The Bitter Solution to Aging

The first spore was found clinging to a rotting log in the damp hollows of the Cascades, its cap a sickly gray-green, speckled with pinprick holes. Dr. Lena Voss, a mycologist with a penchant for the obscure, scraped it into a petri dish, expecting nothing more than a new mold to catalog. But when she fed it to the lab rats—half-starved after a funding cut left them on sparse rations—they didn’t just survive. They thrived.


Their fur grew sleeker, their eyes brighter, their lifespans stretching beyond reason. Tests revealed the impossible: stress markers vanished, telomeres held firm, aging itself seemed to pause.


She called it Mycovitae, the life-fungus. Word spread fast, and soon the world knew its promise: eat it, and you could halt time in your bones. But there was a catch—two, really. It tasted like ash and bile, a bitter sludge that clawed at the throat, and it only worked if you fasted for five days beforehand, purging every crumb from your system. Then, every six months, you had to choke it down again. Miss a dose, and the clock restarted, relentless as ever.


Luckily, Mycovitae was a stubborn little thing. It sprouted on damp wood, in shaded corners, even cracked concrete—anywhere with a hint of moisture and neglect. By the time Lena published her findings, people were cultivating it in basements, backyards, abandoned lots. It became as common as dandelions, its rancid stench wafting through every town.


In the small coastal village of Greyhaven, Dirk Crane was among the first to try it. At fifty-three, his knees creaked and his hair had thinned, but he’d seen his mother waste away from stress and time, and he’d be damned if he followed. He fasted five days—water only, his stomach gnawing itself raw—then plucked a fist-sized clump from the shed. It glistened, wet and unappetizing, but he forced it down, gagging as the bitterness coated his tongue. For days, he felt nothing but nausea. Then, one morning, he woke with a spring in his step, his reflection showing a man a decade younger.


The ritual became his life. Every six months, he’d lock himself away, fasting until his ribs showed, then shovel the fungus down, cursing its taste. Around him, Greyhaven changed. The old grew spry, the middle-aged held their prime. Fishermen hauled nets with the vigor of youth, grandmothers raced their grandkids along the shore. The fungus was free, abundant, a gift from the earth—but it demanded discipline. Some couldn’t stomach it; others balked at the hunger. They aged while their neighbors didn’t, a quiet divide forming between the timeless and the ticking.


Dirk saw the years blur. At seventy, he looked forty, his hands steady as he mended nets. At ninety, he climbed cliffs with the village teens, who’d never known a world without Mycovitae. The fasting grew easier, the taste less vile with practice. But he wondered: was this life, or just stasis? His memories piled up—loves lost, storms weathered—yet his body refused to wear them.


One evening, as he chewed his latest dose under a bruised-purple sky, a girl approached, no older than ten. “Why do you eat it?” she asked, wrinkling her nose at the smell. “You’ve lived so long already.”


He paused, the fungus bitter on his lips. “Because I can,” he said, then tossed the rest into the sea. That night, he slept without fasting, letting time creep back in. The next morning, a new wrinkle etched his face, and he smiled. The fungus grew on, everywhere, waiting for those who’d choose it—or wouldn’t.