Eternal Life, Economy Package

Eternal Life, Economy Package

By Don Cambou ©

This really sucks. I was tired of slurpin’ up all my liquid food “meals,” of some kind of nurse wiping my butt after taking a crap, of sitting around for days at a time with nobody coming to visit or even givin’ me a call. But I guess most of all I was tired of of my lousy 122 year old body full of aches and pains, farting all the time and pissing my pants. Who wants to pay for that? I knew I had enough money to live in Green Garden – it wasn’t green, and it wasn’t a garden -- for another two years. But why should I? I couldn’t give myself a good reason, when there was another way. Holoteevee was full of ads for it. Dump your body. Live in a digital cloud. Plenty of companies offerin’ the service. I didn’t have enough doe-ray-me for a high end package – those were for the Richies, and came with an artificial body. I didn’t even have enough for a mid sized package. I mean, I’d spent most of my life workin’ at a chicken factory. Started in the “contolled atmosphere” part. It’s a gas chamber. Quarter million birds a day. Went from there to cuttin’ up and packagin’, where I worked my way up to team manager. The Richies bought and ate the real birds, while the rest of us got lab grown meat. The Yellows, Blacks, and Browns were all ahead of us White guys when it came to money. Still, I did have enough for an economy package. Hell, I spent my whole life livin’ low end. So that’ud be O.K. I gave this Asian Company, Kong Pow Gon, or somethin’ like that -- I was never good at reading contracts -- the rest of my money. They weren’t approved by the WEB – the World Entry of Businesses. But so what?  I had friends in Kong Pow somewhere, and it sounded fine. I took the deep dive. They hooked me up to a lot of tubes and started fiddling with dials. Nice young girls takin’ care of me, I’ve gotta say. 

It started out good enough. Just like they said, there was this huge, beautiful white light and I went flying into it at a million miles an hour. Felt good. Really, really good. I coulda’ stayed there forever. Then it ended and I was – here. In the Kong Pow Economy Package. 

The package ain’t so hot. Can’t see, can’t hear, can’t taste or smell. Can’t even feel. But I guess I’m still me. I got all the me memories. They say memories are somethin’ to hold dear. I say they lose their pizazz once you’ve been through ‘em a couple a hundred times. Better, I guess, than one guy who buzzes around in here. You can kind of catch a “vibe” from people in the Econo Pack, so I know it’s the same guy.  But every time he comes around, he’s got a whole new set of memories. Like he’s somebody else, every day. Weird. And he doesn’t even know it. And then there’s this lady who was a druggie in her 20s and rolled over and smothered her baby when she was really stoned. She deep sixed the memory in life, you know, life life. But now she can’t get away from it. The whole killing her baby thing is front and center, and it’s driven’ her nuts. Sheesh! At least, I got those old friends here, and they all seem fairly normal, as if anything’s normal in here. A few of them are “off line.” But I connect with the other guys every once in a while. Most of the time, we just talk about bowling and beer. Well, it ain’t really “talk.” More like some kind of electric hiss or tickle or somethin’. Hard to put my finger on it. As if I had a finger to put on anything – I guess you gotta be here to get it. Anyhow, I can’t feel the sweet blast of rollin’ three or four stirkes in a row, and I sure as hell can’t taste the beer. Somethin’s wrong with Frank though. Every time I hook up with him, all he can say is “Remember the time I rolled a 243?” Must have some kind of glitch or somethin’.  There’re others like him in here. I call ’em “one liners.” And come to think of it, Frank never rolled a 243 anyway.

Nobody wants to talk much about the chicken farm. 

Then there’s my ex wife Karen. She still goes to church in here. Church! I just don’t get it. I mean, how can she even think about goin’ to heaven, bein’ with Jesus and all that, after bein’ in here? Pretty easy to see that’s a bunch of baloney after bein’ stripped down to just about nothin’ in the Economy Package. Says she likes the church Bingo games. What the hell does a Bingo card look like in here, anyway, when nobody’s got eyes to see it? And what the hell can you possibly win after yellin’ “Bingo!” Nothin’ I can think of. Oh yeah. One more thing she does.  Bitch about me. Just like she did in real life. Even though there’s no sofa to get dirty with my chicken work shoes, and no cheap vodka in the freezer to drink straight outta the bottle. Who needs somebody like that? I guess I do get a stronger vibe from her, though. It’s somethin’ that’s almost a feeling. But big deal. 

I even tried dating -- once. Fugettaboutit!

The Kong Pow folks said I could talk to friends and relatives in the real world if I just spelled out what I want to say, letter by letter. Maybe it shows up on some screen they have. It takes forever to spell ‘em. But I sent out a couple dozen messages. Didn’t hear back from nobody. Got no kids. But a nephew and a niece. Nothin’. I wonder if they’re pissed because I spent the money on this economy package, instead of leavin’ anything for them. Maybe the rest of my friends are all gone, too. Or maybe they’re all in here with me. Or maybe the spellin’ thing just don’t work. Anyhow, there’s one more thing I’m gonna try. Kong Pow said if I didn’t like it in here, just spell out this one word and they’d take care of it. What the hell. Here goes nothin’. D-E-L-E-T-E.

Within nanoseconds, space for one more Eternal Life, Economy Package opened up on the servers of the Kun Pow Morgan cloud.