The Age of Adaline

On December 31st., two thousand fourteen,

a taxi cab traveled through San Francisco,

from Chinatown to Marin.

The car carried a single passenger,

a woman, her birth name, Adaline Bowman,

current alias, Jennifer Larson.

This is the first and last

chapter of her story.

Sorry, ya just gotta be quiet, my dad,

he's still sleeping, he works nights.

C'mon in.

I... uh... finished the color SAP

and the digital printing last night.

I pulled some line art from the internet,

and printed the imperfections.

See, that's kinda my secret,

the dust marks and the discoloration.

No one's gonna question

that detail in a million years.

So, why 29? I mean, if I

were you, shave a coupla

years off, you could

definitely get away with...

You're very kind, Tony.

Nice work.

It's a pleasure doing business with you. If

you any of your friends ever need anything...

- Why are you doing this?

- Come again?

You're a smart kid, forgery's a felony.

Two hundred and fifty thousand dollar fine,

six years in jail.

Sh*t, you're... you're a cop?

No, I'm about as far from law

enforcement as you can get.

I just hate to see wasted potential, Jeff.

Tony. It's Tony.

The autographed baseballs in

your bedroom... made out to Jeff.

Don't get sloppy,

it's the little things that trip you up.

Honey, I'm home.

Reese?

Hi!

There we go.

You're gonna love the new farm house.

Clean air, acres and acres of woods,

a mountain stream.

You'll feel like a puppy again.

Did you know that your great, great,

grandmother was born just a few towns over?

So was mine,

not at the same time, of course.

Oh, I gotta go to work.

- Civic Archives, please.

- It may take a while, Market's jammed.

Okay, then please take

California to Hyde.

There's construction on Hyde.

Why don't you stay on this,

take this to Golf, Golf to Bush, Bush to.

Polk, Polk to Grove, and then just

leave me on the corner of Market.

- You want my job?

- You never know.

- Morning, Jennie.

- Morning.

- Morning.

- Hi, Kenneth.

We thought you might not be coming in

today, being New Year's Eve, and all.

Well, it's still a Wednesday,

the fun doesn't start 'til tonight anyway.

Well, are you up for a

little excitement right now?

Sure, what is it?

Your favorite, the newsreel archive,

it's finally being digitized.

We need a little help getting

it ready to be shipped.

I'd love to.

Adaline Marie Bowman was born at twelve-oh-one

a.m., January 1st. Nineteen-oh-eight,

at Children's Hospital, San Francisco,

the only child of Faye and Milton Bowman,

On June 16th, 1929, just as Adaline Bowman and

her mother stopped to admire the expanse,

where three years hence construction would

be finished on the Golden Gate Bridge,

a young engineer displayed

uncommon gallantry.

Eighty-seven days later Adaline

married Clarence James Prescott,

at Old Saint Mary's

Cathedral in San Francisco.

Three years later Adaline

gave birth to a baby girl.

They named her Fleming,

after Adaline's paternal grandmother.

On February 17th, 1937 eight workers and two

engineers lost their lives when a section

of scaffolding fell through a safety net

during construction of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Among the deceased was Adaline's husband.

Ten months after her husband's death

Adaline was driving north to her

parents beach cottage where 5 year

old Fleming was waiting up for her,

when something highly unusual occurred,

something almost magical...

snow fell in Sonoma County, California.

The immersion in the frigid water

caused Adaline's body to go into an

anoxic reflex, instantly stopping her

breathing and slowing her heartbeat.

Within 2 minutes,

Adaline Bowman's core temperature

had dropped to 87 degrees...

her heart stopped beating.

At 8:
55 a bolt of lightning struck

the vehicle discharging half a

billion volts of electricity and

producing 60,000 amperes of current.

Its effect was threefold.

First, the charge defibrillated

Adaline Bowman's heart.

Second,

she was jolted out of her anoxic state

causing her to draw her

first breath in 2 minutes.

Third, based on Von Lehman's principle of

electron compression in

deoxyribonucleic acid,

which will be discovered in the

year two thousand thirty-five,

Adaline Bowman will henceforth be

immune to the ravages of time...

she will never age another day.

As the years passed,

Adaline credited her unchanging

appearance to a combination

of a healthy diet,

exercise, heredity, and good luck.

- Adaline?

- Miriam, hello.

- My god, you haven't changed a bit.

- Oh, that's very kind of you to say.

Fleming, you're all grown up.

That's what I keep telling my mom,

but she doesn't believe me.

I'm sorry we really must leave.

But you... you look like sisters.

You better stop or it'll

go straight to my head.

- How is that possible?

- A new face cream... from Paris.

Made from the royal

jelly of the queen bee.

Okay, Darling, bye-bye

now, great seeing you.

Action was required... just weeks later,

when living a quiet suburban existence,

Adaline was pulled over for

a minor traffic infraction.

Ma'am it says here you were

born January 1st., 1908.

That's right.

- That would make you... 45 years old?

- Yes.

Ma'am, I'm gonna hold onto this.

When you come by the station house to pick

it up, please bring your birth certificate.

I'd be happy to, Officer,

is tomorrow morning all right?

Sure.

Soon after, Adaline moved back to San Francisco and

took a clerical job at the School of Medicine.

There, she availed herself of every

opportunity to research her condition.

After a year of intense study,

Adaline Bowman was forced to confront the

fact that there was absolutely no

scientific explanation for her condition.

Are you a member of the communist party or have

you ever been a member of the communist party?

Adaline?

I'm sorry, you have the wrong person.

We're from the Federal Bureau

of Investigation, Miss Bowman.

We'd like to ask you a few questions,

if you don't mind.

Why, I've done nothing wrong.

I'm a good American, how dare you

bother me at my place of employment.

It couldn't be helped, Ma'am.

We have no record of your residence.

This way please.

Nothing to worry about, Miss Bowman,

we're just going to run a few tests on you.

If anyone contacts you, tell them that I went

to Europe on vacation, that I never came back.

The next time we see each other,

I'll have a new identity.

I'll always be your mother, you'll just

have to introduce me as your friend.

- Mama, no.

- It has to be this way... here.

To insure the freedom and safety of herself and

her daughter Adaline vowed to keep moving,

changing her name, residence,

and appearance every decade,

and never to speak a word of

her fate to another living soul.

In seven weeks,

when Jennifer Larson disappears forever,

and Susan Fleisher takes up residence

in a remote farmhouse in Ashton, Oregon,

Adaline Bowman,

beside one moment of weakness.

Will have kept her vow

for the past 60 years.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes