In the short story "The Age of Lead", the protagonist Jane and her friend Vincent share a very special and close relationship. The author discusses the connection between mistakes that were made in the past and the consequences that result in the future. Jane and Vincent share the same motto of living life with, "No belt, no pins, no pads, no chafing" (Atwood, 639). They want to live their life with freedom and no consequences to their actions and no obligations. Jane starts to look back at the relationship she has with Vincent as she watches a television program about a well preserved sailor's body that has been discovered after being frozen for over a century. She thinks about the ideal and perfect relationship that they both dreamed of when Vincent was alive. They crave the carefree lifestyle where they were not judged or criticized and free from obligations. They believe that nothing could hold them back and no consequences are associated with their actions. She experiences an epiphany that their vision of the ideal lifestyle was just all a fantasy when she discovers that the sailor died of an overdose of lead in his canned food that he ate. When Vincent dies, she realizes that, "there were consequences to after all; but they were consequences to things you didn't even know you"d done" (Atwood, 644) after. Vincent dies at a young age from an unknown virus as a consequence, "because he never seemed to be afraid of anything that might happen to him" (Atwood, 636). Jane also suffers from a life of being lonely and sad after a loss of a significant friend in her life. Vincent could be taken from her life because Jane did not realize that the lifestyle they wanted was unattainable and they couldn't be anything more than friends. She thinks about Vincent's dead body being uncovered which would not be as relatively as well preserved as the sailor. It's almost like she's revealing the dead hopes and wishes they have for life as she thinks about Vincent's decomposed body.
