I was lucid again. There must have been a flaw in my chip, because this was not supposed to happen. Even in the few hours each day we appeared to be awake, to eat our food cubes and stretch and wash up, there were prompts and illusions and avatars joining us in conversations from who knows where, and our white cube was turned into a feast upon a table, in a palatial setting.
I was lying on a creaking bed next to Mary. The mattress sagged and the sheets looked and felt as if they hadn’t been washed in years. I glanced about the dim room. A few slivers of light came in through a torn shade, enough to make out my familiar table and chair near the only window. I stood up and crossed the floor in my bare feet. The odd sensation of the rough floor felt good to me. I opened the shade and flooded the room in bright sunlight. The suddenness of it hurt my optical implant. It didn't bother Mary though, her eyes were shut tight and her mind far, far away.
As I adjusted to the light I looked down and saw what I wanted to see, several sheets of paper lying on the desk with scribbled handwriting that I knew to be mine, and the pen that had done it.
I bathed in the light of the room, the cool air, and the old, familiar consciousness of myself, my age, my appearance, my past. I had been here before and was writing down all I could remember of my past. I wasn't going to give it up.
I paced the floor several times just to exercise my feeble limbs. My pants and shirt were in a heap by the foot of the bed. So I dressed myself. I found my shoes and put them on. There was garbage scattered about, mostly empty food containers. I noticed a foul odor from the open bathroom door. But that didn’t bother me. It reminded me of reality.
There was one useful thing I spotted amidst the debris. It was a long piece of string. I don't know how it got there, but I snatched it up and tied a slipknot and put it around my thumb, pulling it tight. Soon a throbbing began, and with the steady pain, the ringing and flashing pictures in my head would diminish, almost to a silence. With that I sat at my desk again to resume my task.
Imagine being in a dark, tiny room, sitting on a plain, hard, wood chair in the very center, immobilized, but by restraints that you can’t feel, and your eyes wide open in the dark and unable to close. Now screens light up all around you. They cover every wall, and even the floor and ceiling, so everywhere you look you see them. They are loud, full of color, action and life, with places and people familiar and strange, rolling movies of every description. And to stare at any one of these many screens for more than three seconds, you choose it, you instantly enter into it with every sense of touch and smell and taste brightly alive. And you dwell there for an unknown length of time, playing and working with others in unison, until you wake up in the chair again, alone, disoriented. And after you shake your head and realize where you are, a new set of screens and choices light up.
That was my life, or all I had left of it. I don't think Mary ever had her dreamland interrupted with these awkward seconds, or anybody else. Like I said, I'm pretty sure my chip was defective. And with these recurrent glitches I'd discovered a trick, pain would keep me in this conscious state for hours, until the pain faded and I slipped again into my bed and dreamland.
