For the millionth time I kill myself. Such a milestone deserves a spectacle and I’ve endeavoured to create something special for the ones who watch me. I am the focal point of a spectacular circus performance, a red and white big top filled with a rowdy crowd eagerly awaiting my performance. Gurning clowns performing their tricks, fantastic creatures dancing ballet moves and a giant juggling some fire eaters are a few of the diversions I’ve brought in as my warm-up. I am far above it all, swinging back and forth on my trapeze, throwing in a few crowd-pleasing twists and leaps from time to time. Far below a pool of molten gold bubbles away, my final destination. In my many lives I’ve gotten reasonably good at acrobatics and would like to think the crowd are appreciating my tricks rather than willing me to lose my grip. Yet this is a self-indulgent conceit and I know they did not come to watch a bit of standard trapeze work, they have come to see me die and as a performer it is my pleasure and duty to give the crowd what they want.
I release my grip at the apex, pulling my legs and arms in tight and going into a tight, fast roll. There is wild cheering and applause at this and I draw some satisfaction from this, for not all the crowd are figments of my own creation and it’s always good to entertain. Drummers in the house band begin rolling out a beat in anticipation and streams of confetti are released. I arch out and stretch my arms, simultaneously lowering gravity to draw out the fall for maximum suspense.
A few metres above the pool I start to feel the heat, it’s pleasant at first but soon grows into a luscious and overwhelming torrent of pain as this body starts to worry about expiring. Gracefully I keep tugging gravity lower, drawing out the moment of contact ever more as the crowd start chanting “Burn, burn, burn”. As my face begins to blister and my hair burns away they cheer. In a flicker of anger I cause the big top to ignite, the bastards can burn with me. What reward is this for creating beautiful art?
My vision darkens as the body begins to die, I am conscious for much longer than is enjoyable or would be possible naturally. I know what comes next, I have no fear of my fate only a quantum of hope for its change. Still, perhaps this time, perhaps this will be the time I am surprised by change. I embrace the utter darkness of obliteration and try not to let go of that feeling.
As always I find myself standing on an immaculate white-sanded tropical beach, staring out across small scattered islands across a gently rolling green sea. It’s twilight and the moon looms lazily overhead. In my hands are a vividly red cocktail I’d once loved and a tattered paper book which was a cloyingly twee title given my circumstances. Needless to say I am displeased, I repeatedly down the drink which at least has the decency to be endlessly refilling and throw the book in the ocean, as has been my tradition since around my 1500th death and rebirth or so.
Once upon a time, back before my interment began, this had been my favourite place to come to. Now it was indelibly associated with the real hell in which I found myself trapped. Many, many times before at awaking to this vista I’d simply rampaged, bringing the moon crashing down, throwing the planet into the sun or simply collapsing all of the universe into a point singularity. Each of those apocalypses has the same inevitable outcome, awaking here intact and unchanged. Though here I have far more power than any god would wish it’s long since grown uninteresting to use it. For there’s a singular thing I can’t change which is the only thing which matters.
In the back of my mind I tug at the interface, tapping into the underlying operating system of this universe and ask it the one question which matters, “Is this real?”
YOU ARE IN VIRTUALITY
The expected answer but the question must be asked. I try and trigger the exit function.
YOU HAVE INSUFFICIENT PERMISSIONS TO USE THE EXIT FUNCTION
Again the expected. This isn’t even a disappointment any more, you can’t go through the same process as many times as I have and have any emotion left for something as involved as disappointment.
For the longest while I’d found some enjoyment, as I’ve said I had godly powers and only those with an utter lack of imagination could fail to find themselves occupied and diverted. I’d constructed entire new histories and societies, playing back and editing until I’d created some of the most beautiful arcs and narratives ever made in history. What had started simply as a pleasant delusion that I’d not ended up in this irreal prison, imagining and living out the rest of my life had become millennia of min-maxing my own lifetime, walking down the paths of all the choices I’d not taken trying to see what the most optimal course would have been. In its own way this became a kind of torture, for in few of those lives did I end up trapped for eternity in a virtuality for supposed “crimes” I still do not regret.
Those who imprisoned me, those who think themselves so much higher than me, those incapable of taking the hard choices but perfectly content to live with the pleasing consequences when others took them, they come to watch. Sometimes like in the circus they are obvious, other times they take on roles in the stories or lives I lead. Some stay for ages, content to play out a role while observing me, the great monster of their history. Others come in and simply try to kill me, this ends poorly for them often but it’s quite annoying to have to undo their destruction and sometimes it really disrupts my creative flow. Sometimes the visitors are not visitors, they are simply figments of imagination providing a more interesting antagonist to oppose. These times grow increasingly frequent, which I must admit is worrying. When I first realised this had happened I collapsed the universe to a point and sulked fearfully for millennia. Still as one kept trapped in virtuality I suppose I must respect the mere semantic distinctions between real visitors from the beyond and imagined ones.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will try again. Tonight I will dream of a suicide more beautiful, more striking and this time, this time they’ll really pay attention. I will the sun to finish setting, sending the moon away as well for it’s far too bright and annoying. I lie down in the sand as a beautiful bed forms from it, silken sheets flowing over and encompassing me and fall asleep into what turns out to be a night of total contented nothingness. It was glorious.
When I wake the man is there, he’s lying on the beach supping away at his own cocktail reading my book. He wears the face of the man I once loved, another way they endeavour to destroy the memory of everything I once held dear. A face that should have been warm and friendly looks a lot less inviting when worn by my jailor.
“Ah good morning,” he raises the glass in toast to me, “Good to see you again.”
I raise my middle finger to him, “Go fuck yourself.” Further filthier or more violent protests would be futile, as slippery and evasive as this one appears as a human being he’s even more so as the admin of this virtual prison.
“So, jumping into molten gold in a circus?” he smiles with all the conviction of a thing which has never owned a face or a mouth full of teeth, “I really liked it. You’re getting really good at this you know?”
“So is there a point to this visit? You want me to sign an autograph for whatever utter shit stains you’d call friends if you’ve even got any of those?”
“No sorry my dear man, I know not a single person who would like to be reminded of your continued existence,” he laughs awkwardly at his own joke and then keeps laughing, amused at the sound of it.
I rend the world apart, the beach instantly melting into a sea of lava as fiery meteors slam all around us. My body becomes a demon, all horns, claws and fury. I pummel his body with punch after punch after punch, he looks bored. I throw him into space, flying after him and bellowing rage, he rolls his eyes. I piledrive him back to the ground, I sense him reach the centre of the earth, he shrugs. It was a futile thing, nothing will come of this, but it was oh so satisfying.
I find myself standing on an immaculate white-sanded tropical beach, staring out across small scattered islands across the gently rolling green sea. It’s twilight and the moon looms lazily overhead. He stands alongside me with his own cocktail, looking at me coldly.
“Tell me, what is it you want?”
That question, that infuriatingly obvious question I’ve answered so many times, “Let me leave or let me die.”
A thin smirk, he’s really enjoying smiling today. I suppose though they always appear as this same man that I cannot really know how many different jailors have come to me. Perhaps this one really doesn’t get out in the flesh that often.
“And if you had to pick just one of those options?”
That was… new. I was taken aback. Either would be an escape but I’m so, so tired.
“I want to die,” at the sound of the words I realise I mean it.
“Yes that would explain all the suicides,” another round of self-congratulatory laughter.
“Well they seem to be gathering quite a lot of attention amongst your peers” I think it’s finally worked. They’ve finally noticed and hence this new line of questioning.
“In the interest of managing your ego let me explain how utterly inconsequential your ‘performances’ are. Those many admiring visitors from the real you think you have… Despite your long godhood here you still fail to comprehend what an insignificant little speck of nothing you are. All those multitudes you believed ardently interested in you, that you imagined supportive of your ‘struggle’ were mere transient avatars, span up and hived off for the singular function of observing you in the hope that when they returned to their greater whole it may derive some fleeting enjoyment from the memories. That’s all you are, the hope for a momentary diversion, nobody cares about your protest beyond yourself. Well done you.
You complain endlessly about your treatment, the ‘torture’ and ‘debased horror’ of your godhood in this virtuality despite the countless others who willingly choose this lifestyle themselves and keep choosing to remain in it. We have given you unimaginable freedom to do anything you want. All we deny is the freedom to harm others, something you were exceptional at when you had that option available to you. Still let us move beyond admiration of your ingratitude to come to the point.
Though while alive and free in the Reality you committed numerous heinous acts that at the time seemed unforgivable we are now at a point where everything you did, good or evil, has been forgotten. Not forgiven. Just forgotten. In the transcript of history you are a sidenote even the most studious scholar is likely to oversee. Those few of us who still remember you are here and cared to divert ourselves from much greater concerns have reached a consensus. You are to be released so the forgetting can be completed. Anyway, I believe death was your choice. I can’t say it’s been a pleasure knowing you but goodbye anyway!”
He clicks his fingers and my heart stops beating. As I am no longer capable of changing anything this is indeed more problematic than normal. I collapse to the ground dying, he taps his foot impatiently waiting for the life to go out of me. I start to feel the darkness encroaching, the pain of the flesh starts to fade and I begin to feel excited. It’s happening. Darkness and obliteration envelop me, I go deeper into them, dive further into the sweet liberation of nothingness than I’ve ever been before. Finally I am free.
He didn’t even wait for me to wake up before starting laughing, it rings in my ears before my eyes are finished opening. I find myself standing on an immaculate white-sanded tropical beach, staring out across small scattered islands across the gently rolling green sea. It’s twilight and the moon looms lazily overhead. My powers are still disabled, I’m only human for now or I’d have done things to him so artful in their cruelty and violence it would be known across the entire, fucking Reality. I don’t even have the words to articulate my rage.
“Sorry. Well, not sorry,” he regains the studiously neutral, lifeless expression he usually wears on his visits, “I still have the memories of ancestors who suffered horrors because of you. I think I’m entitled to a little revenge on their behalf.”
He walks away down the beach, cocktail in hand. I am crushed, the iota of hope is gone now. I sink wailing into the sand, powerless and impotent to ever free myself from this nightmare thrown about me.
“Sorry about that too,” he is standing back next to me, “I really, truly despise you. Yet we are better than you ever were. We do not condone murder. You will be freed to the Real. Kill yourself there if you still want to die. Or don’t. Your continued life or death is an irrelevance to me now. You will be an anonymous nothing, utterly incapable of posing a threat to anything that matters. Enjoy!”
This time there is no languid descent into annihilation, merely a blink of darkness and he’s opening eyes he’s never opened before to a sudden and blinding light. “GOOD MORNING CITIZENS. IT IS TIME TO ARISE AND COMMENCE SHIFT ACTIVITIES. TODAY WILL BE A GREAT DAY, TOMORROW WILL BE EVEN BETTER. LET US PRAY,” the voice bellows through the dormitory.
He is in a room with another fifty men, all lying on the same kind of thin grey bunk as he is. They all rise, so he does too, not quite quickly enough by the puzzled look of the man on the bunk below him. The men began to shout over the uplifting choral backing track of the prayer. He joined in because what else was there to do and he somehow knew the words.
“Oh Great Decider in the skies above, save us today from the burden of choice, the struggle to determine right from wrong and the fear of a poor decision. Tell us what we must do that we might be happiest and continue together to be the most joyous nation on all the Earth. May those who watch over us keep us free from the hordes of choosers jealous of our prosperity. We ask this in hope that today will be a great day and that tomorrow will be even better. Amen.”
With every word he slipped further into the identity of Citizen K850805. The fever dream he had awoken from seemed only that, nothing more. Simply a curio it was best not to discuss for it seemed disturbing and unorthodox. He put it to the back of his mind, eagerly ate the breakfast chosen for him today and then went off to perform his assigned shift’s work out in the field.
There were many similar days of field labour and other tasks less pleasant. Still, there was solidarity and community in this place and life passed easily. In time he was matched up with a woman, they raised five children together before it was decided that they part company and he relocate to the northern lumberyards. This was fine as there was no need for him to be around the children now they were busy with their own work and the woman’s fertile years behind her.
Working the lumberyards was even harder but still more gratifying. He was glad that he’d ended up here, a place with such a great feeling of community and camaraderie. After some ten years during a particularly hard winter he came down with a terrible cough. Eventually once this worsened it was found he was dying of advanced cancer. There would be no treatment, for his best working years were behind him and there were many younger who could do this job. Conserving resources for those harder to replace made sense. When the illness progressed to the point that he could no longer contribute usefully he was given his dose of Resolution. It was decided that he should take the drug out on the beach, past the bay as it would be easy for the others to discard the body in the sea and they could have some recreation time afterwards before the night shift began.
Standing on the cold white beach, looking across the stormy green sea he recalled a forgotten past. Fragmented memories that had seemed like dreams began to coalesce. Fear began coursing through his body, he threw the vial away and tried to run away. This was not an unknown course of events in times like these and his colleagues were prepared. Faster, younger citizens chased him, tackling him to the sand. Heavy bodies kneeled on his limbs, pinning him to the sand. A hand pinched his nose, allowing another to pour the vial into his mouth, the bitter liquid barely touching his tongue on its way down his throat. None of them understood his real horror, they thought it simply the normal, expected, understandable urge of all things to stay alive. They were so, so completely wrong.
As the poison began to take effect he started crying tears. He feared that he would return once more and awake to see the bright moon hovering over a warm green ocean, lapping an idyllic tropical white beach. That all this life had been another cruel trick of his jailor. Or worse, that there was a never a jailor, that he had finally broken utterly and become truly insane. That the cycle would not and could not be ended, that his sins were truly beyond all redemption and forgiveness.
He sank once more into the familiar darkness of death and then…