"They tell me I'll have all these things in the future. A mansion and cars. I heard the same thing when I came to this country. That I had all this opportunity to be like Tom Cruise instead of Tomasz Slazak.
But these things never came. I'm not resentful. I'm only telling you what it is. So no, I'm not driven by these promises. It doesn't excite me.
I like being Tomasz Slazak. That's the man my wife married, god rest her soul. So I can't be anyone else but Tomasz.
But I would like to see what I do with myself in fifty years. A new career in a new town."
- Tomasz Slazak a week before being cryogenically frozen.
LIFECHILL
Back in the
early days of cryogenics, there was a company called LifeChill. At the time a person could only be put on ice for a year before cell deterioration, but LifeChill came on to the scene claiming that their cellular preservative cocktail could last over 50 years. While there were skeptics in the scientific community, the company was bolstered by positive media sentiment and the hopes of the desperate looking for a way to press fast-forward on this miserable existence.
Of course the price to freeze one's body for 50 years was well beyond most people's means. As hundreds of society's wealthy signed up for the experimental program, LifeChill started to experience a small backlash as an elitist company - an exit strategy for the upper-crust.
BZ-BOI PIZZA SWEEPSTAKES
To combat the bad publicity, LifeChill held a promotional sweepstakes in partnership with frozen pizza brand BZ-Boi, in which one lucky winner would be awarded a Premium LifeChill package. Every BZ-Boi Pizza came with a scratch off ticket, which could yield several different prizes. The grand prize, of course, was having their body cryogenically frozen and then thawed out 50 years later, where they'd be rewarded a beach house in
Solis Bay.
This sweepstakes proved to be a huge hit for BZ-Boi, with nearly every grocery chain selling out their stock of the pizza. However, many claim they didn't even care about the pizza, they just wanted the ticket. One particular block in Chicago became known as Pineapple Street because it was littered with dozens of uneaten Hawaiian Style pizzas. Fucking philistines. Pineapple and ham is an acceptable pizza topping, and those who say otherwise are stuck in the Matrix.
Regardless of people's eating habits, one man was crowned winner. His name was Tomasz Slazak.
TOMASZ SLAZAK
A Chicago busdriver, Tomasz seemed to be the ideal winner for the LifeChill sweepstakes. A hard working Polish immigrant, Mr. Slazak had lost his wife in a kayaking accident in Wisconsin eight years prior, and had never remarried. While many remained bitter for not winning the grand prize, Tomasz became the poster-boy for someone who could use a second chance at a new life deep into the future.
A FAULTY TECHNIQUE
Three years after Tomasz was frozen it was discovered that LifeChill's cocktail had serious side effects. Clients were emerging with dementia and a severe decrease in muscle coordination and fine motor skills. LifeChill was immediately shut down by the government and its assets were auctioned off.
There was a massive public outpouring for the fate of Tomasz Slazak, who no longer represented the American dream, but the tragedy of scientific false promises and corporate greed.
With no immediate family to make the choice for him, it was decided that Mr. Slazak's body would remain frozen while scientists would analyze LifeChill's process in hopes of reversing its effects.
TODAY
It's been over 85 years since Tomasz Slazak was frozen, and his body remains so today, with little progress made on finding a cure for his condition. The chamber holding Mr. Slazak has been bought and sold several times, first by scientific research firms, and more recently by private collectors who find his case fascinating and need something to talk about at parties. For sometime Slazak and his chamber became a big attraction, with scores of people lining up to see the man who was promised a new world and only given a frozen slumber. But as Slazak's contemporary audience aged, so did his popularity, with his name only becoming a bit trivia so many decades later.
However Slazak remains a highly venerated figure in his home country of Poland, where ice bath celebrations are held on his birthday.
While he is currently on display in the lobby of a corporate headquarters building in Atlanta, Georgia, there are plans to put the Frozen Body of Tomasz Slazak on an upcoming flight to the Andalee-9 space station.
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