A Recorded Life

A glimpse at the emotions of witnessing someone's recorded life. Has a good "I wrote this in twenty minutes" feel to it.

Jordan woke with a sharp exhale, a breath held for what felt like a lifetime. She looked upon the cold shell she laid in as the monitors all drew away. The egg she laid in opened with a whirr, and the world beyond her was presented as monotone and blindingly bright. Her eyes have been seeing for so long, they forgot how to see what really way. An attendant emerged, a clipboard in hand. She seemed nonchalant, somehow capable of being bored of the same thing that crippled Jordan in a fit of gasping. “On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your experience.” The attendant asked, the most darling of saleswomen voices she could muster was on full display. Jordan breathed, and tried to recall all that composed her experience.

 

            For so long she was Adam, and for longer still she led a life of joy. The first few years were excellent, being a child, when Adam’s father got him a four wheeler for his fifteenth birthday. Playing in the mud when it rained, and wishing it would stop raining when he finally got tired of the mud. The only downside might have been when he got a girlfriend, darling May, and she brought down his days here and there. She condemned his carefree life style, tried to  convince him he shouldn’t’ be so reckless, and that one of these days he would get hurt. And when he dumped May, it didn’t make him feel a bit better, as she did so many other great things to improve his life that losing her just wasn’t worth it.

 

            College was a mess. Parties blur all the classes together, and the engineering major proved to be more than what Adam was ready for. His general electives were also a mess, lord knows he could never focus on his morning composition classes. He was either hung over, tired, or slept right pass them. After all the money spent launching him into college failed, he was expected to get straight to work when he got home. His mother was a darling working hard to try and make a life for him, though she tended to get a bit down on his risky life style as well. His father encouraged him to be risky, but lord knows he wasn’t exactly a stable man. The only reason they had food some nights was because his mother wasn’t out trying to score drugs or the next cheap thrill.

 

            Adam got in a lot of fights with his dad during his days of working at home, as Adam had a much more grounded sense of responsibility than his father did. When Adam was paying more bills than his dad, that’s when things got really intense. Bottles were broken, chairs were thrown. They even started to fight when his mother was home, something she absolutely detested. Fighting broke her poor heart, and reminded her how all her dreams for her son were dying. She prayed he would still go to college, but all that was trashed when Adam got with some girl, and rushed things.

 

            The condom failed, and a few months later he had a son. Adam changed his perspective on his life. It wasn’t about his job, it was about his son. Scared of becoming his father, his risky days were put behind him, and his now wife, the modest Kate, was his sweet heart for the rest of his days. His son, Ronald, was such a gorgeous baby. His first two years were filled with Adam being stuffed with work. Juggling two jobs to try and summon the money to keep them afloat was mayhem. He was left a mess, but he did eventually save up enough money to get an apartment. Kate got the idea to go to college, and Adam was thrilled to boost her all the way through. She wanted to do things with computers, and Adam was charmed. He loved the idea that she was smarted, more capable. He wanted to see her go further.

 

            Adam stayed at home and paid for her to get some tech diploma at the community college. She never got a job while they were together, so it is not as if Adam had to do much more work to keep the apartment paid for and the baby fed. The real extra work came for helping Kate pay her way through college with all the small things she was going to need. Eventually she got through and got a much better job than Adam knew possible, and suddenly they had a house. His days were filled with pride, watching Ronald grow up, and somewhere behind his sense of fathering was this deep down envy. He wished for some reason he had done something more for himself than what he dedicated to his son and his wife. He started to wonder when his turn would be.

 

            He died when a drunk driver crashed into him. The ending was fast, anticlimactic. It made for an odd piece of art. Jordan visited her local museum, and she got to live Adam’s life. Plenty of people got to live his life, and plenty of other people’s lives. The museum is considering how to charge people for these simulations, and thus the ratings. “It was all right, I guess.” 

Author's Note

Oh, leaving notes for reviewers? Very nice feature. When you review it, just keep in mind it's a little rough because I had to write something very fast before I dozed off.

Reviews

[Jamie]

I agree. I would soften the edges a little per say. Good read though. Great job.