thethemeis: Let Down
theauthoris: Deadbeat
I've always dreamed of seeing the future, who hasn't. This isn't really the ideal scenario for doing so, but it's a silver lining. I could see my mum in my dad's arms, struggling to hold back her tears. Sure i'd miss them and as any parent will tell you, this situation is 10 times harder on them than it is on me. But we all knew there was no alternative, I'd been to just about every specialist I could afford to see and they all said the same, it was inoperable. It was either this or being dead within 2-4 weeks.
At first, when the doctor from the Royal London Hospital suggested it to me I thought he was joking. I'd seen reports of it on the news and in the papers, you couldn't miss them, but i'd assumed it was beyond anything I could afford. He explained that they were accepting a cross section of patients with incurable illnesses to be frozen with the understanding that they would be the first to be operated on once the methods had become available. It seemed as far as he knew there should be no reason why the deep freezing process should make any future operational methods any more complicated as all current test patients had awoken in almost identical physical state. The test subjects were mainly just for legal protection, I imagine if they had overlooked something crucial, they much rather find out by killing one of us than one of the soon-to-be-many millionaires and billionaires who would use the service. Either way, I had nothing to lose.
The closer it got to the date, the more excited I got about the prospect. I hadn't had a bad life, but it'd be a stretch for anyone to say that I had lived it to the full. They was certainly nobody that would really miss me, except for maybe my parents. I was only 33, if I could start again then who knew what I could do. They had no accurate estimates for the length of time it would take to find a cure for these things, but it was generally considered that what I had would take longer to find a solution to than most. The world could be an entirely different place by then, I could live out every child's dream. See unimaginable technology, travel at unbelievable speeds, maybe even experience space travel, who knew.
The day came and I went up to the centre, with my parents as companions. They administered various tests to certify that there would be no problems with my stasis. Then they checked that my brain tumour was severe enough and that there would be no other complications that they would have to resolve upon my "awakening", as they referred to it. And here I was standing in front of what was to become my home for the undeterminable future, in a hospital gown, with a mixture of sadness and excitement.
"Once you get inside the chamber you will feel very cold and after approximately 10-15 minutes you will fall into a deep sleep. You shouldn't experience any pain and once you have reach stasis time you fly past without you being aware at all. The next thing you know you'll be waking up on a hospital bed in the future and it will feel as if no time has passed at all. I will give you a few moments to say goodbye."
I said goodbye to my parents and entered the tank. Damn right it's cold. Having taken off all of my clothes I was seriously concerned for my extremities. I adopted the fetal position and began to wonder what I might wake up to find in what would appear to me to be a few moments time. Perhaps the world would become a more peaceful place, the Utopia that science fiction films are based on. Perhaps I was due to awaken into a world where I could no longer die of any physical illness. Perhaps technology would remove all jobs and menial tasks from our world. Perhaps....
"Hello. Are you awake, hello sir. Hello?"
"Err, where am I?"
"Hello sir. It is currently the year 2134, you are in the awakening room in the Royal London Cryo-stasis Centre."
"2134, really? What is the world like now? Am I cured now?"
"Well sir, the world is very different now, in many ways. I believe over the next few days you can learn all you wish to about the differences between our time and yours. However, I also have some bad news for you. in the 122 years that you have been frozen we have made many advances in the medical world, but unfortunately we haven't got much closer to finding a solution to your particular problem."
"So why on earth have you awoken me?"
"Well, although we cannot provide a solution to your problem, we have been able to find ways of combatting the majority of medical problems that faced people of your time. Because of this and the many successful and positive responses to the service we provide, stasis procedures have become very popular. The problem for our company is that space has become very rare in our over populated world, so i'm afraid that your pod has been released for a more significant investor."
"Wait a minute, you can't simply cart me out. I have a contract!"
"I'm afraid the contract you signed became obsolete after the legal reform in 2128. All legal documents made before 2078 were defunct from that date on. Now that our facilities are overcrowded we have begun emptying out all pods which are not financially backed. I'm afraid all we can offer you is a place to live for the remaining few weeks of you life."
"Bummer!"
I said goodbye to my parents and entered the tank. Damn right it's cold. Having taken off all of my clothes I was seriously concerned for my extremities. I adopted the fetal position and began to wonder what I might wake up to find in what would appear to me to be a few moments time. Perhaps the world would become a more peaceful place, the Utopia that science fiction films are based on. Perhaps I was due to awaken into a world where I could no longer die of any physical illness. Perhaps technology would remove all jobs and menial tasks from our world. Perhaps....
"Hello. Are you awake, hello sir. Hello?"
"Err, where am I?"
"Hello sir. It is currently the year 2134, you are in the awakening room in the Royal London Cryo-stasis Centre."
"2134, really? What is the world like now? Am I cured now?"
"Well sir, the world is very different now, in many ways. I believe over the next few days you can learn all you wish to about the differences between our time and yours. However, I also have some bad news for you. in the 122 years that you have been frozen we have made many advances in the medical world, but unfortunately we haven't got much closer to finding a solution to your particular problem."
"So why on earth have you awoken me?"
"Well, although we cannot provide a solution to your problem, we have been able to find ways of combatting the majority of medical problems that faced people of your time. Because of this and the many successful and positive responses to the service we provide, stasis procedures have become very popular. The problem for our company is that space has become very rare in our over populated world, so i'm afraid that your pod has been released for a more significant investor."
"Wait a minute, you can't simply cart me out. I have a contract!"
"I'm afraid the contract you signed became obsolete after the legal reform in 2128. All legal documents made before 2078 were defunct from that date on. Now that our facilities are overcrowded we have begun emptying out all pods which are not financially backed. I'm afraid all we can offer you is a place to live for the remaining few weeks of you life."
"Bummer!"
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