Mortality

Mortality

Planet Desolação, City of Minas Escuras, March 17^th 5270

Sonia looked up from the computer on her desk. There was a knock on the door.

“Come in.” She said with a hint of an accent.

A man opened the door and stepped into the spartan and looked around. A bookshelf, a desk, a few chairs and a pretty psychologist.

“Please, sit.” She indicated to the chair opposite her desk.

The man sat down and extended his hand.

“Name's William.”

Despite his otherwise impeccable appearance he looked as though he hadn't slept for days. Sonia pulled up his profile on her glasses for a moment, closed it and returned her attention to her guest.

“You have come an awful long way to see me, and to an awfully out of the way planet, no psychologists where you are from?”

“Well, I heard you were the best.” William replied tersely.

“I don't know about that, but I'll certainly see what I can do.”

William fidgeted with something in his coat pocket.

“You are familiar with clones right?” He asked.

“Yeah, you die and you come back in a tube somewhere with a new body. I actually ordered one about a week ago.” She replied. “What about them?”

“That's my problem you see, I am a star-ship captain of some repute, and while I am good, every captain will lose ships, I have died dozens of times and come back like nothing happened in some station light years away. I came across something that rather....he paused....disturbed me. The last time I woke up, I took a ship to the last battle where I died.

He looked very pale.

“And?” She asked.

“We were out there collecting what bodies we could to return to their families. Not a common thing to do among star-ship captains mind you, and I think now I know why. I went down to the hangar where they were stored and I came face to face with the previous body of myself.”

He looked up and stared out the rain battered window into the dark.

“The commercials promise immortality. “A gunshot away from a new life.” they say. Well coming face to face with my own dead body made me realize, I am just as mortal as everyone else but this is my question: Is my soul?”

He diverted his eyes slightly to meet hers.

“I am not the same person that my mother gave birth to. That man died decades ago, and if you could somehow revive him would he be me? After all we are the sum of our experiences, are we not? Since he died I have seen things, he, at the time could not have imagined. What I want to know is, does he live on in me, or am I someone completely new and alien to this universe? This body is all of six months old. I have memories but are they mine or do they just happen to be the same as someone elses?When I die, this bodies consciousness and soul will cease to exist, but will it live on in the man that wakes up when this one dies? He paused. “Or does it just end?”

He took a deep breath and looked up at the, until recently, stoic faced psychologist expectantly. Sonia took off her glasses rubbed her eyes for a second and put them back on meeting his gaze. She opened her mouth to answer and realized she didn't have one, closed it, and opened it again to reply.

“I... don't know.” She said rather blankly. “I'm sorry.”

“To be honest I expected as much.” William said looking defeated. “Thank you for your time.”

He got up, straightened out his clothes and looked at Sonia. She looked rather pale herself now staring at the far wall.

“You okay?” He asked.

“What? Oh, yes fine. Thanks.” She smiled got up and walked him to the door. “Have a safe trip.”

She shook his hand and and gently closed the door behind him. She walked back over to her desk, opened a drawer and poured herself a drink. She had been rather careless with her safety since ordering her clone and thanks to her last guest, had a new perspective on mortality as well.

After brooding over her drink for a while. She took the elevator down to the first floor, tied her coat, opened up her umbrella, stepped out into the rain, headed down the dark street to the intersection, waited for the “walk” signal to appear on the lamppost, looked both ways for vehicles, crossed the street, and continued home.

Author's Note

Again, baffled by formatting.