DreamSpace (working title)

DreamSpace (working title)

She laid there in the blue glow of the early morning.  Strands of her sand colored hair hung down over one side of her slender face, having escaped the hair tie that held the rest.  I stood next to the bed, looking over her and hoping that time would stop.  Moments like these were fleeting.  An opportunity for me to just take in her beauty, uninterrupted by the rest of the world or her own self-consciousness.  I debated just standing there until she woke, not wanting to disturb her or relinquish the marvelous view from where I stood.  Eventually I decided that I'd rather be next to her, to let my other senses take her in as well.  I slid underneath the covers and inched my way next to her, trying my best not to wake her.  As I got closer, her eyes opened slowly.  She looked at me sleepily and smiled, reaching out to put an arm around me.  I pressed my body into hers, her warmth washing over me as I wrapped my arm around her.  She buried her face into my chest, breathed in deeply and was asleep again almost instantly.  I knew the moment wouldn't last, as daylight threatened to steal her away from me, so I closed my eyes and prayed we would meet in our dreams.

I awoke to Jillian sitting up in bed, reaching for her black framed glasses on the night stand and placing them over her gorgeous blue-grey eyes.  As I stirred, she looked back at me with a smile and leaned down to kiss me, "Good morning," she said.  "Hey, you," I replied.  She stood up and walked around the bed to the dresser, removing a black t-shirt from the top drawer and slipping it on.  "Have some trouble sleeping?" she asked.  "Yeah, I didn't want to wake you with all my tossing and turning, so I went out to the living room and watched some TV."  She laughed, "Well, with all your kung-fu-fighting in your sleep, I'm used to it."  I had always been a restless sleeper, never going more than a couple of hours before I woke up again.  I put on some black sweatpants and a grey t-shirt and followed her to the kitchen for breakfast.  As she began pulling dishes from the cabinets to prepare our breakfast, I felt a vibration on my left wrist.  "Ah, dammit..." I muttered, looking at my watch.  '8:55 A.M.' the time read.  I pressed the button to stop the alarm and sat at the bar.  I could spend an eternity just watching her every move.  What might be unremarkable to others was a vision of perfection to me, and it pained me deeply to know that it couldn't last.  I swallowed hard and walked up behind her to put my arms around her waist.  I nuzzled her neck and sighed.  She turned her head back to look at me.  As she stared into my eyes, I knew she could sense that something was wrong.  I kissed her deeply, and as I pulled away she gave a worried smile.  "What's wrong?" she asked, concern in her voice.  "Nothing," I reassured her, trying my best to lie to her, "I've got to run out and get something from the car."  After looking up and down my face for a moment, she turned back to the stove.  I grabbed the keys off of the bar as I walked to the front door of the house we shared.  As I reached for the doorknob, I looked at my watch again.  '8:58 A.M.'.  I opened the door and looked back at her one last time, still preparing the meal to start a day that would never come, and walked outside.  I hated lying to her.  I hated pretending that everything was going to be okay, even though I knew it couldn't be.  I unlocked the door to our burgundy SUV and sat in the driver's seat.  I reclined the seat and closed my eyes as the watch began to vibrate once more.  '9:00 A.M.'.

I opened my eyes to the blinding light of a sterile, white room.  The watch on my wrist was still vibrating.  I tried to reach to turn it off, but straps kept me held in place.  "Don't worry, pal, we'll get you out of there in just a sec," said a voice behind me.  Tim.  Dr. Timothy Grant.  I looked up at the contraption suspended from the ceiling.  A helmet which covered the eyes and ears of the subject.  Tim removed the electrodes from my temples and began to undo the velcro straps that were confining me to the dentist's chair I had spent so much time in.  With my hands freed, I turned off the watch that they used to signal the end of our sessions.  I rubbed my eyes and held my head in my hands as reality came flooding back into my brain.  "Do you know where you are?" Tim asked.  I blinked up at him and thought for a moment.  "DreamSpace Labs," I said weakly.  "Alright, can you give me your name?" he inquired.  "Nathan Townsend," I replied.  "Good, good.  I'm gonna help you stand up, okay?"  Tim placed one of my arms over his shoulder and put his arm around my back as he helped me to my feet.  I was wobbly for a moment, but I was able to stand.  "We expected a bit of weakness after having you in there for 24 hours, it should wear off in no time," he assured me.  "Can you make it back to your room okay?"  "Yeah, I'll be fine," I said.  "We'll have somebody bring you something to eat and give you some time to get your wits about you, then we'll have our group session at noon," he said as I walked out the door.

The flourescent lights of the hallway felt like I was staring into the sun, but the cold linoleum felt refreshing on my bare feet.  I shuffled down the hall to the room with my name on the placard.  I opened the door to a plain white room.  A white bed with white sheets and blankets, the plain white pillow, and plain white nightstand.  It was so lifeless compared to the room I sometimes shared with Jillian.  I collapsed onto the bed, exhausted even though I had spent the last 24 hours lying down.  I closed my eyes and instinctively reached out for my love, but she wasn't there.  After being here for so long, it was easy to forget that she wasn't real.  At least, not in the usual sense.  She was the most real thing on the planet, to me.  She made me feel in ways I never had before.  I loved her like I never had another human being.  Had I known that my position in these experiments would be so painful, I may never have signed up.  The lonely, anti-social sap, designated to test the effects of having a relationship with an artificial intelligence simulation within virtual reality.  When I was with her, everything was nothing short of amazing.  We loved each other intensely, we knew each other in and out, but when the helmet came off I was reminded that it was all a simulation.  A series of data collected from me that was programmed into her, to appear as though we had been together for years.  Every time the sessions ended, it felt like having half of my being torn away from me.  I reached into the drawer of the nightstand beside me and removed the journal I had kept.  I added another mark to count the days that I had been there.  Two months, three weeks and one day.  The study was meant to last six months.  I was halfway to being out.  Halfway to never seeing Jillian's beautiful face again.

A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts.  "Come in," I called.  The door opened and Claire Russell, one of the facilities' nurses, walked in with a tray of food.  "How are you feeling, Mr. Townsend?" she asked as she raised the table attached to an arm on my bed and sat the tray down.  "Uh, I'm doing okay, I guess," I said half-heartedly, "still trying to wake up."  "I'm sure the fatigue will wear off once you get some food down, just let us know if you need anything else," she said.  "Yeah, sure.  Thanks, Claire," I replied as she left the room.  I opened the tray she left for me.  The eggs, bacon, sausage and small box of dry cereal fell somewhere between hospital food and airline food.  A far cry from what I may have had with Jillian.