Awakening

Still beats Mondays at the office . . .

Submerged. She claws at the acrylic until her fingernails bleed. She pounds at it until her hands ache. She heals over days, months. Then she scratches again.


The groove widens to a score, widens to a fracture, widens to a crack. She pries at the shards until they snap, amniotic fluid gushing forth. She shivers in the cold, tearing out hoses of injectable immortality, breaking free of the coffin, naked.

A subsapient drone winks electronic eyes at her, uncomprehending and maternal. Beyond, a maintenance terminal, the dust of centuries blurring its contents, glows watchfully, millions of years of life stored in radioisotopes and self-repairing infrastructure.

Above her tube, she sees a wooden placard she carved herself—her own name. Somber memories return slowly, while around her the others lie motionless in their containers, dreaming still of Eden.