“Where do I get my ideas from? You might as well have asked that of Beethoven. He was goofing around in Germany like everybody else, and all of a sudden this stuff came gushing out of him. It was music. I was goofing around like everybody else in Indiana, and all of a sudden stuff came gushing out. It was disgust with civilization.”
- Kurt Vonnegut
this is him imitating that really famous photograph of the kid with the hand grenade isn’t it? the photographers name escapes me.
The old man lay sleeping on his small, but comfortable hospital bed. The wires protruding from the top of his head gently tapping on the metal bed frame with each shaky breath. His family sat close by, watching his final moments. They were all sure that this was it, his passing was imminent. But he wasn’t quite done yet. His eyes flickered open. He fuzzily gazed around at his family members, his liver spotted brow furrowing.
“For God’s sake! Am I still here?”
“Fraid’ so Dad” said his son
“That stupid Dr Stephenson said I would be dead three bloody days ago!”
“It can’t be much longer Derek” said his daughter in law “I’m sure you nearly slipped off about an hour ago”
“Well I obviously didn’t” he snapped back “because I’m still sat in this frigging hospital.”
“It can’t be much longer Dad” said his daughter calmingly
“I know, I know” he sulkily replied “it just feels like I’ve been stuck here for a life time”
“It will be over before you know it Granda” his grandson cheerily exclaimed
The old man gazed past his family and out of the window. It was raining softly now; but the hospital car park was still partially flooded in one corner. He coughed and slightly rose, almost like he was going to get up, but he was tucked in so tightly he didn’t get very far. He slumped back down, looked his eldest son directly in the eye and passed away.
His family all watched his passing in silence. After a minute or so, his daughter closed her Fathers eyes for the final time, and started to quietly weep. Her eldest brother cuddled her with one arm, gently whispering everything was okay. They all sat, headsbowed.
After about five minutes, the eldest son looked up, tears in his eyes. He pressed a button above his Fathers bed which alerted a doctor.
Another five minutes later, Dr Stephenson waltzed into the room with a beaming smile on his face.
“Right okay, let’s get this show on the road!” He remarked “first of all we need to get the formalities out of the way” he glanced at the heart rate monitor “right, Mr Derek Thompson, Date of birth 16th of April 1985. Time of death, 3.35 pm… what day is it?”
“Tuesday” the family replied in unison
“Ah yes of course. How silly of me. Date of death, Tuesday the 1st of September 2097. Okay, let’s get down to business.”
Dr Stephenson moved to the foot of the bed and pulled it towards him, the wheels squeaking slightly as he did so. This revealed a large black box underneath the bed. The wires coming from the top of Derek’s head lead into this large bit of curious machinery. Dr Stephenson couldn’t get to the box because the family were still gathered on both sides of the bed. He looked, contemplating whether or not to push past them all, but decided that this would be inappropriate. Instead he looked at Ian, the eldest son, who was at the head of the bed.
“Ian, can you do me a favour and just press that small red button on the side there?”
Ian looked and after a moments searching, saw the button and dutifully pressed it. Out slid a draw. Inside, was a transparent block of plastic, with a dark blue sphere suspended in the middle.
Ian looked back at Dr Stephenson, awaiting further instruction.
“Yes Ian, if you just pass that over here, we can get started. As agitated as your father was, I’m sure he would like us to be hasty. Be careful though, we don’t want to damage it.”
Ian picked up the small clear rectangle and held it to his face, examining the blue orb; it looked almost metallic, but transparent at the same time. After a moment, he passed the match box sized block to his sister, his sister passed it to her nephew, her nephew to Dr Stephenson, who stood, still beaming, at the bottom of the bed.
Dr Stephenson stood looking down at the device in his hand, a wry smile on his face. He then raised his head, looked at the youngest member of the group and said:
“William, this is your Grandfather.”
*
Within minutes, the family had been ushered into a large dimmed room. There were many computer terminals in rows; other families were huddling round several of them. The large flat screens illuminating their faces with pale blue light.
Dr Stephenson led the family to a terminal at the far end of the room, quite a distance from the other families. He then stood in front of the screen; it instantly illuminated, showing lots of menus. The Dr began tapping and navigating through the interface. A draw then opened, similar to the one on the black machine under Derek’s bed. Dr Stephenson placed the plastic block into the draw and pushed it back in.
The Thompson family stood staring at the screen as Dr Stephenson started tapping the screen once again. Ian noted how deftly the Dr’s finger moved, he had obviously done this many times before.
A few moments later, Dr Stephenson announced “Okay then. Here he is.” He glanced round at the family, and then said “Derek? Can you hear me?”
The speakers surrounding the terminal crackled slightly, and then Derek’s voice rattled out “yes, I can here you”
“Excellent” replied Dr Stephenson “let’s get you started”
“Is my family there?”
“Yes, they are all here. Two seconds…” the Dr tapped the screen several more times “There you are. I’ve just turned your camera on. This will be your eyes to the physical world. Can you see us?”
“Wow. Yes I can. This is amazing… Hello everyone…” Derek fell into a silence
“I know this is all a bit strange Derek, but you will soon get used to it” announced the Dr Stephenson.
“I’m sure I will.”
“Yes, it is all a bit much at first. Should we get started then?” asked the Dr
“No time like the present”
Ian stepped closer to the screen and gazed curiously at the camera
“How are you feeling dad?” he asked cautiously
“Fine Son, no pain, which is nice for a change. I still sound like a bloody old man though.”
“Don’t worry about that” answered Dr Stephenson “we will sort your avatar out now. Okay, what would you like to be called?”
“Derek Thompson”
“Okay let’s have a look at availability.” The doctor tapped the screen once again “ah, the nearest thing we have to Derek Thompson is Derek.Thompson2651. Is that okay?”
“I suppose it will have to be” Derek croaked back through the speakers
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much; you can change it any time you want. It doesn’t have to be your name either; it can be anything you want. The more imaginative you are with it, the less likely it will be taken” Dr Stephenson said smiling “Okay Derek, how old would you like to be?”
“Well…” Derek fell silent again. The doctor and the family waited patiently. “25. Yes 25.”
“That’s no problem” replied the doctor
After a few more delicate taps, a figure materialised on the screen. It was Derek. He looked young, healthy and happy. He was looking out at the Dr and his family, looking at them through his digital eye.
“Hello you lot” he said smiling
Dr Stephenson moved to the side of the terminal to let the family move closer. As Ian, his wife Jessica and his sister Carly stood talking to Derek on the screen, the Dr looked at young William, Derek’s grandson.
“This is all quite amazing isn’t it?” he asked
“Yeah…” William was almost lost for words
“It is a remarkable feat that we humans have achieved. The nanosecond after your grandfathers brain activity stopped, he passed instantly to that small clear rectangle you saw earlier, never losing consciousness. Death is no longer the end of the line. It is a new beginning.”
*
Derek was looking out at his family. He was seeing them in full 3D, and with a sharpness his mortal eyes could never achieve. After a few minutes of speaking with his son, daughter and daughter in law Dr Stephenson came back to the centre of the screen.
“Derek, it seems like you have gotten the swing of things now. Should we move onto the next step?”
“Why not?” Derek replied enthusiastically
Dr Stephenson turned to the Thompson’s “there’s not much point in you all hanging around, you will be able to speak to Derek through your computers at home.”
“Yes, go home and get yourselves fed with some decent food” Derek urged “You lot have been in the hospital almost as long as me”
Ian looked directly at him and smiled, then glanced at his watch. “Yeah I suppose we have”
The family all said their goodbyes and made their way out of the Computer Terminal room. Just Dr Stephenson and Derek on the large screen remained.
After a moments silence, Dr Stephenson said “Okay Derek, I think you’re ready to be connected to the mainframe. Do you need refreshing on anything?”
“No, I don’t think that will be necessary. I have many friends already in the mainframe who are waiting to show me the ropes. Apparently they have arranged a party for me in our old local pub. It’s not even there anymore in reality. Closed down 30 years ago. I haven’t been able to have a pint for 10 years now anyway, with this duff liver of mine. Or should I say, the duff liver I had. So I’m looking forward to this. I can’t bloody wait for a pint of bitter.”
“Right o’ Derek” said Dr Stephenson “it looks like you have got things sorted. Have fun in the pub, and have a pint for me, I’m working till midnight”
“I certainly will Dr, thanks for everything”
And with that, the Dr tapped the screen one last time, and Derek faded to black. Dr Stephenson was left standing in the dark, alone.
*
MEANWHILE, IN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
*
“What on Earth is the problem this time?” asked Jesus
Jesus looked around at the other faces in the rarely used boardroom. The faces staring back at him were awash with concern.
“Well, Jesus” St Paul glanced at his fellow disciples before carrying on “It’s this new artificial Heaven they have developed on Earth.”
“It’s what?”
“Artificial heaven” St Paul repeated
Jesus sat back, stunned. “Why has this not been brought to my attention earlier?” He exclaimed
“We did speak about this in the last crisis meeting, it is in the minutes” said John the Baptist, breaking the silence.
“Oh” said Jesus
“You did seem, well, slightly distant last crisis meeting Jesus” remarked St Mathew
“Oh” Jesus said again. “Well tell me what’s going on. Again.”
“Right” St Paul looked at his notes. “What’s happened is, they have created an artificial Heaven on Earth. Instead of dying, the human consciousness is put into a huge storage system, where the consciousness’s of most the people to die in the last 4 years can communicate with one another. They can go to the shops, go to the moon, storm the beaches of Normandy, read any book ever written, take any drugs they want, have sex with anyone they want, fight in the Jungles of Vietnam, gamble, slay armies of the un-dead and anything else you can imagine. Most of which are prohibited here in Heaven.” He looked up from his notes “it’s a very sordid affair, I know. It’s a bit like the Internet; only the person is experiencing it like they are actually in it. Ever since this artificial Heaven’s invention, fewer and fewer people are arriving here in real Heaven. The machine they have devised works in such a way that it captures the consciousness of the individual, which as we know, is the soul, and transports it to something they call the “mainframe”” St Paul looked back at Jesus “at this rate, by the year two thousand one hundred, ninety five percent of people who die will be put into the mainframe. Only people who die in accidents, which are very rare down there these days, will come to Heaven, although only if they believed in Christianity, Which even fewer people do in this day and age.”
“Um” said Jesus
The twelve apostles all stared at Jesus, waiting for something to happen. An uncomfortable silence settled over the room.
St Andrew cleared his throat and spoke up “Jesus, is there no way you could ask your Father to help us out in this?” the question hung in the air. St Andrew carried on “To me this looks like a similar case to the Tower of Babel. Perhaps another scattering of the people and the re-establishing of many different languages, instead of the one they seem to have built up over the last century. This would destroy their communication devices and soon the rest of this modern civilisation would surely follow…” St Andrew trailed off, noticing the distinct look of failure on Jesus’ face
“My Father will not help us on this matter. We are on our own.”
His Disciples gaped back at him
“Has it never occurred to you that my father has not done anything for thousands of years?”
The Disciples looked aghast
“Well, yes but that’s because we’ve had it under control” argued St Mathew
“He also gave us no real power. And we can’t do anything to make a real difference down on Earth.” Carried on Jesus in undeterred
“This is true” agreed St Paul, staring at his clasped hands on the table
“With no conflict on Earth, and the advent of modern technologies that can cure all diseases, we have become increasingly irrelevant on Earth. Maybe this is what my Father hoped would happen all along.”
The disciples bowed their heads in thought
“For now we have lost” Jesus said “close the gates.”
Here’s a comic I made in my sketchbook today. It’s about a house near where I live.
Last time I’ll repost this.
