Bodega | Jeff Bezos Spotted

Jeff Bezos emerges from the Adriatic, washboard abs first, running towards his new wife Lauren, whom he loves dearly.

Their yacht is anchored in the distance, small against the green sea. On shore, Jeff and Lauren sweat into white sand, sipping on the warm canned cocktails Jeff bought for them on Amazon. He hasn’t worked there since 2021 but likes to support his old employees. Retirement has proven more difficult than expected. Jeff’s head buzzes with cranberry-lime and he tries to relax for once in his life. Lauren flicks through the glossy pages of their viral Vogue profile, full of personal details Jeff hadn’t signed off on. Lauren occasionally lets out small, grating gasps.

Jeff is waiting for his colonoscopy results to come in, a procedure to which Lauren accompanied him for moral support. He had been experiencing a sinister abdominal pain, worse than the regular stress-induced kind. They scheduled a trip to the medical center made of fountains and glass. Inside the cramped exam room: Jeff, Lauren, a Paparazzo, the finest celebrity doctor in LA-Seattle-Miami. The Doctor snapped on his blue nitrile gloves and told everyone, Get Ready!

Now Jeff promises that if his results go left, if even a single red blood cell is off, he will begin construction on the machine that will cryopreserve his body before it deteriorates. He will be perfectly suspended, treated, and transported to the Blue Origin colony in our greater orbit. Lauren is planning an all-woman’s space mission for next year, and Jeff thinks he can get his prototype chamber completed by the time she organizes the launch. He’s sure the ladies will be fine with his body on board.

Lauren turns and asks where they should go out for dinner later—somewhere sexy, with calamari. Jeff snaps back that he doesn’t care where they go. Lauren rolls her eyes, tucking the stupid magazine into her Dolce & Gabbana beach bag. Sorry, Jeff says. He wishes they could just get back to the boat and leave but he promised Lauren a vacation—a non-apology for his recent impotence, which is hardly an issue. Jeff stands, wipes off his optimally toned sixty-year-old body, and tells Lauren he’s going for a walk.

A craggy path winds past the private shore, up stone steps, through thick foliage. There are more paparazzi dressed in white linens half-hiding behind trees. Jeff clenches his ass and sucks in his stomach as he walks past the shutter of a camera lens, of palm fronds clattering in the breeze. When he is cryogenically frozen, he will not hear these sounds. He imagines it will sound thick and pulsing, like the inside of an MRI machine. More likely, it will sound like nothing.

Jeff ambles along the rocky tree line, barefoot, thinking about his ex-wife’s jowls and Lauren’s growing lip filler, which feels hard lately, and the four million he lost when the Dow dropped this morning. This is the everyday malaise of change, of time marching on. He stumbles on a root, catching his pinky toe. It bleeds, instant and gushing. When he crouches down to wipe away the sand and blood, Jeff realizes the cut is much deeper than he thought—so deep that he can see the pale, wet layers leading to darkness. His head swims. He lies down for a second, just to regain his bearings, and his toe blood pools onto the hard ground. Flat on his back in the middle of the trail, trees undulate overhead. Cameras click from a place he cannot see, but no one approaches to ask if he’s alright. Jeff is overwhelmed by the unbelievable thinness of his flesh and how easily it can be torn apart. His back pocket buzzes, perhaps with the test results from the Doctor, but his limbs are too heavy and far away to answer the call.

Everything has slowed down. For once in his life, Jeff Bezos is relaxed. So this is what it will be like to freeze time. He smiles lightly, eyes wide open for the cameras.

147 – May 2025

By Jess Gallerie

Jeff Bezos Spotted