Game Over
I started this yesterday after finishing "Education". I was late to one class and too early for another. It’s very short but I just liked the idea of it. It is fascinating to me when people give up power, prestige, etc for something else. It is almost like game theory russia vs. u.s. cold war arguments- do we, as organisms serve our own interests or that of the group. Most would say we do both, but where and when is the line drawn?
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GAME OVER
It was a good life, I reflected while lying back on the hospital bed. Surrounded by family and loved ones, great grandchildren and even several pets that were snuck into the room- surely at the chagrin to any nurses that might stumble upon them. The doctors tried to make me feel better about what was to come, saying that this new operation may work or some new procedure may be right around the corner. But I was one of their fellows, a doctor myself in years not so long past- that would tell my own terminal patients the same story. Until you are in the situation yourself, you never truly understand how pitiful a doctors’ attempt at giving hope is. Even a preacher’s biblical readings can’t approach the hope you are forced to find during the end of days. It is a time of near constant reflection when all other responsibilities are gone from life. What monk can say better, he who is in a monastery for years still has dreams of the future- or at least the possibility for one. The true faithful are those who are on their last breaths, and yet, still at a peace no drug could bring. When all else is lost and you still can speak with a strong voice- that is a hope very few people out of the experience can approach.
Ode to the early years, I remark to myself as memories turn over stones containing more memories that sparkle upon the liquid surface of my mind. Beginnings and ends slow to near meaningless terms. One moment I’m an old man bed-ridden, the next I’m a young teenager running behind a soccer ball trying to impress a girl on the stands. And again an old man, with the girl on the stands now my wife of fifty years holding my hands. I look up at her with a youthful smile- and turn back to my reflections.
My parents were good people. There were unusual perhaps in many respects, or at the very least unconventional. My earliest memories revolve around museums and historic sites for vacations as opposed to those of my fellow schoolmates. After the long summer break the students were enthralled by tales of roller coasters and animatronics, my own experiences with early civilizations were met by numerous apologies. Though they seemed sorrowful at what must have been a horrendous time for me, I never felt that way. When I slept at night I thought more of the whole of civilization and what lay ahead, then about silly cartoon creatures. Some would call it a failing, how I never could truly appreciate a good fictitious story- but why bother with fiction when there was so many real stories waiting to be heard?
A hand shook me briefly and from crusted near blind eyes I spied my eldest son George peering down at me. He motioned to my wife, asleep on the bed besides me and ever so gently placed his finger to his lips to quiet me. From beneath his over coat he brought out a bottle of Crown Royal Whiskey and smiled mischievously. ‘Good old George’, I thought to myself. My wife would have a fit if she knew and there’d be quite a few lectures for the both of us from my nurses and doctors- but George was good for it. He poured us both a small glass, and we sat there slowly sipping our drinks saying more without words than we ever could with them. We both knew this would be our last drink together and the experience alone spoke volumes. Draining my glass I slumped back into the hospital pillow and George gently kissed me on the forehead before leaving the room. ‘I love you George’ I mouthed as he closed the room door quietly behind him, taking the evidence of our little reverie to a safe location.
It is an odd thing when all the important times in your life mean so little at the end. When I searched my mind for memories it wasn’t diplomas, or mortgages or even a child’s first steps that came scrambling to the top. They were more a collage of abstract scenes. A dog chasing its tail while one of the grandchildren watched, the way the rain would glisten just so when the sun rose into the sky for mornings first light. Some were just images or sounds. A laugh, a cry, a surprised exclamation from my wife on April fool’s day- and the resulting hatred for the arcane custom she held afterwards. They all were pieces of my life, in no particular order or list of importance. The first day I truly looked at a snowflake was as meaningful as when I finished residency and became a full-fledged doctor.
I was awoken again, but this time from the beeping of some machine announcing as if to the world my passage into the great unknown. Family members came flying into the room as attendant nurses looked down trodden. They had reached the end of the road and knew it, a scene they had experienced hundreds of times before- but the good nurses and doctors never truly became embittered to it. I could see my wife talking to one doctor who was looking at his notes, shaking his head jerkily from side to side. My grandchildren nearly threw themselves upon the bed to give me one final hug to the shock of their parents. I managed a smile even when the air in my lungs seemed not enough for the task. One final glance around the room as everything around grew dim- and I was at peace.
A moment later in the pitch-blackness of nothingness the words “Game Over” came into focus. Some helmet was lifted off my head and it was my best friend George shaking me as if it would help me get over game trance faster.
“Come on Bob, tell me you did something more exciting today,” he exclaimed while pulling on his work coveralls.
“Well I made it to being a doctor,” I said, teasing the words out of my mouth. It always took me a few minutes to get back into reality.
“I was a General in one of the old Earth war’s for the great computers’ sake. Why always the boring stuff? Last week it was a Lawyer wasn’t it?” George demanded of me while I tried to get ready for my shift. I just nodded my head. “Well last week I was a pilot in the first great extra-solar wars. We’ve got a good thing going on here Bob, free virtual life during lunch- room and board, and all we have to do is keep the machines running for several hours a day. Why do you keep living in the boring past?”
As usual I had no answer for George. From all the virtual lives possible, living as an animal, as a king, another sex or even as a God- it was always the simple life of my ancestors, generations removed, that called to me.
