out of fashion ideas crawling below the surface of the conscience. Perhaps I am due for a complete overhaul, a complete systems restore and transfer all these old memories into storage, take the path so many other old timers have taken.

With a universe that was quickly running out of novelties for the novelty inclined beings, Leon himself fit into the category of one of the last few true blue antiques. In fact, part of the reason for his sortie to the back waters of the universe with these youngsters and their exploratory mission to push the limits of their mind to limits that have yet to be reached before by the wacked out denizens of the universe, was to avoid another group of wackos. “The Genuine Historical Preservation Society and Museum of our Heritage”, commonly called Geppers, a quasi-religious group of scholars for whom ersatz was not good enough, no they required the real deal, the Genuine historical relics. And Leon happened to be a living genuine historical relic, a real old-timer. He would make the perfect addition to the Gepper museum, a real prize.

Leon shook his head free of his wandering thoughts, chuckling and stuffing his Toro cigar back into the front pocket of his red checkered flannel shirt while leaning back on his gas powered lawn mower and watching Mary-Ann approach. In particular his attention focused on her smooth thigh showing between her white knee high stockings and dress as she floated, Venus across the water style, towards him.