A lone, wandering soul searching for greater meaning in life…
He searched far and wide...from deep within, and from out afar.
He thinks he has found himself, and is overall quite content.
But there was always something missing, he could never figure out what.
That all changed when he found...
him.
-----
The artificial sunlight floods the bedroom with its unnatural beauty. It comes pouring in via the holopanels programed to mimic a bedroom window. The pre-recorded hymns of chirping songbirds add to the artificial ambience.
He stirs in his sleep. Another bad dream, maybe. Probably some more ghosts from the past. Those are never easy to outrun. He finally wakes, and stretches in his bed.
“Lights on, computer”, he commands. The computer system obeys immediately. Melodies of chirping songbirds stutter to silence. Menus, calendars, newsfeeds, and schedules replace the programmed landscape of an oceanside sunrise on the holopanels.
Time for another busy day to begin. He did not feel overwhelmed with the busy schedule for the day. This was just part of daily life for him. He swipes through the seemingly endless list of new mails and news articles which saturate the holoscreens. His movements are with an effortlessly calculated precision. One that reeks of repetitiveness. He does not mind, though. You get used to it after a while.
-----
The shield eviscerates so fast the alarm does not have enough time to blare through the capsule interface. Armor quickly disintegrates, and soon thereafter the hull slips into a fiery eternal sleep. After a few jumps in the capsule to the nearest station, the final after-action report arrives just as he finishes taking a shower.
“Casualties: 21. Survivors: 4. Survival Rate: 19%.” He glares at this piece of information. Much better than expected considering how fast the cruiser went down. Still not good enough.
He sighs, and rubs his temples. He heads directly to his office. A faithful drone delivers a pile of condolence letters to his desk. No matter how many letters he has signed, the task never gets any easier. Each letter carries a certain weight to it. A few words commemorating the life of the person in question and a hefty insurance payout never seem to be enough.
He signs the condolence letters with a swift and mechanical nature. He catches himself and loathes the fact that the motion seems to come so naturally to him.
The NeoPad™ sitting on his desk pings him. It alerts him that he has missed a shareholder meeting. He releases a brief sigh of stress and shuts off the ping. The faithful drone delivers another pile of paperwork to sift through. The little drone’s onboard holoprojector streams a seemingly endless list of new messages and mails that need to be read. He quickly dismisses the drone.
He spins around in his chair to stare at the bookcase behind him, preferring not to see all the paperwork, mails, contracts, and other things which beckon for his attention. He feels an uncomfortable pressure build up inside him. Stress, frustration, sorrow.
The doors leading into his office slide open.
“Please come back later. I’m busy.”
“Too busy for me, huh?”
His eyes widen a bit. A rush in his heart spreads throughout his body. He spins back around. The pressure building up inside him steadily begins to fade away as
he approaches.
He smiles as he walks. “I didn’t think you were.”
-----
A lone, wandering soul searching for greater meaning in life…
He searched far and wide...from deep within, and from out afar.
He thinks he has found himself, and is overall quite content.
But there was always something missing, he could never figure out what.
Another night he laid on his bed.
Tossing and turning from the ghosts of his past.
That all stopped with one firm grasp from the arm of the man resting beside him.
That all changed when he found...
him.
Author
Topic: Him (Read 2388 times)