Benton Harbor, Michigan
August 13, 2072
100 Days to the Sixth Attraction
Doctor Shin had just left the modest home of the Lapierre family. Her car drove itself against a reddening sun still up in the distant evening sky. The expensive caregiver lowered most blinds of the house before leaving one of the most famous girls on Earth and her crippled father. In the silence of the house’s living room beeped life support equipment. In front of the television rested the deformed flesh-color shape of a sad being. Scars and burnt flesh covered the entire pink shape in the cradle. Eyes, ears or even fingers were long gone. The only sign of life of the shapeless body was the beeping machines who alone keep bodily functions going.
The poor man’s blood was pumped, filtered and nourished. This was misery.
At one end of the shape, around what looked like a neck was wrapped a beautiful silk scarf. In the bedroom, immediately next to the living room and her father’s form, a young twelve year old girl was getting ready to sleep for the night. Her knees below the colorful covers were bent upwards and on them rested a large children’s book filled with beautiful images. Next to Sophie’s bed rested on the carpet magazines dropped on different pages. The flexible screen covers covering each page were fighting for her attention. On most an Asian pop icon with spiky hair sang her favorite songs; this was LO her crush. The pages were the only touch of technology in an otherwise boring child’s room in an ordinary house lost in 2072. Sophie Lapierre could delude herself all she wanted, she was no ordinary person.
“Daddy,” said the girl out loud from her bed over the muffled music from the magazines. No one of course responded. She liked talking to the form. “You were great tonight. Nine more games and you are going to Mars, that’s exciting, no?” An able father would have corrected his daughter, reminding the poor girl as his custodian, she was getting a ticket but Laurent, lost in his digital world remained silent.
The young brunette knew her handicapped father had long lost all contact with the real world and could not hear a word of what she said. Sophie refused to connect that digital world with the house. This ‘old-fashion’ girl was here alone and stood between him and death. She refused to let him go out of her world. “They have a new hotel on Mars, it opens for the players. They even built a glider made of glass to see all of the planet.” The young girl acted as if she could hear his responses. “Marilyn Monroe, in her Center, said she will host the last games and if you make it there, she has a tool to connect you in a new way and let you live again. That would be great, no?” There was, as usual, no answer.
The large book on her knee was an illustrated edition of Alice in Wonderland — her favorite. She liked to turn the rigid pages, late at night and dream of being Alice. Most nights she would read a page or two and slowly fall asleep in this dream-world of fantasy but tonight would be different. In her mind she felt something. There was unease, a disturbance. She looked up and around the room unable to find a source. The impression was there, nagging at her. This wasn’t about her father standing so close. In the distance, she felt like something strange and different was talking place a mysterious force. The feeling was odd, unlike anything she had ever felt. She looked around the room. Nothing was truly perceptible. She looked around one more time in a daze of fatigue. Instead of waking her up, the impression remained as she felt asleep with the lights on.
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That was the benefit of being technically an orphan. She had no curfew, only care to give to one man. Her eyes closed but instead of stepping in Wonderland, there was an imperceptible ping. She half-awake looked around around her.
All was silent.
Something was off; she needed to awake.
Her knees were no longer bent and the large book rested next to her in the bed.
Sophie sat up and grabbed the green strains of the bookmark in the book pulling it up slowly almost expecting something. It slid gently up from between back pages. The small plastic wedge was covered by a screen with animated content. It was a souvenir from an amusement park and somehow she half expected the image playing in a loop to differ. It did not. On it was a five second clip of the happiest moment in her younger life. On it, she was six and giggling as her mother and father failed miserably to stand still for the carnival picture. This was the happiest she ever had been. Since the accident who left her an orphan under most definitions, she struggled to block this painful past.
She looked at it and cringed as any young person missing a loved one. The young lady could not get herself to put the page holder away with the other images of her mother. In the page holder, her father Laurent was whole and not handicapped. She looked up at the deformed shape in the living room. No one should have to suffer such a faith, much less a young brave woman. Her parents were both so happy on the image. She started to tear up and cringed her jaw. Sophie was no ordinary girl, she was strong.
Then in the room, things and time appeared to slow down. The fabric itself of the world changed imperceptibly. In her head, as by magic she heard a female voice, it was her mother’s.
“Don’t cry sweetness,” it whispered as it it knew any word would her the loved daughter.
No twelve year old could react positively to such an apparition.
She did.
Sophie did.
The girl snapped the book shut over the bookmark and went to pull the blinds up. She needed light to cast away the spirit. She clicked the television open as if the sound would chase the ghost away or awake her disable father.
She could not afford this delusion; her father needed her.
Her mother was dead — dead.
Life slowly returned to normalcy in the house and the desirable voice remained at bay. On the screen in the living room was a breaking story on the news. The scrolling ticker read: Gas release on Mars. Images were those the red planet. A gentle white column of smoke rose very slowly in the faint atmosphere of Mars. The line rose up to the rim of the giant scar carved in the rock planet, the smoke bent and moved westbound pushed by the faintest of atmosphere.
Sophie took several deep breaths and calmed herself. Finally, having regained her composure, she walked over to her father’s body, looked up and then kissed it gently. Something was on the horizon, she felt it.