Stuck in the snow, the car’s wheels tear a brown scar on white, an exclamation mark on a blank page.
“Where are we going to get a tow at this time of the day?” Sandie leans out of the window as I push up on the car boot. Rubber spins as slush sprays up my legs, freezing away the chance of any children in my future.
“Not the right question, love! How the hell are we going to get anywhere where we can get a tow before we freeze to death! A car hasn't passed in the last hour, your phone is dead and my phone has no signal!”
“Stop, stop, stop!” I shout at the top of my lungs. The engine dies, burnt rubber acrid in my nostrils brings me to a sharp realisation, heat is what we need to be worrying about. Heat, food and water. It could be days before anyone comes along this road.
“Whose fucking idea was it to to go on holiday in Alaska, Carl?” Sandie stares at me shaking her head as I stumble back to the car. “Get in babe, you’re shivering.” She kicks the passenger door open and I clamber inside, thighs burning with pain, flesh crystallising in icy heat.
Sandie grabs my hands and rubs them. “Carl, I think we might be in trouble here.”
“Yeah…no…sh…sh…it,” I stammer through chattering teeth as I look at her face, wan and drawn. “It’ll be ok, love. We need to think about keeping warm and watching the road. Save the power for signalling with the headlights.”
She tucks her knees up to her chest and hugs them, like a lost child. I can’t take this. No way out, nothing I can do to save us, no words of comfort. All we can do is wait.
The light is fading as I wrap myself in my coat, wet clothes lying on the back seat. Now I’m hugging my knees, as Sandie rubs my legs to try and bring some warmth back. My body shudders uncontrollably. Breath slows, a pressure in my head grows, throbbing at the temples. I feel myself falling.
“Don’t leave me, darling, don’t leave me, please.” Sandie’s voice sounds far off.
Ice in my throat, ice in my mind as that hot wall of pressure explodes in my head, building emptiness and then:
Everything opens out. Black emptiness unfolds in floods of colour--Welcome Back to Reality.
The synergy between mind and genetic-chip reverberates through my spine as endorphins and a thousand other chemicals flood my system. I rise through the mist into consciousness.
A rainbow prism of light refracts through the lenses of my retinal screen as vapours infuse in my blood. A simple gesture becomes pure meaning, my hand's shimmer significance as I wave at the other travellers. A rising crescendo of motes of mirrored sound tingle through me as my fellow travellers sound-wave back and I grin. Back to reality!
I shiver at the memory of the pain, the fear, the overwhelming emotion and love for the construct Sandie. The memory tape spliced with my subconscious, down to the bone at a genetic level. I can feel the aching and burn of frostbite in my limbs, an echo from the genetic-chip, a final gift of feeling.
Carl’s memories are mine now. I can see his children, an echo of his face and thoughts. Sandie embraces him, a look of longing in her eyes, as the children watch. Further back, to a woman looking down at me and cooing. Clucking sounds in a sing song voice. Warmth and the smell of skin, soap and something I can’t recognize. This must be a mother. What would it be like to have a mother and a father? To be a father?
I was born of a million specks of skin, recycled matter from other crew members and chemicals extracted from nebula. Designed from a template, computed by the AI from an algorithm so complex that it compartmentalized a section of its operational run-time to create us all. A fractal genetic pattern to ensure complete originality.
We orbit the sphere, the center of the AI core, glowing in a field of energetic thought and purpose through motion. Human batteries in a cycle of recycling, life is what we choose to create, no real purpose other than energy to fuel the journey.
Time is an illusion when you don’t age; experience is an intellectual exercise. I have moved away from the socio-games, the shared realities that can be lived with the other crew members. They just don’t feel like home. We’re still a long way off. How long I wonder? I can’t face asking, or rather I can’t face hearing the answer. Time to move on to another memory. Time to consume someone else’s visceral reality, to languish in those sharp exquisite emotions. Taste the alien feelings of pain and pleasure from another time and place.
The end.
Well I took some of my litecoin and bitcoin converted SBD to get my car fixed this morning.
It felt really good to be my own bank and use cryptocurrency in a real world situation.
I'm right with you when it comes to dealing with car problems.
I know right @tonygreene113. I'm ok fixing a computer but put me in front of a broken car and I just want t to hit it with a spanner. 😉 thanks for your visit and the support
@OriginalWorks
Training every day... ;)
Yes @kriptonoob. I'm weight lifting 300 pounds of metaphorical Iron, pumping the allegorical barbells in my mission to get some serious poetry guns and a ripped fiction 6-pack 😉 Cheers for your comment and support, much appreciated
I like how your final, edited story turned out! Nice work, @raj808. See you at The Block.
Thanks @jayna, I was reasonably pleased given the time constraints. If I had more time I would have liked to have delved a little deeper into the future reality where the story concluded. I just hope the extra paragraphs I added filled in some of the gaps in explaining the characters need to re-live other peoples crisis situations. Anyway, thanks for your help in the workshop, I have another Sci-Fi story in process at the moment which I shall be dropping in the fiction workshop soon ✍ 🙂
This story is amazing. I was surprised when it moved into sci-fi. Very pleasantly surprised. 100% upvoted, resteemed and followed.
Many thanks @shawnamawna for the comment/upvote/resteem and the lovely compliment. It is my first fiction competition entry on steemit so wish me luck 😉 Seriously though, I am just glad that everyone seems to have enjoyed it and it is getting read. Take care
P.s. I have followed you back too @shawnamawna :)
Oh gooood! Spooky and twisting fantasy trip. Thank you bud’.
Thanks m8ty. Glad you enjoyed it! Show it to the boy's or Xio or anyone you think will enjoy it 🙂
This was a really cool take on the prompt, I like it! Best of luck to you in the contest!
Thanks @jrhughes, I just took a read of yours and really liked it. Good luck to you too :)
This post is sponsored by @appreciator in collaboration with #steemitbloggers. Keep up the good work
Thanks for inclusion in your curation again @appreciator. I am honored and thankful of the support and vote :)
Well, the twist was surely something. Smooth transition. Great work!
Thanks a lot for your feedback @kdee916. I am glad the transition from the construct reality flowed well as I really wanted it to come across that way. A smooth transition indeed, thanks for the comment and your support 🙂
Till the last sentence, I kept guessing different things. This was very very interesting!
So glad you enjoyed it @sharoonyasir. I have wrote a lot of short story fiction in the past but had a long break from prose. This was my first attempt at Sci-Fi and I will definitely be writing more. The fact it kept you guessing is the biggest compliment you could pay me. Thanks, I will keep them coming ✍ 🙂
Yayy that's wonderful :)
Wow. This was deep. Like a journey back to the singularity of essence. Nice piece, I should really read some more of your work 📖
Thanks @mickolas13. I have another Sci-Fi story planned to be published in the next week at some point. It's longer and a little different but hopefully still with the deep vibes 😉 I shall be sure to check out your profile and writing also ✍ 🙂
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