The Chronic Martian

five

forward to the past


The next morning, I awoke as if clawing out of a thick fog. One arm was tangled in the thin wire from the earbud like being trapped in the sticky web of some nocturnal spider. BlueDog was barking, faraway, at the edge of the drive. Light crept in through the edges of the blinds. The laptop screen was blank. Untwisting the wires, I raised up, careful not to spill the computer onto the floor. I turned on the bedside lamp, grabbed the pillows at the foot of the disarrayed bed, put them behind me and sat up. The MacBook was warm from charging as I sat it on my lap and pressed a key. The screen filled with light. A dialogue box beside the robot icon said SAVE or DELETE. I scrolled back and forth between the two, uncertain, like choosing directions at an unknown crossroads after losing the map.

What had bought Dana back to me? After all these years? Why hadn't I dreamed of Andrea? My wife, my friend, my lost love. She had been the anchor of my life for the past eight years, holding us firm in strong currents and sudden squalls. But a rogue wave of fate had swamped us,

The thing about marriage is that the closeness between two people, together all the time, gradually erodes the intimacy, like flowing water on stones. Over the years, we were just as close and, in fact, our love was deeper than when we first met. It was as if love and desire are finite and as one increases, it takes away from the other. I loved Andrea deeply, more than any other woman I had ever known and missed her completely. The year she had been gone was like a year without sunshine, with the bitter, winter rains of despair splashing coldly against the cracked windows of my heart. The iciness had crept inside like a spreading frost.

SAVE or DELETE...

My finger wavered. I felt like a modern Dr. Frankenstein twisting knobs as lightning flashed and beakers foamed over while Igor wrung his hands in anticipation. Isn't that what we've become, I thought. We've picked the lock on Pandora's Box and are rummaging around, blindly searching for some false bottom where lies hidden the secrets known only by God. We already found the secrets that could destroy us. E=MC squared, the blinding flash of extinction. Now, we are on the threshold of immortality.

SAVE or DELETE...

Dana was the long ago past, fresh because she was the first. Andrea was the last. But Dana was a ripe fruit plucked from an early summer tree. My dream had been vivid as fresh blood, the sweet pangs of desire as real as the android lying lifeless on the living room couch. It was mine, I payed for it, I reasoned. My precious, as Gollum says. And I can always change the program.

Dr. Frankenstein pondered. Thunder crashed. Igor laughed fiendishly.

I hit SAVE.