that, he had to master a dialect that died off ages ago.
He wants to know if he’s making any sense.
He is a madman and I tell him so.
I found your file logs, he says, laughing and nodding. Stored in another server and mislabeled, but that was just another stumbling block.
I don’t know what that means.
He claims that his great-grandfather was the last person to visit me.
Phantoms like to tell stories. I nod politely at his story, saying nothing.
He tells me that the man lived to be one hundred and fifty, but he died recently. There was a will, and my location was mentioned in the will. Until then I was a family legend—a legend wrapped around twin tragedies. His great grandfather’s father was killed in the Fourth Gulf War, and his great-great-grandmother missed him terribly. She was the one who began me. She spent quite a lot of money, using medical records and digital files to create a facsimile of her soul mate. And she would have finished me, at least as far as the software of the day would have allowed. But her son was hurt at daycare. He fell and cut himself, and she was hurrying to the hospital when a stupid kid driver shut off his car’s autopilot and ran her down in the street. The boy wasn’t seriously hurt. What mattered was that the boy, his great-grandfather, was three and orphaned, and a drunken aunt ended up raising him, and for the rest of his many, many days, that man felt cheated and miserable.
I listen to every word, nodding patiently.
He wants to know what I think of the story.
He is crazy but I prefer to say nothing.
Frowning, he tells me that a great deal of work brought him to this point. He says that I should be more appreciative and impressed. Then he asks if I understand how I managed to survive for this long.
But no time has passed, I reply.
He waves a hand, dismissing my words. You are very small, he says. Tiny files that are never opened can resist corruption.
I am not small. I am everything.
He has copied me, he claims. He says that he intends to finish the new copy, as best he can. But he will leave the original alone.
Pausing, he waits for my thanks.
I say nothing, showing him a grim, suspicious face.
But you do need clothes, he says.
Except this is how I am.
My great-great grandma had some plan for you, he says. But I won’t think about that, he says. And besides, clothes won’t take much room in the file.
My body feels different.
Much better, he says, and steps out of view.
Time becomes real when the mind has great work to do. My first eternity is spent picking at the trousers and shirt, eroding them until they fall away, threads of changing color sprawled across the eternal carpet.
Yet nothing is eternal. Each of the haystacks begins with the same pleasantly rounded shape, but some have turned lumpy and ragged at the edges, while my favorite stack has a large gap eaten through its middle. And I remember the straw having colors instead of that faded uniform gray. And I remember the sofa being soft buttery yellow, and the room’s walls were never this rough looking, and the colored threads have vanished entirely, which seems good. But the carpet looks softer and feels softer than seems right, my feet practically melting into their nature.
Portions of my room are falling apart.
As an experiment, I study the nearest haystack until I know it perfectly, and then I shut my eyes and wait and wait and wait still longer, remembering everything; when I look again the painting has changed but I can’t seem to decide how it has changed. Which means the problem perhaps lies in my memory, or maybe with my perishable mind.
Fear gives me ideas.
My legs have never moved and they don’t know how. I have to teach them to walk, one after the other. Each step requires learning and practice and more time than I can hope to measure. But at least my one hand knows how to reach out and grab hold. I push at the window’s blinds, but for all of my effort, nothing is visible except a dull grayish-black rectangle that means nothing to me.
Stepping backwards is more difficult than walking forwards. But turning around is nearly impossible, and I give up. In little steps, I retreat to the place where I began. The carpet remembers my feet, but the carpet feels only half-real. Or my feet are beginning to dissolve. The woman will be here soon. I tell myself that even when I don’t believe it, and the fear grows worse. I start to look at my favorite hand, studying each finger, noting how the flesh has grown hairless and very simple, the nails on the end of every finger swallowed by the simple skin.
A stranger suddenly comes to the door.
Hello, it says.
What it looks like is impossible to describe. I have no words to hang on what I see, and maybe there is nothing to see. But my feeling is that the visitor is smiling and happy, and it sounds like a happy voice asking how I am feeling.
I am nearly dead, I say.
There is death and there is life, it tells me. You are still one thing, which means you are not the other.
I am alive.
It claims that I am lucky. It tells me much about systems and files and the history of machines that have survived in their sleep mode, lasting thousands of years past every estimate of what was possible.
I am a fluke and alive, and my guest says something about tidying the room and me.
The work takes no time.
My favorite hand is the way it began. My favorite haystack is rather like it began in terms of color and shape. Legs that never moved until recently barely complain when I walk across the room. It never occurred to me that I could reach into the haystack paintings, touching those mounds of dead grass. Some feel cool, some warm. I sing out my pleasure, and even my voice feels new.
My guest watches me, making small last adjustments.
Because it is proper, I thank it for its help.
But the original file is gone now, it says.
I ask what that means.
It tells me that I am a copy of the file, filtered and enhanced according to the best tools available.
Once more, I offer my thanks.
And with a voice that conveys importance, my guest tells me that I have a new purpose. What I am will be copied once more, but this time as a kind of light that can pierce dust and distance and might never end its travels across the galaxy and beyond.
I don’t understand, and I tell it so.
Then my friend does one last task, and everything is apparent to me.
I ask when am I going to be sent.
In another few moments, it promises.
For the last time, I thank my benefactor. Then I let my legs turn me around, looking at the door that was always behind me.
A second room waits. The bed is longer than it is wide and rectangular and neatly made. Pillows are stacked high against the headboard, and identical nightstands sport tall candles that have not stopped burning in some great span of time. I know this other room. I think of her and the room and step toward the door and then suffer for my eagerness.
What is wrong? asks a new voice.
I turn back. A creature with many arms stands in the hallway.
You appear agitated, says the creature.
Which is true, but I am not sure why I feel this way. I stare into a face that seems buried in the creature’s chest, hanging word after inadequate word on my emotions.
