This Is Not Really Happening

The researchers and Passengers were loading equipment into one of the vans while I was clearing out the backseat of my Kia Solace for the added passengers. I was adjusting the trunk to be a five seater when I overheard one of the researchers.

“Did you pack the ’shrooms?”

“Yeah, it’s in the tub,” Dr. Berkenstein replied.

I shut the door and walked over. “’Shrooms? Nobody said anything about drugs.”

“According to Heather and Barbara, the three of you ingested psychedelic mushrooms in the form of a tea along with copious amounts of alcohol. We need to recreate the conditions exactly,” Doctor Berkenstein answered.

“I’ve been sober 27 years. There’s no reality where I’m going to throw that away.”

Berkenstein rolled his eyes. “Doctor, surely you can see how the psychotropic effects influenced your consciousness.”

I was about to tell him to stuff his psychedelic mushrooms when from behind me I heard Barbara walk up. “It won’t be necessary for her to take drugs.”

Berkenstein rolled his eyes. “Ms. Wessinger, with all due respect…”

“Nobody’s going to make Rhiannon do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

The two shrugged and continued packing. I turned around and headed back towards the Solace with Barbara following behind.

Heather sat shotgun while Madeline and Barbara sat in the back seat. A scout drove 15 minutes ahead of us while the two vans carrying the researchers and Passengers followed behind. It was very dark thirty, a few hours until dawn. Sometime after turning forty, if I stayed up after midnight, I would feel hungover the next day. That meant I was now gunning for a world of hurt tomorrow. Jimbo streamed NPR to fill the silence as we raced towards New Orleans. The program was discussing the ethical implications about companies developing a device to detect whether a person collapsed waves into particles. There had been stories and some limited video footage where a few people pixelated as well objects during the Glitch. The one thing that generally did not pixelate was people. The theory was that since we were sentient, we interfered with the pattern. But if someone pixelated, that indicated that they might be just a part of the simulation, an NPC.

If that were the case and if people could be identified as not collapsing the wave the implications were catastrophic. People could lose their personhood. Polls showed large majorities wanted to be able to identify the NPCs out if they existed.

Madeline snorted in disgust. It was just another bit of evidence of how awful this simulation was. The worst part of it wasn’t the simeality itself, but the people in it who supposedly had free will.

“Mom, can you tell Jimbo to turn on some music?”

“Jimbo, you heard the lady,” I said prompting Jimbo.

“What would you like to listen to,” it asked.

“Hmm. I think that playlist you created on Earee might be appropriate.”

The guitar riff to Letters to Cleo’s Here and Now started

Just living on a Sunday morning

Got my toast and tea and I’m warm and…

Heather giggled and she started singing along. Before I knew it I was, too. During our freshman year when the original girls were coalescing to form The Wanton Women, we dared each other to sing the inhumanely rapid lyrics to Here and Now and we did it. It had been decades since I sang that song, but somewhere the long term memory kicked in. Heather and I, two old, long lost friends, looked at each other as we sang the impossible song together flawlessly, well, mostly flawlessly. I didn’t allow myself to feel her loss since we were torn from each other and after I got sober. But I missed the life we could have shared as best friends. In the backseat, Barbara, too, was singing as she also learned the lyrics as the den mother of chaos. Madeline, who probably never heard the song before, bobbed her head and laughed seeing us old girls being kids.

Afterwards, we cackled for a minute straight as Jimbo moved onto Mazzy Star. Heather caught her breath and sighed, “Oh my God, I haven’t heard that song in years!”

“Same here,” I said.

“Mom, you haven’t played anything from the old days since…ever,” Madeline added.

“Is that true,” Barbara asked.

I looked into the rearview mirror and saw the woman who was biologically my mother and a few years younger.

“Once Henry found me and I got my act together, I chose not to wallow in the past,” I said curtly. “Outside of you, Heavenly, there’s nothing worth remembering.”