Short fiction from a current writing project. Part 3. See previous posts for parts 1 and 2. Feature image from Unsplash.
With his roommate Tom vacationing in Vegas, Arthur camped out in the living room and binged Netflix with a carton of cigarettes. He quit his job and decided to coast on savings for a month or two. He worked himself into a perfect fugue, wrapped in streaming media and food deliveries. This state was interrupted by a phone appointment with his therapist on day five.
Gordon, the therapist, listened to Arthur's description of recent events. Then he told a rambling story about a baseball game. "Would you say you're the pitcher or the catcher?" he asked upon finishing the story.
Arthur, who disliked sports, found the comparison objectionable. "Don't you see," he said. "I'm not either. I'm not even in the game. Or in the stadium. No, I'm way out in the parking lot with no ticket. There's garbage blowing by. A group of people are huddled next to a van, listening to the game. I'd go somewhere else but there is nowhere else. Just this shitty parking lot."
"I'm sensing some negativity," said Gordon. "You want to tell me about that?"
"I learned something about myself recently," said Arthur. "I realized that I have a problem with the fine structure of social reality. It's like, this structure reinforces problematic power relations. Its mechanics and articulations are inseparable from the worst problems in the world. And everyone just accepts it."
"Was this before or after you met Zelda?" asked Gordon.
"Just before," said Arthur. "But she called me a nobody who doesn't deserve a better life, so I'd rather talk about something else."
"And how did that make you feel, when she said that?" asked Gordon.
"At least she said it," said Arthur. "Most people just think it."
"Are you concerned about finding another job?" asked Gordon.
"No," said Arthur. "I've been getting offers. When I need the money I'll take one."
"That's a bright side," said Gordon.
After the call, Arthur checked his messages and found a local company requesting an interview. They were called Tempo and they wanted to meet at ten the next morning. Pulling himself together, Arthur went to their office. The place was a gentrified warehouse on the edge of an industrial area.
Arthur entered the building, expecting to find a conventional office. Instead, he found a small room containing a woman in a strange uniform, who was resting on a stool behind a polished black counter. "Are you Lansing?" asked the woman.
"Arthur Higgins, ten o'clock?" said Arthur.
"Door to your left," said the woman.
Following instructions, Arthur found the workstations and people he'd expected. A man paused his conversation. "Higgins?" asked.
"That's right," said Arthur.
"Come on," said the man. "Call me Kent," he said, leading Arthur to a spacious office.
Kent took the power chair leaving Arthur to sit on a narrow leather couch. "I don't want to waste your time," said Kent. "We bought a company and inherited a buggy website. You fix that and there might be something here for you long term."
"What exactly do you do here?" asked Arthur.
"We're in cryonics," said Kent. "We send people to the future."
"I want to go to the future," said Arthur.
"Don't we all?" said Kent.
Arthur spent four weeks fixing Tempo's code. At the end of this period, he accepted a permanent position with the company. He was rewarded at the end of one year with cryonics service in the event of his demise. Shortly thereafter, Arthur was in an accident that fatally damaged his heart. His corpse was frozen and locked in Tempo's vault.
Two hundred years later, his mind foggy, Arthur opened his eyes to diffuse light. He was strapped to a chair in a sterile white space, facing half a dozen people in brown gowns. "Surprise!" they said upon seeing that he was awake.
"We thawed you out, gave you an artificial heart, repaired your fine structure damage with ultrasonic regeneration," said a man. "Welcome to the twenty two twenties! How do you feel?"
"Oh my god," said Arthur. "It actually worked."
"We're all looking forward to meeting you," said the man. "We want to know everything about you."
"But I'm nobody," said Arthur.
"Not here," said the man. "Here, you're the entertainment."
Arthur stretched and moved his limbs when the restraints came off. He felt fine, if a little sore. The last thing he remembered was riding his bike to work. "I died," he said. "I'm a ghost!"
"That can be your nickname!" said a woman in the crowd. "You're Ghost."
"I want to be something better," said Arthur. "Can't I just be Arthur?"
"You'll want to take it slow for a few days," said the man. "Eat a lot. You can jog, but don't run. Let your body become familiar again."
"Follow us," said the woman. "We'll show you around. Your room, the cafeteria. But you probably shouldn't leave campus until you've got your bearings."
Arthur followed the group to his new room, which contained a cot, a table, a closet populated with various brown garments, and bathroom he didn't fully understand. The wall facing the outer hallway was transparent, giving him the impression that he'd be living in a zoo.
"I don't understand ... any of this," said Arthur after walking through his new accommodations.
"Give it time," said the woman who'd done most of the speaking. "You've got your whole life ahead of you here."
"But, like, what's your name?" asked Arthur. "What happened to all the other people frozen at Tempo? Is there some kind of computer here I can use to read about what happened?"
"You can call me Getty," said the woman. "Most of the corpses put into storage with you are still irretrievable. But we've revived several others and a few are still here on campus. As for a computer, there should be a tablet in the drawer of your table."
Sitting on the bed, Arthur looked around at these strange people studying him. "So everybody I've ever known is gone? And now, what? Now I'm an animal in your zoo? Is this even real, or is it just some fucked up afterlife prank?"
"It's real enough," said Getty. "In a few weeks, if you're still having trouble settling in, we can look at your neurotransmitter levels and adjust them if necessary."
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