Artificial by Nazerke Akilova ('22)

Imagine, everyday I wake up in a little room that looks like a spacious box with two yellow light bulbs placed on the opposite walls. I have everything I need to survive: a bathroom, closet full of water bottles, never-ending cans of soup and veggies, but there’s no windows and doors. I suppose I live in a housing project, because I can hear lousy neighbors banging from almost every corner of the room. Also, there’s a big screen on one side of the room which was implanted there in order to serve an unknown but specific purpose. Time to time, it turns on and I see somebody walking outside. It is almost like I am playing a game through this screen and now I am directing this body as my character. I could do things like go to the bathroom or eat, and let me tell you when I get a chance to play this game I enjoy every moment of it. It is so interactive and interesting that it’s almost like you get to feel everything, imagine EVERYTHING that this character does. Isn't it cool? You could even speak, sing, eat, run and have sex. Well, okay, I exaggerated having sex. By the end of the day I have to get you interested somehow, so you finish reading this. I got you hooked with mentioning it, didn’t I? To be honest, I never had a chance to have sex, but I know what it looks like.  See, I am a pretty curious fella. When I play this game, I open this weird electronic book where I can find almost anything I want. I just press on these little letters on the bottom and form a word. So, this one time when this curvy female walked by and I felt a weird tingling in my lower abdomen, I looked up what it was. Without going further into details I will just say, I had a great time.  Funny enough, I cannot really share much even if I wanted to. I get to play this game pretty rarely, so I do not remember most of it. Also, I cannot recall the time I moved here nor a reason why, not that it bothered me. In actuality, I feel such an engrossing peacefulness that I do not see a point behind disrupting it. Everyday, I wake up, read a book and do not engage in anything besides trying to understand what my neighbours say.  I never had the courage to say anything back to them, so I silently listened. There’s this guy who lives below me. He is always muttering complicated words and sentences, so I wonder if he swallowed that electronic book and somehow remembered all the information that was stored in it. He even used words like “exasperate” and “empirical data” in his regular speech. Tell me now, who would use such sophisticated words, if not to impress someone? I bet he is having a lot more fun than I do all alone in this cell. There’s another neighbour on the right side from the big screen where the light bulb is located. That neighbour has a thin and gentle voice, so I am guessing it is a woman. No, it is probably a little girl. I often hear her sing quite melodic songs that get repetitive very quickly. I am guessing she likes them very much, because she does not stop singing them. While I am quite tolerant and nice, the neighbour underneath this little girl is very rowdy. He gets so angry, that he starts banging on the walls and calling her different names. One day I heard his aggravated voice, “Hey, you! Yes, you, little bi**h! I know you can hear me up there! Shut your mouth, you are driving me nuts! I bet your parents didn’t spank you enough! I would’ve killed you already if I wasn’t stuck here! What is this place anyway!?” He kept threatening to slash her throat and shut her up for life. Quite a dynamic, isn’t? So, I sat there in a far corner of this gloomy room, looking at the shadow of the light bulb and contemplated this chaotic orchestra with male aggravated solo. When he yelled out theories of what this place may be, I realized that I could not come up with any rational explanation either. I asked myself, “Why am I here? Who are these people?” and my mind went blank. The sense of security like a puzzle slowly crumbled in my mind. I tried to look for something solid, stable or painful enough to leave a mark on my consciousness, but there was nothing. There were just empty images, space holders and no memories of the day before. These scenarios, pleasures and pain vaporized into a lucid dream or into a story that you are reading right now. So all I remember is opening my eyes today. A huge wave of anxiety burst over me. I started compulsively walking back and forth trying to recall anything from the day before. In panic, I pressed my ear to the wall as if trying to sink in it. I tried to pick up my neighbours' words and phrases that could hint to some kind of answer. Then I remembered that I never actually understood what this smart guy underneath had muttered, so I decided to omit all of the noise and focus on his speech. I heard him mumbling something then I picked up his voice when he said, “We are not real.” My heart beat raised instantly. I did not understand why, but I realized that this phrase has a meaning. This phrase like a broken radio kept playing in my head over and over. I started hysterically yelling, “Hey! Hey there! Can you hear me? What do you mean, we are not real?!” Suddenly, once in this entire time, it got absolutely quiet. The neighbour downstairs stopped talking almost like I penetrated his bubble. Then, the angry neighbour shouted,“Who is this!?”

 I did not know what to reply, so instead I repeated the question, “Do you know why we are here?”

“I have no idea, man. I am as confused as you are,” I heard the distinct voice of the angry man, ”Hey man, I did not hear your voice before. You seem to be normal, not like these two assholes who cannot shut up.” 

“Yes, um, I was too scared to say anything.”

“My name is Ben, by the way,” said the angry man. 

“Nice to meet you, Ben,” I humbly replied. 

“This is cute. You are introducing your names to each other,” I heard a hoarse voice coming from downstairs. 

I realized it was the voice of the smart guy so I  asked, ”What is so cute about it?”

“Just given the fact that we do not even exist.”

I aggressively yelled out,”What do you mean! I am right here! Just explain it already.”

“We are not real, nothing around us is real. If you were smart enough to look around this room, you would realize that there’s nothing authentic about it. There are no windows, no doors. You will not find any possible source of air. There’s no dust nor signs of decay. Nothing.”

I realized he was right. Everything was perfectly polished and stainless. We could not leave any marks on the floor or the walls. It seemed like nobody even lived in this room. Absolutely no signs of life. 

“I don’t understand,” quietly said a little girl in the room next to mine.

“How is this possible! Explain it to me, you smart ass!” yelled Ben. 

“Well, if you let me talk, I will!” annoyingly snapped the smart guy, “And my name is John, so stop calling me names, you imbecile!”

“What did you say!? How dare you to talk to me like that!” Ben started pounding on the wall. I felt a strong vibration coming up the right side of the room. 

“Guys, stop! This is useless!” I attempted to calm them down. “We are in this together, so we have to relax and figure it out.”

“I do not know the answer! I do not know why we are here,” shouted John. ”All I know is that we are not here alone. There’s a lot more people residing in this place, we just cannot hear them.”

“So, is this some kind of building? Could we have been kidnapped?” I nervously asked him, while making circles in the room to manage my anxiety. 

“I suppose it is.” John paused for a moment and curiously asked me, “Hold on. What is ‘kidnapped’? And how do you know what it is?”

I stopped walking and tried to recall the moment when I learned about it, but nothing came into my mind. It is almost like it came to me from the outside. Where did I learn this? I start wondering if it is something I learned while playing this game, but I don’t remember anything from it. I felt like every nerve in my body started moving. It was almost like a million shredded cables electrocuted me from the inside. I couldn’t make any move, I just stood there groaning from pain. I realized I do not know anything about myself. I have this body, I can breathe, I feel the pain and I reside in this box, but everything else is just empty. I shivered from the cold and spacious nature of this emptiness. I knew I had to do something. “I do not remember anything. I do not know where this is coming from,” I said, remaining in complete shock. 

Everybody went quiet. It was the most terrifying silence of realization that entirely absorbed all of us. We do not exist. At this moment, the black picture on the screen changed to a trippy static image accompanied by white noise. I could hear an overwhelming sound coming from every corner, so I knew that everybody’s screen had turned on at once. I stared at the running lines. At some point, the painful sensation stopped and I dropped with a loud thud on the floor while still staring at the screen. The screen changed to a running line with a CARE-AC logo.

“Hello, Dear Friend! We are happy to have you here! Thank you for participating in the Autopilot Consciousness program and being such a great consciousness for our customers. Unfortunately, you have violated the code #169 which prohibits any problem-solving discussions between the consciousnesses. As a punishment, you will be sent to sleep. See you soon!” stated the rigid voice coming from the screen. Now, the image changed to a picture of a smiling woman with a thumbs up and big letters underneath: “Be 100% more productive and rested with a CARE-AC device. CARE-AC device, take the break that you deserve!” In a second, the picture had blurred in my eyes and I fell asleep. 

A digital clock showed 3:00 AM in the dusty room with 30 monitors. The man in the black suit picked up a light grey classic desk phone and pressed 169. In a few rings the voice on the line said, “Dr. Kinsley’s, how can I help you?”

“Hello Lele, this is from a Surveillance Room. Could you let Dr. Kinsley know that, subjects 125, 44, 209 and 3 has caused trouble again. They were very close to breaking the memory limitation and subject 3 has even experienced body shock,” calmly said the man in black while investigating four monitors on the lower left corner.

“Hi Jim. Oh geez, this is such a shame, #3 was one of the best consciousnesses. I guess they will need to turn him off entirely.” 

“Yes, it is going to be quite a loss. Well, I am sure Dr. Kinsley will find somebody better.”

“Alright, thanks for the message! I will let him know.” 

“Thank you!” 

In a few days. 

Imagine, everyday I wake up…