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Micro-fiction 081 – I Am What I Am (Echo series)

A tale about identity and consciousness from a near future when robots and travel are commonplace.


I Am What I Am

The train rattles above the tracks, hovering aloft ancient steels no longer used except as a guide through the countryside and preserved in memoriam of less complicated times. It is 2080 of the Common Era and the joy is to travel from one nation to another, using a combination of wind and solar power. Soon we will reach the edge of the land, and plunge across the becalmed seas, suspended on invisible cables, our destination hurtling towards us from the twilight. Such technology has made the world more accessible for more people, bringing families together for the first time, especially since all transport is now paid for by philanthropic corporate taxation.

As I gaze from the window, my black hair interfering with the view I ponder the changes in my own life. The swift motion of the train is mesmeric, comforting my head with subtle rushing sounds, so much so I feel myself drifting, watching the spin of the world outside as a series of tableau. Is it really so long since I saw my sister and her husband? They used to live in a cottage, just like the one that fled past the window, and there, a group of children off to school, with dogs and geese padding behind, just like those of my parents.

Of course, I remember my sister’s husband. Bjorn. Damn him for ever. We used to be as one until my sister returned from a long trip and stole him from me. I have forgiven her, but still I can’t speak her name. Long ago I decided to forget it, but still those times haunt me.

As we speed past I catch a glimpse of a church in the distance, clinging to the hillside, a long path snaking down to the cottages below.

“You have not forgiven me.” My sister’s voice, its sound once so sweet, clings to my ears like ashes on a wet day.

“No. I don’t think I ever will.” I remember looking at her, lifting my head, watching her with Bjorn and the rest of my family, the infirm and the inane, the oblivious and the innocent, wandering into the church for the wedding.

“Nobody else knows. There is no shame.” My sister seems to have missed the point.

I know. And he knows. And you, once my greatest friend, my confidante, the one I shared everything with. Even, apparently, my lover.” I did not give permission for the tears to come, but I imagine them rippling from my eyes, every drop stinging at my thoughts.

“But it was not done out of malice. You know that.” My sister, garbed in her beautiful white dress, its tight bodice a mirror of my own, but with the floral ornamentation of the bride, whereas mine reflected the simple status of a bridesmaid.

“I do know that. I just cannot forgive. I have tried.”

My sister looked at me, the sun at her back, her shadow falling across me, she turns, “Come, we must go, and do our duty.”

I close my eyes, and allow myself to be led to the gate of the church, toward the great door, where the rest of the party, inside were now arranged in rows, peering back to see if all was in good order.

The wedding went ahead as planned, but I left the day after. I had done all I could, they had made their choices, so I had to make my own.

***

As the train reaches the sea the smooth transition between hover and cable is barely noticeable. I feel a slight lurch along the length of the carriage and watch as the countryside melts into cliffs, then rapidly merges with rolling surf, and soon we are surrounded by vistas of gentle rolling blues. There are clouds a long way off, but they seem content to observe us distainfully, ignorant of our consciousness, our inner demons, our hopes and desires. This is the calm part of the journey, plainly sketched across my memory from the journey the other way.

“Of course it looks the same.” I mutter to myself.

“If we stop now I would not be able to tell the difference between my flight all those years ago and this return.”

“Perhaps there is no difference. What is time in a place like this? There is only the motion of the stars, the pull of the moon, the turn of the planets around an ineluctable sun. We are irrelevant to its grand motions, a passive observer to the stillness.

“Perhaps that’s a comfort. However powerfully we feel, however bitterly we experience the progression of time, the betrayal of love, the albatross of nostalgia, in this place, where there is no difference between a past journey and a current one, a moving towards, or a running away, in the stillness of this moment, I cannot suffer, for it is what it is, and I am what I am.

***

“Just need to check your travel passes.” The tall, bored ticket inspector leans over as the young man in the aisle seat scrambles into action, his obviously dyed red hair flopping over his eyes. A small kit of cables and precision tools sits on the table in front of him.

“Ah, yes.” He has dropped something under the table, leans under the bulky rucksack to his side by the window to reach down, finds it, scrambles it into his fingers and emerges again, dropping it back to the kit.  “Sorry, here.” He thrusts his wrist at the inspector and the watches impassively as it’s scanned.

“That’s fine, thank you.” The inspector looks up, “And what about you?” He eyes the head of the discrete woman sitting by the window.

“Oh, no!” The young man laughs, “look!” He reaches towards the face next to him, sitting on top of the rucksack, and lifts up the entire head, sweeping back her black hair to show the Inspector, “I’m just trying to fix her memory modules she seems to be stuck in a false memory, I’ve tried to insert new ones, but I’m not sure they’re working.”

The inspector moues but is satisfied enough and moves on to the rest of the carriage, leaving the young man to fuss with the bag as the carriage lurches indicating its transfer to the next part of the journey, above the land.

***

The train has arrived at the new transport hub in Oslo. From his oval cabin on top of the front carriage the inspector can see in all directions and he watches the passengers alight, some rushing, some pushing, some threading the less anxious who shuffle along unconscious of the madness around them. It’s a mass of humanity all progressing in one direction, “just like life” he nods to himself.

Then he notices something curious. Just passing him, close to the end of the train, heading with everyone else to the end of the transit platform, he sees the red hair of the young man earlier, but it’s flopping out of a large rucksack.

“Hey!” From within his cabin the inspector bangs on the plexiglass and shouts, he can’t quite stop himself.

The figure with the rucksack slows, and turns slightly.

“Oh!” The inspector opens his eyes wide as the face of the figure with rucksack glances up towards him and smiles. It is the black-haired head of the robot he saw earlier, on the body of the young man, and it nods at the inspector, before turning back and walking on.

[End]


Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Vurbl and Stitcher  and more. Also on this blog, These Fantastic Worlds.

Text, image, audio © 2021 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam and Elise Wells,  Logic ProX, Sound Studio, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, and Scrivener.


More Tales, More Audio

There are many other great stories in this series, including:

And a carousel of 10 audio stories from the podcast with information about submissions.

Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts.