Can’t you see, I’m not me…

Can’t you see, I’m not me…

We seemed to float down the steps to the limousine—hand in hand—the short spring sun shone through the afternoon firs and pines. The murmur of the falls skittered behind the world—we were one flesh. O, how sweet like a fine chocolate was the moment of our beginning.

As the machinery closed in upon the moment and arrival at our abode drew us apart, I wondered why I couldn’t remember our trip. The soft shackle of our friends’ and relatives’ love brought us back to our comfortable masks and we smiled and played our parts.

After two hundred sixty million seconds, we walked again in the old world simulation. And our son (son?) broke through the quiet moment with his delight at the wonder of good English tea. We were laughing in the sunshine of the moment and enjoying the kindness of our legend.

Seventy-one million seconds later and the first end had come. The cracks in the surface of the working dream began to show. I couldn’t stop the decay—the damage had spread too fast. What happened to the substance of things hoped for?

We smiled and turned and pedaled more swiftly. I became cruel at times—and I was alone in a crowd again, like in my childhood. She cried alone at the crushed flower.

Why was the time not seen when the young men and women were my fellows—why do they only see an old man?

{The conditioning began to wear thin. I never noticed it until the regular 500,000 second self evaluation revealed a flattening of the summary curve on my performance metrics. At first I thought it was an equipment malfunction—perhaps the interminable Martian dust was fouling the assembly equipment.

I seemed to be exhausted too soon. I trained too well for this—what was wrong?

“Invalid command…address d87001e53348aa buffer under-run. Please input new command!”

My eyes opened. How long was I sleeping?
“System halt…initiate restart…initiate restart…”
I triggered the kill process until…}