The drifting night, endlessly rotating. Just the stars, nothing else. I think about The Equation again. It’s long, and hard to recite, but what else is there to do but feel the glucose pumping into me, or to concentrate on the cold, cold chamber I reside in, ad infinitum? I contemplated love, as a pastime, in the beginning. What more is it than a release of oxytocin? Why does it pull? I finally settled on the answer of “it is necessary,” which it is, for the survival of any race, anywhere. I finish reciting The Equation, and decide to lull myself back into my coma.
I am awoken by a clanging sound, which is unusual, because at this point I’ve grown used to the endless collisions with space rocks of varying size. I look out of the porthole. Who knows why I even have a porthole? People like me are thought to be brain dead from the cold chamber. Among the usual stars, I see a ship, a spacecraft! I panic, because I cannot move, scream, yell for help or assistance or anything. I must be picked up.
Then I feel the old me, Bill, trying to rise up through my subconscious. Not me, William, but Bill. The other me. I am surprised he is still here. I force him down. If anyone in the craft notices me, or even sees and cares, I do not want Bill to be the person they meet. I lie still, fighting myself and praying for the craft to notice me. Why am I praying? I never pray. Something is different. I don’t believe in a god.
When you lie here, like me, for 3,428 years, all there is to do is think. And you make up your mind about things. Steadfastly, Bill believed. Bill! He is rising up, bringing memories with him! That is why I am praying. Why now? Because of the craft, you idiot, he says to me. It reminds me of Earth, he says. I push once more, but he is strong. His personality has festered and fermented. Why do I say these things? I am never so rude. I do not give up Something is wrong with me. I’m going insane. Bill is taking over. I slowly drift into Bill’s memories.
Quick flashes of my life. Not mine, but Bill’s. The pleasurable pain of getting a skull and snake tattoo, smoking a cigar. I remember most clearly a bar fight. I won, but only after I pulled out a gun, which is funny, because I seem to remember starting the fight. Bill clearly doesn’t care.
And I’m back! Pushing out, through the scum bag of a person that is Bill. And I take control. I must not let the people on the spacecraft see Bill. I regain control of my motionless eyes, and see that the ship is moving away. They do not care. I am nothing, and they do not care. I will drift until my life support fails somehow. I expect this. The probability that another ship will drift by me is in the impossible. I hate them for it. The anger I feel is most definitely Bill, but I let it consume me.
The memories are more vivid now and longer. I cannot tell what Bill is thinking, probably reminiscing about lottery tickets. I won the money for my pod from a lotto ticket. I was rich, but no more. This cryogenic space pod controls me; it gives me food, and support. It owns me. The memories surface. I remember the fateful moment. Purchasing the custom-made Cryo pod for all that I had. It was my idea to be launched into space. $82 million. The scientists researching cryogenic freezing did not know that I would still be aware. And would be for the next 3,428 years. Alone. When I woke up for the first time in my pod, I thought I was in Hell. Surely Heaven wouldn’t be this cold. Why can’t I move? Why are the stars moving so fast? Is that the Earth? Oh, I’m in space! What do I do? Whyhelpohgod! And then I remembered that I have done this. This was my fault. I had always been alone, but now, all I had was myself.
On my 1,000th birthday Bill celebrated with a mental cheesecake. It was then he realized he was changing, becoming different. He was no longer Bill. He had been thinking for too long. He felt this new guy, William, at the edges of his mind. Maybe he went insane at that point. But Bill was disgusted with me. He thought I was a phony, a stuck up idiot.
Smart, he thought. The smart ones know it and get all uppity: This William was too kind, wouldn’t show a guy at the bar a thing or two with his fists. And cut with the stupid metaphysical crap! “What is infinity? Do people have souls?” I get it. Go back wherever you came from. I don’t want to drift around in this pod forever with you.
I can feel myself coming back. The memories make me strong. I gain enough of my optical lobe to look out. And I see something amazing. The ship is coming back. Bill tries to return, but I have a new power: the thought that I am going to be rescued. I just have to fight it, until the ship comes. I must preserve this better me, that I have worked on for 3,428 years. I manage to hold out. Here it comes. They stop moving. The Vacuum Tube is extending out. The door opens up, and someone in a suit walks out. They grab my pod and pull it through the zero-G. I am not alone.
