A Lovely Thought

Written by Paul Gamlowski

Anonymous Subject 1 had woken up, minutes later, in the laboratory room, reclining on a chair, wearing a neural stimulator on her head.

Director, Francis 56, checked her eyes with a light. “How do you feel?”

She stared straight up at the ceiling. “Sad. Joyful. Empty. Sorrowful. I was an old woman, but it's all so vague.”

“Quickly, you must jot it all down before the Fade!” He turned to his assistant, Janet 34.

“Please, bring her the writing tablet.”

Janet nodded. “Yes, the Fade will come soon! You must share your experience now!” She went to grab the tablet off a nearby table.

The subject kept speaking, “It's much clearer now. A young lady was holding my hand. I felt an injection and warmth ... Wait ... She was my daughter.”

“Oh? Go on…” Janet handed her the writing tablet.

“Yes, it’s all right there. Now I can remember. My daughter. My illness. We agreed to let me die.”

Francis took a stylus out of his coat pocket and gave it to the woman. “Indeed, this is very good. Please enter all this into the biography. All that you can recall, quickly, before the Fade strikes!”

“Yes, please hurry. You must share such a wonderful world!” Janet enthusiastically pointed at the tablet.

Francis gestured for his assistant to follow him into an observation room, then he closed the door behind them.

He turned on the room's lights. “Looks like a success, Janet. Based on repressed ancestral memories.”

“Like a past life?”

Francis shook his head. “No, nothing so fantastic as that. Some kind of residual process embedded in our DNA. Triggered by invoking a transcendent dream state with the neural stimulator. An ancestral collective unconsciousness carried through our genetic memories.

The subject’s imagination takes over the rest, and yet the conjured simulation is based on our evolution. Inspired by the individual experiences of one's ancestors.”

“Incredible! What can we learn from these simulations?” Janet turned on the room's monitors.

His hands shook with excitement. “As abstract as this may sound — our purpose, who we are, and how we got here and where we are going.”

She replied softly, “But ... She seemed to feel it was so real.”

He looked at a monitor displaying the test subject’s tablet information as it was being written. “Indeed, in a sense, she lived another life in the blink of an eye. An entire lifespan of a simulated existence.”

Janet wiped a tear from her eye. “This is so sad.”

Francis patted her on the shoulder. “Why would it be sad? It’s a remarkable discovery. After the Great Ruin, we’ve had nothing else to go by. We were lost nomads out of some dead civilization torn apart and obliterated. If it weren’t for the robots recombining and growing us, we’d never exist. We should be grateful, not sad... Don’t you agree?”

She frowned. “Yes, I’m grateful, but I’m sad as well, for every dream, every simulation, will end in oblivion, never to truly know life.”

He paced for a moment, then raised his finger and smiled. “Ah, I think I understand you. But think of it this way; at least for those dreams, simulacra will experience the gift of life, and their souls will be reawakened in us.”

She returned his smile — “Yes. A lovely thought.”