2014-04-14
Explanation
The Joke
A scientist announces that "immortality is possible" -- the universe is big enough, the human body can be maintained, and people could live for 800 years. Another character adds that they can store memories in the brain and that memories can be extended. But as life stretches on, the immortal person starts reminiscing: "I remember the good old days, before the Hindus or Muslims split up" and "I remember when the world was without drama and life and emptiness was all the deep." The comic implies that with enough longevity, a person's memories would stretch back to the beginning of Earth or even the universe. The immortal person becomes increasingly tiresome. The final panel shows a gravestone, with someone saying, "I have been around a billion years. I have survived the Big Bang. I have survived heat death. I have survived walking in traffic. Will you listen to me?" -- suggesting that even after achieving immortality, the person has become an insufferable bore whom nobody wants to listen to.
The Humor
The comic subverts the usual fantasy of immortality by focusing on its social consequences rather than its existential ones. Instead of exploring the loneliness or horror of eternal life, the joke is that an immortal person would become the ultimate "back in my day" bore. Their reminiscences would cover billions of years and become increasingly incomprehensible and tedious to mortal listeners. The humor lies in how the grand dream of living forever is reduced to the very mundane problem of being an old person whose stories nobody wants to hear -- just on a cosmic timescale. The gravestone in the final panel adds irony: even the immortal person apparently eventually dies (or pretends to), and their grave marker is essentially them still trying to get people to listen to their stories.