I consider this ‘my favorite’ of stories I’ve written. This is a repost. The dates have been changed. Time marches on. And the story has been broken into chapters for easier reading. I hope you enjoy reading New Earth as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Posted: 10-9-2022
Revised: 9-10-2023
Reposted: 11-16-2023
When I woke, my eyes were blurry, almost as if caked over by a white blanket and my head was roaring. I could hear what I thought was the sound of beating drums. One a couple decibels lower than the other. Boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom.
Back and forth it went.
The next time I woke up, the white blanket was more like lace and the roaring in my head was now a buzz. The drums; I thought, might have been voices. Voices? That was a pleasant thought.
“Look, look. Our patient is coming around again.”
The softer of the two voices said. “Third time is the charm. Right?”
I woke to see something standing on either side of me. “There you are.”
“Can you speak?” The lower of the two voices asked. I tried to speak. But no sound came out. “Not with your voice, use your mind.”
How was I supposed to speak with just my mind? No one could do that. Maybe with the help of some super advanced technology. Now really?
Talking can be so overrated. Instead, I focused on trying to get up and get the use of my limbs back. Who knows, maybe I will be able to run through the grass and jump in the river. I was having the most pleasant thought about doing just that. I was running, arms wide open into the sun, across a green field then jumping into the refreshing water; when the lower of the two voices said, “that’s not going to happen. Swimming in natural bodies of water was banned a hundred years ago.”
I thought, ‘how did you know what I was thinking?’
‘Because you thought it.’
‘Fine, where am I?’ My mind was filled with the image of a building, white brick. It was long, only two stories tall; on the double doors that I assumed was the front of the building was written community healing center. Nothing flashy, just plain lettering on a plain door. Then one of the doors opened into a very sterile looking corridor. All the walls were a pale clinical green. Nothing special. The bodies, forms, whatever you call them were everywhere.
They were shapeless, non-descript beings.
This is a fluke right? Let’s try this again. ‘How did I get here?’ Again, I saw images, like a movie playing in my mind of the crash site. The ship that I had been riding in was laying on the sand in a massive pile. Bodies were laying all-round the scene in different states of dismemberment; arms here, legs there. A head was on top of this massive pile of scrap. Then I saw me being pulled out of the rubble by these forms and brought here to the community healing center.
‘So where am I?’ My thought was a news story telling about the fourth BFS’s lift off. Then after four months in space, it was never heard from again. I was getting ready to ask what year it was when 2,415 ran across my mind.
‘How is this possible?’ I thought. A company called Inter-face was developing a chip that was to interface with human brains. The original plan for the device was to help people with brain disorders and people who had been in accidents. I remembered that much being true. They rolled out their first one in 2,024. A year behind schedule. As my in-flight movie continued, it showed me wars, famine, devastation. All the things one would expect from a B rated science fiction movie. After this mess, everyone was implanted with a chip when they were born. When society became so corrupt they were on the verge of complete destruction, someone hacked the system and started correcting ever so slightly the imperfections of human behavior. Then I saw that these formless beings were actually a suit that was required to be worn anytime someone was outside. Only in the privacy of your own home were you allowed to show yourself.
‘So what happened to individuality and uniqueness?’ My head started raging and I passed out.
The low voice filled my head as I woke ‘When you ask something that you are not to know the answer, you are corrected back to the proper way of thinking?’
‘And who decides the correct way of thinking?’ The roar it my head was back and I was out.
‘You had some health issues that were corrected. A bulging disk in your lower back, tinnitus in your ears, arthritis in several joints, and allergies; all healed.’
‘Amazing,’ I thought. ‘It’s like being a new person.’
‘We are beings. We are all beings.’ The lower of the two voices commented.
When I woke up, both figures were standing at the foot of the bed holding an empty suit. ‘Time to go outside and see your new world.’
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