Perchance to Dream by C.J. Petersen
Utopia Science Fiction Magazine | December 2024
Perchance to Dream
C. J. Peterson
They put her in an empty exam room, because of course they did. And she had nothing but the disposable gown on her back and the ugly socks on her feet. She stretched out on the hard table and stared at the ceiling.
Enough, enough, enough. And yes, she was sure, sure, sure. She was tired. She wanted a break from her life, just thirty years. She wanted to sleep and wake up refreshed.
Not lie here thinking about it.
Medical miracles, right! Doctors can keep people in suspended animation, but they can’t keep appointments. They can extend life for 150 years, but they can’t extend common courtesy. Something like that. But why polish this quip? No one here was apt to appreciate it.
She should have brought something to read.
But she couldn’t, because she had liquidated everything she owned and invested the proceeds. So when she revived she would have enough to start again, yet again: new jobs, new relationships, new interests. And this time get at least one right.
There really should be distractions in this room. Because the first bad recollection leads to the previous, shooting backwards through a lifetime like lightning down a mineshaft. Impulse buys. The gender reversal of the gender reversal. Oh, god, that voice mod as a teen.
She shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut.
Her parents should have stopped her. But they didn’t; they were always so damn supportive. They were such great parents that they had another baby when she was 25, and a third when she was 50, because she had turned out so well.
Ha.
The lightning of disappointment was swift. The dim bulb of consolation brightened slowly. All that damn support. Youthful webcasts that did not induce grand mal cringing. Graduations. Invitations. Friendships. But she inevitably chose to move on. Why beat the dead horse of a cooled enthusiasm? There are plenty of other horses in the sea! Something like that. And she would be fine anyway.
Fine as in ground to a powder. Over time, happiness fades and pain sharpens. Limbic suppression revealed her biography as more alright than all-wrong. She wasn’t a trauma victim. Mediocrity victim, perhaps. She didn’t need to expunge any memories. Re-write her past and she wouldn’t be herself now.
Be herself! Well, that was the whole problem, wasn’t it? Being her feckless self. Trying over and over to achieve…feck. But, hey, the next turn of the wheel might do it.
And now the merry-go-round passes the brass ring of gratitude. She felt lucky to get more chances. Most people who enter suspended animation have exhausted all their options. Many are dying. They will wake to miraculous technology and universal prosperity; the elderly will still outnumber the young, but less so every year.
And she’ll be young. Younger than her departed partners and former colleagues. She’ll swoop back into their lives and…wow, they’ll say, I wish I could do what you did…her siblings will be her peers. Her parents will finally be old and need her. We’re so proud of you.
She’ll be gracious and confident and she’ll revisit her old haunts…that one coworker…you were right to leave, look how I’ve wasted my life here…and, after only thirty years, everything will be improved and exciting. She’ll be special for leaping into the future. Those traits she couldn’t use before will be exactly what a revitalized society needs…it’s serendipity, isn’t it? A fresh start.
More like myoclonus, a sleep start. Yeah, that. Twitching in your sleep and waking up with a jerk. No, not your ex. Very funny.
She jerked again and her eyes flew open. It was dark. She scanned the room. Nothing was distinct except a little display, which she certainly had not seen before.
The glowing numbers read 2348.
Oh, god. She had slept for more than 200 years. No, no, no. There must have been a crash. She’d been forgotten. She was about to meet the desperate survivors of a global apocalypse, reviving her to labor in the rubble of their collapsed civilization.
Certainly no one just waiting around to shower her with validation.
She blushed and covered her face with her hands. That was a dream, an embarrassing dream. Awake, she knew there was no need to redeem herself after all her false starts and flubbed landings. Nobody else even remembered them. Nobody but her ever cared in the first place. They hadn’t then and they sure wouldn’t now.
“Please don’t move.” Someone grasped her arm and lowered it back to the table. She squinted. The looming figure was engulfed in protective gear. “I’ll be right back.”
She’d lost her entire frame of reference, the one she’d carried around forever without really noticing. Lacking that, what did she have left? So many years to still be whoever she was already, not at all transformed by a transformed world, but simply unmoored in it.
The tiny white numbers twinkled through her gathering tears. She blinked. The display now read 2356.
Hm. Even her worst pity parties didn’t last eight years. She hastily blotted her eyes with her sleeve.
The door opened again and two sterile-garbed employees entered. “Per regulation,” one said, “I am obliged to ask you, before a witness, do you agree to undergo long-term suspended animation?”
“Um, no, actually. No, I think I’ve changed my mind.”
Both clinicians removed their headgear. She recognized the attendant who had signed her in earlier that day. “You know we don’t give refunds.”
“Sorry. I’m an idiot.”
“Well, that’s why we have to ask.” No argument on the idiot part. “I’ll remove the biometric monitors and sign you out.”
“Though you’re welcome to stay here until morning,” the admissions clerk said. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Oh, I think I’ll just go. I couldn’t possibly get back to sleep.” She hopped off the table. Her hospital gown fell open. She didn’t give a solitary damn. “No time like the present,” she said brightly.
The little glowing clock showed 0000.
Perfect.
END
Originally published in the in the December 2024 Special Art issue of Utopia Science Fiction Magazine.
C.J. Peterson is a writer of science articles and science fiction.
