A physical experience

beep beep beep beeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

There was just one consistent green line showing on the black screen of the computer. It was over.

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Have you ever tried to be born? It's a frickin nightmare! Pardon my french. It is though, so in case you are toying with the idea, you should really and truly know that there is no other way. To get to live a life on Earth, unfortunately, there isn't. So if you are trying to have a physical experience on Earth, you better be damn sure that it absofrickinlutely has to be Earth. There are so many other universes, some of them delightful, so please look into them thoroughly before deciding on your particular planet. Sure, Earth has some advantages: a lifespan over there is only about one circulation in the origin, so when you come back your friends will have hardly changed and you can pick up your life pretty much where you left. And yes, you can have a very diversified physical experience on the blue planet, if you stay around for long enough. But the way to get there is such a nuisance. 

First, you have to choose your producers. Usually a female and a male in their natural habitat. That alone can be quite a challenge. You see, humans can be quite thick when it comes to their sexual counterparts. They can be highly intelligent and all but as soon as you mix some hormones into the blend it gets complicated. Especially nowadays where large parts of the Earthlings buy into the "Choose your own partner" policy. A couple of years ago, people were told to mate and had no saying in the process which ensured that your makers would couple up just fine. Either with their designated counterpart or their secret love-interest, in any case, there would be a good chance that they'd get a shot at creating you. 

These days you have to be quite imaginative. Even if one of them is willing to reproduce, that doesn't mean in the slightest that the other as much as glances that way. In my case, my male producer was quite interested while my female source was all but appaled by his advances. "One of us is thinking about making out…" Yeah I know, so cheesy, but he got her in the end. Why? Well- let's say time was his friend. When he first spotted her at a college party, he didn't stand a chance. She was gorgeous, in her early twenties and had lots of attractive suitors, whereas my designated Dad was short and skinny. But only 15 years later it was a different story. You see, humans get this "fear of being left on the shelf". (I know, ridiculous when you know that it is all determined at our original source, but they don't, so--). So, while my Mum was still very attractive and could have easily waited another 10 years, she also felt "her body clock ticking". (She didn't really, it was a bomb that had been planted underneath the bench she was having her lunch break on, it was deactivated a few minutes later after she had already taken off to have a coffee with her future penetrator. But she had no idea, that she was sitting on a ticking time bomb, so...)

Anyway, my Dad was still tiny and skinny -and funny, or so she thought now, while he actually was just as cheesy as he had been 15 years ago, it's all quite relative on good old earth if you ask me. So, they had a couple of dates,--no not the fruit, it's a social get together that works like this: 

The first date is usually a test of likeability; e.g. coffee and chatting about the weather, the second date is a confirmation of compatibility and romance; ticking off the boxes: job, salary, does he/she want/have kids, and the third date is the deal maker: Does he/she kiss well, and feeling up each other's bodies. Long story short: They commenced to produce me.

I know, 16 years just getting them to place me in her womb. 

So there I was- a tiny spot in a vast ocean of amniotic fluid listening to my mother's every sound. At first. But that ocean got smaller and smaller and felt quite oppressive in the end when I was about to emerge. 

My Mum had just settled down on the white leather sofa when her water broke. She wept about the mess and the costs and then was shipped off by my Dad to the hospital. He wasn't allowed in due to some weird virus that humans are scared of, so Mum and I were quite on our own. She was put into a room and waited for her delivery: me. But all of a sudden I was reluctant. I mean it was nice and snuggly inside and I didn't care much for the shock of leaving my home and slip into an entirely different element in a hurry. But apparently waiting was not their game, they are quite goal-orientated down there, I tell you that for free. They commenced shaking the labour drip vehemently to encourage me to get going. 

And that's when I refused to cooperate. I asked myself: "Is this the world I want to have a lifespan of physical experience in? A place where they don't even let me decide when I want to be born? Where they try to force me to pop out so they can clean up the room and call it a day? I don't think so! No Mam, not with me! I am my own master, I am a free spirit! I get to decide! I am a revolutioner! " As soon as I had thought these rebellious thoughts I heard a voice from the origins: "Very well, agent, we are withdrawing your assignment and you may return here within the hour! Please get ready for the countdown which will commence in a few seconds." "---What??? No, wait,-- I ... I was just bragging, I didn't mean it, I want to stay, please let me--"

"10, 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1"

beep beep beep beeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

There was just one consistent green line showing on the black screen of the computer. It was over.

Epilogue

Feck it, all this for nought, only because I wanted to be a hero who wouldn't be shoved around. Sometimes, I hated myself. 

Wait a minute. I was still here, wasn't I? I mean, who or what would be thinking my thoughts if I was gone? Or was I already back? I didn't think so, it didn't feel like home. There was some sound. It felt as if the whole world was closing in around me only to burst back into existence the next moment. And then I felt my heart beating. Tentatively at first but stable. "That'll teach you," said a chuckling voice from the origin's headquarters. "Now go out there and have your adventure."