Veronica picks up the sticky menu, comically large in her small hands, and considers it with a furrowed brow. Never mind that she can’t yet read. Never mind that she always orders the exact same thing every time he takes her to this diner. He doesn’t bother with his menu. He always orders the same thing, too.

The television above the counter is louder than usual, competing with the clamor of the bustling kitchen, and commanding everyone’s attention. Everyone except Veronica, who is still scowling at her menu with her best ‘adult’ impression. It’s just as well. He regrets taking her somewhere with a TV, but this is where they go for special occasions. And today is a special occasion.

On the TV: A live shot of a dimly lit hospital room, mostly bare and white and nondescript except for a bed with an IV stand and console next to it, containing various monitors and bags of fluids. He wonders why the room isn’t brighter for the cameras before remembering there’s a man in the bed, not much older than him, and he deserves to feel comfortable right now. The man’s name is Simon Rollins, he’s forty-eight years old, he works in construction, he lives in Missouri, he has stage four pancreatic cancer, and he will be the last person on Earth who ever dies.

“What’ll I getcha?” A server suddenly appears next to their table.

“Ready to order, V?” he asks his daughter, and she perks up.

“A teddy bear pancake please,” she says. It’s a big pancake shaped like a teddy bear, with M&Ms used for little details. He orders two eggs over easy with bacon and toast. The last time he ordered it they were celebrating an excellent report at a parent-teacher conference. Why a four-year-old in preschool needs a parent-teacher conference, he isn’t sure.

The server leaves with their order. The diner is crowded this morning, all eyes on the blaring television. The news is showing a montage of Simon Rollins’s life. Childhood photos, fishing photos, photos of Simon with his wife and children in Yosemite. At the beach. Posing together with paintball guns.

“What if I fall in a volcano?” Veronica asks. He realizes she’s now watching the TV, too.

“What do you mean, V?”

“What happens if I fall in a big volcano?” she repeats, and it takes him a second before he realizes what she means. Kids are always paying closer attention than you think, putting things together far better than you realize. It will never stop amazing him.

“They—doctors, I mean—can put you back together now. With, like, very little pieces they saved. Fix you all up.” This sounds mostly correct. The problem is he doesn’t totally understand it himself. Something to do with a major breakthrough with the human genome. Not cloning per se, because that doesn’t really involve consciousness and memories as he understands it, but in that general ballpark. He’s relieved when this answer seems to satisfy her.

On the TV: A live shot of Times Square where a massive crowd is watching footage of the hospital room on giant screens. Then we’re popping around the world to similar scenes in Tokyo, Jakarta, Rome, Cairo, Rio. A global celebration. A little grotesque, he thinks, but Simon Rollins signed up for this. Wanted this, in fact. His family gave their blessing, were strangely jubilant about it. There was apparently some kind of evangelical fervor involved. God gave Simon Rollins terminal cancer, told him it was his time, that even though they now finally had the technology to save his life—to save every life—that his death should be the last one. That it would usher in a glorious new era on Earth. Life without death. Everyone else—all eight billion of them—decided to make a big party of it.

The server returns, sets their plates in front of them, and Veronica immediately begins meticulously removing the M&Ms. The eyes first, then the nose, the mouth, the four buttons down its belly. She sets them one by one along the edge of her plate where they will remain untouched and uneaten, as always. She soaks the pancake with a haphazard pool of syrup, still figuring out the right angle to tip it.

He’s barely taken a bite of bacon when she asks, “What if someone wants to die?”

It’s jarring hearing this from her young, bright voice. “What?”

“What if someone wants to die but they can’t?”

“Well, V… nobody wants to die. Right?” Of course this isn’t true, but she’s just a kid. She slices the teddy bear’s left ear off with her fork, stuffs it in her mouth. A small dribble of syrup spills down her chin. Still chewing, she says, “I don’t want to be Frankenstein.”

On the TV, a breaking news banner: Rollins Passing Imminent. There are protests in Chicago, San Francisco, DC. Skirmishes with police, images of riot gear and tear gas. Shouted concerns—legitimate, in his opinion—about overpopulation and ethical considerations. Banners with slogans he doesn’t totally understand: Death IS Life. The End Cannot End. Simon Rollins’s wife and teenage sons are at his bedside, crying and embracing each other.

“Frankenstein is just a made-up story,” he says. How does she know about Frankenstein? She eats the other ear, then gets to work on the limbs, removing both arms, then the legs, devouring them greedily. He has an irrational and sudden impulse to take her fork and stop her, to prevent her from erasing the teddy bear’s body entirely.

He brings a fork full of egg to his mouth, his appetite fading. He made an attempt once, in college. Hadn’t thought about it in years. A razor blade, half-assed. Not for especially interesting reasons. A vicious breakup and way too much booze and drugs, a long and brutal Boston winter. It is an unequivocal good that others won’t have that option ever again. Right?

Veronica dissects the head and torso, taking the teddy bear completely apart now. He sets his fork down, swallows hard. Simon Rollins is flatlining. There is a smattering of applause in the diner, fireworks in Mexico City, Shanghai, Istanbul. There will be some chaos, he thinks, some growing pains adjusting to this new world. But things will sort themselves out. The applause in the diner grows, the fireworks and cheering on the television more and more bombastic. Someone has turned the volume up too high, and now the only sound left is the constant, piercing shrill of Simon Rollins’s heart monitor, the final soul to ever depart this world, louder than the whole planet. Veronica covers her ears and screams.