HUMAN
ABSCISSION
By
Whitney R. Holp
In the beginning, there was
darkness, a darkness to which
there seemed neither a start nor an end. Then the hiss
of airlock, and a word,
and that word was AWAKEN. Upon hearing the sound of it
spoken, we were then
able to open our eyes, and there was light, a light
that became a pulsating
blur that faded into definite shapes accompanied by an
array of minor
sensations.
Emerging from our somnagenesis, we
found ourselves in a
chamber, suddenly existing in our respective
permutations of the human form.
There were four dozen of us. We climbed out of our
individual fluid pods, naked
into the air, the liquid cooling on our skin. We
looked around and at each
other, blinking, gazing stupidly. Despite that this
was our first time actually
being conscious, nothing truly came as a surprise; we
merely experienced a mild
shock at having finally arrived.
Towels were stacked on a circular
table in the middle of the
chamber and we went to them and dried ourselves. Our
skin was saturated with
moisture from submersion in an amniotic-saline
solution. Tacitly we understood
that the purpose of these neatly folded bundles of
rectangular fabric on the
elevated surface was to wipe away liquid in order to
make something dry. We
were not stupid of course, but there was much to be
learned.
The twelve years following our
collective test-tube birth
were spent in an incubatory slumber while our bodies
grew, our minds inundated
with basic information the entire time. Kinetic spasms
administered to prevent
muscle atrophy, this done in addition to other subtle
treatments, we newborns
were ready-made humans. From here we would quickly
grow into fully functional
adults, each capable of committing any action as
easily as anyone else.
Near the exit enough robes were left
hanging that we were all
attired, exchanging cursory greetings as we did, then
proceeded into the
adjacent room. In it, chairs and sofas were arranged
around a window, and
through the quadrupled panes of this window we could
see an elm tree outside,
upon the stark branches of which the tiny buds of new
leaves were just
beginning to form.
###
A sexless voice, its serene
intonations descending from
overhead speakers, commenced to deliver this monologue
shortly after we had all
gathered in:
“Greetings, and welcome to your
life. By the time you are
hearing this I will be long dead. Perhaps a whole
millennium, or even more, will
have passed between the time I’ve said what I am going
to say and the time of
your hearing it. Should we be so lucky, that is. But
perhaps no one is actually
hearing me say this, and it is all vanity. Regardless,
if indeed this is being
heard, then all has been a success, and at this
critical juncture there is no
more important fact I could remind you of than the
fact that though right now
you have just entered into a state of sentient
consciousness, so too will you
die, as I surely have. What it means, to be dead, has
not been precisely
determined as yet. Perhaps it will be your generation
that discovers this. One
thing that is for certain, however, is that you will
all die by the age of.…”
It was a recording, activated by the
motion of our entering
the room. Beyond the tree, visible through the dense
network of its branches,
was a meadow rife with weeds and wildflowers, birds
and insects zipping around
out there, the sky bright with the light of the sun.
As we listened, we had the
prevailing sense that none of this was new to us, that
we were not actually learning
anything, but rather simply being reminded.
The voice went on for some time
before completing itself, and
when it did, a number of adults then came into the
room. They explained that
they were to be our teachers, having already gone
through much of what we
would, and guide us through the first few years of
existence, before leaving us
to our own devices. They explained that we were not
alone, that at this moment
others just like us had also awakened for the first
time. They explained that
the reason for our creation and subsequent
consciousness was that we had been
made to take up where humanity had left off on the
previous round.
And as they explained these things,
they took us on a tour to
see the extent of what was to be our home, leading us
through the various
underground control centers, engine rooms, storage and
processing areas,
through the greenhouses, the conservatories, the
enormous solarium that was
situated at the very heart of the compound. Its
corridors and many chambers
were evidently vacant for a considerable time, their
contents seeming to have
acquired additional gravity from being stationary for
so long.
They explained that places like this
were once called
“mega-cities,” and that there were hundreds located
across the continent,
thousands across the globe. The railways connecting
one mega-city to another
were still intact, spanning the land in a vast
grid-work of steel tracks.
Designed to host dormant life-forms for periods of
indeterminate length, they
were built in such a manner as to make them largely
impervious to any
foreseeable sort of terrestrial phenomenon, be it
tectonic shifts or
ocean-level fluctuations; whatever was inside, it was
safe.
Along the way we encountered groups
of others, those who
awoke simultaneously to us, but in other sectors of
the complex. At the end of
the tour we were led outside for a better view of our
immediate environment.
There, standing on the rocky shore, gazing up at the
stoic shapes of this
massive edifice, we struggled to take it all in.
The whole thing seemed almost
unreal, like a dream, its glass
walls framed by titanium and concrete, its solar
panels shimmering as the sun
slowly rose ever higher into the sky, the air resonant
with the hum of the
gigantic hydro-converters, the rows of turbines
stretching down the coast,
churning away in the ever-present wind; all this done
to channel in as much
energy as possible to ensure the facility could never
fail in its function.
Standing there, dwarfed by this place in the post-dawn
light, one had a sense
of limitless possibility readying to blossom.
A new day had begun.
###
For over half a decade they were
with us, offering what
instruction and guidance they could, giving clues to
further routes of inquiry.
Few were designated for this role, that of teacher,
for, as they explained, it
reduced the overall length of one’s lifespan. They
explained that aging is the
result of a gene, and that once this gene was removed,
one no longer aged;
thus, for those on whom this procedure had been
conducted, the only possible
cause of death was either trauma or terminal disease.
Few people besides the
teachers were left over from the previous generation,
having elected to sleep
rather than live out the rest of their life in one
shot. It was mandatory that
at least a certain number did so that they could wake
with us to ensure
everything went more or less according to plan.
First we were put on a heavy regimen
of exercise, study, and
sleep, the latter encouraged with a nebulous
imperative. We were shown how to
plant crops and construct things soundly, how to
extract minerals and refine
them into useful things. We were taught the scientific
method and how to
re-establish means of production, about the food chain
and the ecosystem, the
Big Bang and the history of our planet, and the
process of evolution that
culminated in this present moment, how the dual
ideologies ― religion and the
economy ― propelled our species on a path toward
self-induced extinction. They
told us these things and many more, more than could be
easily summarized within
a single paragraph.
Then we were made to demonstrate our
grasp of this knowledge,
and in the last four years they simply shadowed us as
we went through the
motions, though continuing to elucidate various other,
sometimes less tangible,
concerns. By the end we were all equal in at least one
respect, and that was
that each and every one of us knew exactly as much as
everyone else ― that is,
everything that was then possible to be known.
After those seven years our teachers
retired from their duty,
returning to slumber in wait for the generation that
was hoped and expected to
follow, and whatever happened after that, it was out
of their hands; the fate
of the species was in our hands now. All of us
newborns suddenly just left
alone here on Earth, the world, us and everything, it
was all a ripe subject
for whatever we would do with it while we were here.
###
And so, we lived. We ate and
breathed and excreted our
intakes; we were asleep and awake intermittently, and
found ways to occupy the
many hours of the days and nights that were allotted
to us. We slowly grew old,
our bodies aging into maturity, our minds broadened
and refined. We were quiet
and efficient, living out our lives, and we too would
build monuments proving
our existence.
After the age of 23 suicide was
forbidden, punishable by
permanent incarceration. This was not for any reason
other than because by that
age all dissidents had already taken their leave and
thus a harmony was
achieved among the survivors, a stasis that would be
disrupted by any
additional departures. Aside from that one
stipulation, and provided the duties
necessary to run society were fulfilled, everyone was
otherwise almost entirely
at liberty to do as they pleased.
And because each person was as
capable as the next, nobody
was restricted to doing a single job for any longer
than they wanted to.
Indeed, to implement and exercise the full range of
one’s abilities was
strongly encouraged. Let it not be mistaken that we
were clones, rather that
simply a tacit consensus existed among us all:
physiognomical and psychic
traits and tendencies remained of variance.
But what was most important of all
was that we were alive,
that we continued to prove ourselves the greatest
anomaly by perpetuating the
species on our island Earth within the void of the
great emptiness called Outer
Space. With no solid evidence to the contrary, we
actually are the only
sentient creatures in the entire cosmos, and may
possibly be the only to ever
exist, for the precise coincidence necessary seems to
happen according to a
catch-as-catch-can policy: it might happen again, but
also it might not.
Knowing this, it then seemed to us as our
responsibility to persist in this. If
nothing else, we existed to serve as witnesses to the
existence of the
universe.
The very fact of us being here at
all, however, stood
testament to more than the tenacity of the
will-to-live necessary for an
organism to endure, it also demonstrated the sheer
power of human ingenuity.
Five hundred and fifty years ago our ancestors, after
the unrelenting expansion
of prior centuries, faced the onset of a global
catastrophe induced by the
accumulation of human action. Earth was getting ready
to purge itself of the
blight our species had become. With mass extinction
immanent, an alarm state
was declared, and everyone quickly was ushered into
the makeshift cryogenic
facilities to wait while the mega-cities were built.
It was postulated that if
all human activity ceased right then, the catastrophe
would be averted and the
planet would recuperate in the wake.
Comparable to a smoker’s lungs,
three hundred years was
deemed sufficient for a full recovery, at which time
everyone would be allowed
to wake up again and resume living through to their
death. Some nations could
not afford to implement these measures, and what
happened to them is unknown.
Certain overpopulated nations even built phony
cryogenic facilities wherein one
was put to sleep, but without any intention of ever
being reawakened, thus
making the whole endeavor a sort of consented
genocide. It was obvious then
that to carry on in the old way, with each generation
overlapped by its
successors and predecessors, was no longer feasible,
and thus a new model for
continuing human existence had to be conceived,
something with an eye toward
maximum sustainability. Which is what we were: we were
the first born under the
new system.
For that reason our primary goal
while we were alive was to
further human discovery and to pave the way for those
who followed. Though the
future of the coming generations was secure, even that
would not last forever.
Earth was habitable for only as long as the sun
burned, and a new home must be
sought well before it goes nova. Already we have sent
out a number from among
us to voyage into the void, those who go to its
outermost limits and report
back their findings; such distances they would pass
through, it will be our
descendants rather than us who learn of what they
found out there.
Time travel and teleportation are
therefore also subjects of
related concern. (Some endeavors, however, were
undertaken in the spirit of
sheer novelty, for we still revel in the joy of
anything strange and new.)
And so we lived, and we lived in
this manner until it has
become time for us to shut things down in preparation
for our collective death,
like leaves falling from a tree in autumn, so that
another quarter-millennia
can elapse over the winter fallow before our extracted
chromosomes unite for
the next round.
Now it is time to end this, both
this document and my life,
and go into the dark with the others, those with whom
I have shared my time.
This document I will now send to the past, to you,
dear reader, in the hope
that you might be inspired to actualize the
circumstances it depicts and in
effect cause my cohorts and I to really one day exist.
Regardless of whether or
not any of that happens, it is no matter to me now,
for through the window I
see that the first winter’s snowflakes have already
started to fall.
[30]