"I've done it!" yelled the man. "I've figured out how to live forever!"
He stepped back and admired his work, four and a half black boards full of equations and theories and philosophies and geographic locations. He had done it.
He looked around for someone to tell, but there was nobody in the room, so he rushed out into the hall, but still found no one.
He ran out of the university, into the streets, into the shops, restaraunts and appartment complexes. He ran into theaters and gymnasiums and yet he found no sign of anyone.
He sat on the rooftop of the house he had always dreamt of buying. He ran stop lights and wore a dirty tee shirt to a reservations-only restaraunt. For a time, these things kept him happy, but soon the emptyness began to consume him.
He became delusional, losing all track of time and space, of self, everything.
Inside the university, the trainee looked up from the blackboard, now half erased. "Why do we do it?" he asked. "Why do we keep erasing it?"
"I don't know," said his superior. "I don't get paid to care. Now hurry up and get that last bit so we can get out of here."
So the trainee took one last look at the remenants of the equation. "The secret to living forever is to search for the answer to living forever!" Such a strange thing, thought the trainee, but he simply shrugged and wiped the board clean.
Eventually the man, now fully in the throes of madness, found his way back to the university. He stumbled from room to room until he came upon the grand hall with five large blackboards.
He made his way across the room, reading the discernable bits. Hints of math, bits of theory, snippits of philosphy, and rough sketches of various locations. "Astounding," he said. "I think I can solve this." He pressed his fingers lightly to the board. "I can solve this. I know how to solve this."
So he grabbed the chalk from the tray and got to work.
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