She is standing alone in the middle of a seamless and enormous white room. A suffocating feeling clutches at her throat, as if someone were pressing a pillow on her face.
She cannot tell whether she is being pulled or pushed down. But she is slowly being absorbed into the ground like a fly by a carnivorous plant. Her feet vanish into white earth. Her arms. Her head. She is being eaten by the ground.
Aris opens her eyes and sees emptiness—a vast desert of nothing. Ahead is Benja. He stands with his back to her. She touches his shoulder. He turns around. She sees his back again. She circles him but she cannot see his face.
“Aris. How could you?” the faceless Benja asks.
The ground rumbles around her. She feels the vibration through her bones. It rattles her head and shatters her teeth until she is toothless, like a withered old woman.
A herd of a hundred soundless white elephants races above her head and tramples her deeper and deeper into the pure white earth, stirring dust into a layer of fog that covers the land as far as the eye can see. Each elephant glitters like the frost that hangs on the blades of grass before the morning light.
The image transforms. She is standing in front of a large blue pond. On her, a red swimming suit. She looks at her hands. They are small. She sees her hands pushing the back of another child into the blue pool.
“How could you?” a voice yells.
Two women in white are speaking to each other. Their faces look the same. Even their voices have the same sound. Though younger, they remind her of someone she knows. Apollina.
“I’m so thankful for Tabula Rasa. Humanity is cruel. A child trying to kill another. Good thing the other girl is a good swimmer,” one says.
“Hate breeds war. Tabula Rasa will cure her.”
Aris yells, “I didn’t hate her. I was just jealous.” But nobody hears her.
“Aris.” A voice brings her back.
“Hmm. Yes?” She rubs her eyes. For a moment she is disoriented. She does not remember where she is.
“The thirty-six hours are up. Would you like to hear Benja’s message?” Sirus says.
Aris realizes where she is. The pain in her chest, the one that makes her feel like she has broken into a thousand pieces, returns. She sits up and nods.
“Message from Monday, January nineteenth, seven oh-eight a.m.,” Sirus says.
Benja’s image appears in front of her. The skin under his eyes is deep purple. His face is covered in a full beard. Both his arms are black. She enlarges the image and sees that they are words written like sleeves on his arms. She knows they were for her. An inside joke.
She wants to laugh and cry at the same time. The only thing that keeps her from collapsing onto the floor is the light smile he wears. He looks resolute and at peace.
“Dearest Aris,” he says, “please don’t worry about me. I am soaring like a bluebird over the rainbow, the one in your song. Imagine me surrounded by the bluest of blue skies, and don’t cry anymore.
“You are my dearest friend. My only friend. And I love you. I only wish I had made you happy, just as you had tried to do for me. But happiness is too far from my reach. An illusion.
“Good news is, I made you a present—well, lots of presents. The things you do when you can’t sleep. They’re in a box on my bedside table. Open it and remember me well.”
Aris watches Benja disappear after his message is over and feels an even greater emptiness in her chest. She walks to the bedside table. The box is made of beautiful rosewood. She runs her hand along it, feeling its satin finish. She eases the top open and is blinded by a vision in blue. A thousand origami cranes nestle with each other, filling the box to the brim. Benja’s blue birds of happiness.
In ancient Japan, the origami crane is a symbol of hope and healing during challenging times. Tears roll down her face. Even in death, he is poetic. She sees a note buried inside the box. She pulls it out.
Sleep and heal, my friend. The Sandman is coming for you. He’ll make your dreams beautiful.
With love,
Benja.
“You said you were his friend?” the coroner asks.
“Yes,” Metis says.
“My condolences. Such a waste. He was so young.”
What an odd thing for someone to say, Metis thinks. Would it have been less of a waste had Benja been older? Suicide is an act of abbreviating life, regardless of age.
Human actions are driven by basic things: either running away from pain or running toward pleasure. Killing oneself probably fits more into the first category.
Maybe it’s better this way. Life was a shackle to Benja. How else could he have escaped this existence?
“May I have time alone with him?” Metis asks.
“Of course. I’ll be outside if you have any questions,” the coroner says and leaves the room.
What propensity would one have to be a coroner? Metis wonders. Probably enjoying the solitude that silence offers. An introvert. Someone who prefers having time to think alone. Maybe he could be a good coroner.
He looks down at Benja and feels sadness draping over him. The dead man’s peaceful face is pale—drained of life. Three weeks ago he was alive, talking, thinking, possessing the ability to feel. Yet he told Metis he felt nothing. Thinking back, Metis cannot say he is surprised at the outcome of Benja’s life. A desperate man does desperate things.
Where is Benja now? Does his consciousness cease to exist without his brain? Some believe the brain is a receptacle for consciousness, while others believe it is the creator of one. Metis is not sure what he believes.
If consciousness is created by the brain, shouldn’t reality be unique
