Lifer
A fragment or a sketch, I, erm, don't know... I just did it.
[Just for you microfiction nerds out there, this is 159 words]
And the image was generated by the image generator. All hail the image generator! The prompt was ‘ghosts in orbit’. Just so as you know, you know.
Lifer
Once upon a time I sat down on my own with the spirits whirling around me.
The thcit-thcat thcit-tchat of the machines humming away in the walls over there.
They tell me I am to be released soon.
But I don’t believe them.
“This is how we do things,” they say, “here in the afterlife.”
I don’t believe them.
And so I sit and I imagine the shadowplay on the walls and the spirits whirling around me and I know I am not alone and I…
They can keep me here as long as they wish.
And I will never be alone.
Because I understand.
Now I understand.
This is life. A microcosm. A dream. An illusion.
An escape.
Once upon a time, I sat down, and I was not here anymore.
And I won. And they never stopped me.
I win. You lose.
And I love these walls.
And they love me too.
Yeah, of course they do…
For the next afterlife fragment/microfiction/whatever you wish to call it, there’s the clicker…
This is so thoughtful and complex and all in 159 words!
Hey Evelyn.
Ive read this about 6 times in a row. So first i had to work out how to pronounce "Thcit thcat" which raised some eyebrows over the breakfast bar but i think getting the sound right is crucial to the mental image of the place youre talking about. I don't think we are in the same place at the end though... someone that died but eventually uses their mind to escape the never ending reality...escape the walls?
anyway... thought provoking... i cant reconcile ghosts in orbit with the story... is it people asleep in cryosleep ... essentially dead but for the endless machine noise?
hmmm! very affecting words! 😀👍