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A deceased person's brain can be hooked up to a VR system, allowing their loved ones to access them as they please. But, as time goes on, maybe the artificiality of this can wear on those left behind.

I reached out and placed my hand against the cool glass of the tank. Inside it, floating in Preservation Fluid, was a human brain. Ava’s brain. It was everything that had made her who she was: thoughts, feelings, memories. It was all there, suspended just beyond my reach--my physical reach, that is. Various wires and sensors connected it to the bank of machinery surrounding the tank. The constantly beeping and whirring machine transferred data to the VR headset that sat on the table just behind me, awaiting my use.

            My hand trailed down and off of the tank, leaving smudge marks behind. I stared at my feet as a hole opened in my chest that seemed to suck in all of the unease in the world. I had been coming for six years--six years of digging into her consciousness just so that I could see her face again. This time had to be different.

            I turned to the doctor, a balding man in a crisp lab coat. He was fiddling with some of the knobs and buttons on the machine. A bony hand ran over his head in thought as he finally faced me, his smile tight and awkward. It was a wordless gesture that told me that all the preparations had been made; I was long used to his cues. I walked back, taking a seat at the table and lifting the headset in front of me.

            “Load me up, Doc,” I said, placing the device on my head.

            The doctor hummed. “You were here last week…usually this is a once a month thing for you.”

            “I just…need to see her.”

            “Now, is this a need or a want? The two are deceptively different.”

            I paused briefly. I didn’t need to think about my answer, but I was afraid to say it out loud. Breathing in, I said, “It’s a need.”

            “So, you think it’s time to--“

            “Please, Doc…just let me do this.”

            The doctor nodded, keeping his head down as he moved to the machine and switched it on. In a matter of moments, I was somewhere else--at least, that’s what my senses told me. I left behind the dimly-lit room, the old doctor, and the world where Ava didn’t exist. The agony of what this visit meant followed me there.

            The setting of Ava’s consciousness simulation was the same as it had always been: her parents’ beach house, where the two of us had spent our teenage summers. She had loved the ocean, practically living and breathing the surf. I was out on the deck looking over the beach. The waves hissed, lazily rolling one over the other until they crashed into the shore. A wooden chime clunked above my head in the breeze that made the palm trees dance.

            A thin pair of arms wrapped around my waist and I pulled in a shuddering breath, eyes stinging. A cheerful voice spoke up.

            “Back so soon?”

            I turned in her grasp, meeting hazel eyes framed by blonde curls. She caught my expression and her smile immediately dropped. She opened her mouth to speak but I interrupted her.

            “Y-yeah. Yeah, I am,” I said, my voice scarcely a whisper. “Hi, Ava.”

            She stared blankly at me for a moment. A sudden, chilling breeze blew past us. Then she blinked, her eyes brightening up again as if a deep thought had been dashed away from them. The air grew warm again as Ava took me by the hand, attempting to drag me out onto the beach.

            “Well, since you’re here, we shouldn’t miss out on this beautiful day!” she exclaimed. “Let’s go for a swim. I’ve got this cute new bathing suit that I know you’ll like.”

            I planted my feet. “No. Hang on a sec, Ava”

            She just pulled harder, stretching my arm out uncomfortably and pretending she hadn’t heard me. Ava rolled her eyes.

            “You’ve been so weird these past few times! Just relax and have fun for a bit. You remember fun, right?”

            “Wait, Ava. I just--we need to talk.”

            The grip on my hand disappeared and the cold wind returned. Ava had dropped it, staring at me wide-eyed through a slightly furrowed brow.

            “About?”

            “This.” I said, vaguely gesturing around us. “It’s been six years and I--“

            “No.”

            I sighed, swallowing a lump of too many emotions to name.

            “Look, Ava. It’s just not fair anymore.”

            Ava’s eyes bore into mine. “To you, right?” she spat.

I hated that I couldn’t deny it. But how could I be expected to keep this up for a simulation’s sake? It wasn’t even the real Ava. I knew that. The real Ava was dead--long dead. This one was just a ghost doomed to haunt me unless I let it go. I needed her gone, out of my life so I could get on with it. I couldn’t hang myself up on someone who didn’t exist anymore. She isn’t real! Why is this still so hard?

Storm clouds blotted out the sun and the ocean grew turbulent. She took a few steps backwards. I reached out to her and she shook her head.

            “You’re done with me,” she said, disbelieving. “You just want to throw me away?”

            “Of course I don’t want to!” My voice shook.

            “Then why?” Ava pleaded. “Please…I don’t want to disappear!”

            Ava hugged her arms to herself, shaking, tears running down her face.

            “Ava, I need to do this. I need you to let me move on.”

            There was silence as she processed what I had said. Her eyes flickered to the ground, then to the side before settling back on me.

            “There’s someone else now, isn’t there?” she said finally, narrowing her eyes.

            My gaze dropped. “Yes.”

            The waves grew violent, hitting the shore intensely as the wind picked up and cut at my face. Dark clouds rolled and writhed in the sky as they beat out claps of thunder. Ava continued to shake. She turned stiffly towards the ocean.

            “Go!” she roared, her voice echoing the thunder.

            I attempted to reach out to her again, but she whipped around and slapped my hands away.

            “I wish you had never hooked me up to this f*****g computer!” she yelled over the rain that suddenly cascaded over us in thick sheets. “I wish you had let me die when I knew you still loved me!”

            “I do still love you!” I shouted, desperately trying to placate her again. “After everything I’ve done how could you think that?”

            She twisted away from me, screaming with her tears.

            “Leave!” she exclaimed, finally turning and fleeing into the storm.

            An enormous tidal wave rose above me and crashed down, submerging my surroundings and tossing me through the sudden depth. I tried to find the surface again but the water seemed to beat me back down with every attempt. Panicking, I reached up and tore the headset off, violently thrusting myself back into reality. I tossed it to the floor and it broke in half, both parts skidding into separate corners of the room. I felt the doctor’s hand on my shoulder, but I shook him off. He tried to say something and I raced away. Stopping in the doorway, I shouted at him over my shoulder

            “Just shut her down!”

Reviews

[Franky]

This is very good. Wow. You excel at dialogue among characters. I want to read more but there are two slight changes I would recommend in the store. One is that 6 years is too long. Think about it. Second, the line: "Ava. Seriously. I just"we need to talk.”. Should be changed. It's ackward. Please don't be offended.

[Maureen Coughlin]

Oh, I'm not offended at all! Don't worry about it. I like when people take the time to tell me what I can improve on with a piece. Thanks for pointing out that dialogue thing. It was a typo that I somehow missed and I think you're right. The wording was a kind of awkward. I've switched it up a little to make it flow better.
Thanks again!

[Franky]

You bet. Keep writing!

[Davidgeo]

This was the land of one million typos.

Despite that you are quite readable.

[Maureen Coughlin]

Oh! Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't notice that, for some reason, my em dashes got changed to quotation marks when I copied this over from my Word document. Wow, I bet some of those sentences made little sense without them. The double hyphens I've replaced them with aren't a perfect fix, but they'll have to do apparently

[Davidgeo]

apparently

[Davidgeo]

And it's not nearly as bad as the bad stuff here. Ha... take a minute and read some random s**t, eventually you will find something spectacularly cringy and abusrd.