Holograms Are Not The Same

It was almost time. M13 entered the code into his rover and initiated transmission. As the dish deployed itself over the vehicle in the Earth’s direction, he observed the dark lunar landscape, jumping over its dusty surface in low gravity leaps. The bright dot could now be seen just on the edge of the horizon. He became restless in his spacesuit.

“What is she doing?” he asked out loud, speaking to himself.

“I’m here now.”

M13 turned towards the rover again. F25’s blue hologram floated over the ground, projected by the dish. She wore his favorite red dress, although the color did not render on projection.

“There you are!” he yelled in glee. “I thought you stood me up.”

“I never miss sunrise,” she replied. "You probably can't tell right now, but I'm blushing."

"Blushing?"

"Yes. I think it's romantic how you can't watch the sunrise without me."

She couldn't tell either, but he was blushing right along with her. Even thousands of kilometers apart, the two lovebirds found ways to keep their relationship alive. They had been childhood friends, high school sweethearts, and now remote lovers.

Together, they watched the orange dot in the distance as it rose. She sighed. Not her usual sigh of appreciation for the beauty of the show; this time, it was rather a sigh of discouragement, one that betrayed fatigue and nostalgia for better times.

“Honey, is there something wrong?”

He reached out to her, but his arm went straight through the holographic display.

“This,” she replied. “This is wrong. We can’t even touch. Holograms are not the same.”

Tears were typically not visible on projections, as small droplets did not render well at this low of a resolution, but M13 could tell from her body language she sobbed.

“I miss touching you too. We don’t need touching to enjoy the sunrise though.”

“There’s nothing to enjoy. It doesn’t feel like a sunrise.”

She was right. The moon had no atmosphere, and so the sun rays had nothing to diffuse through. This made sunrises much less majestic, devoid of the characteristic orange hues that made them so enchanting to watch from the Earth. Alas, nothing could be seen from the Earth now. The nuclear attacks of 2039 had left its atmosphere clouded by dense smoke that covered it entirely.

The vast majority of humans had died, and nobody bothered to name children anymore. All men and women were labelled by a letter and a number. Some, like M13, had escaped to a colony on the moon, trying to build habitable domes for the remainder of the population. Others, like F25, waited patiently for this task to be completed, shielding themselves from the harsh weather conditions in underground bunkers. The situation weighed heavily on everyone, particularly on lovers.

“I can’t wait anymore,” she said.

“We’re making steady progress,” assured M13. “The first dome is almost completed.”

“The first dome will be reserved for the rich. The rich always get everything first.”

“Perhaps, but we have experience now. Building the second and third ones will be much faster.”

“You don’t know what it’s like back there. Everyday, I suffer.”

M13 did not enjoy the conversation’s tangent. A long day of toil and trouble loomed ahead; the incessant struggle for survival in an austere environment wore him down as well, and impatience was settling in for everyone.

“I suffer too. We’re not exactly enjoying ourselves here, alone on the moon. It’s hard work.”

“I never said it wasn’t.”

“It’s what you implied.”

“Why are you being so aggressive all of a sudden?”

“Why are you being so selfish? You only ever whine about yourself, get it together!”

His reply left F25 speechless, and he instantly regretted it.

“I didn’t mean—”

“It might be better if we skip sunrises moving forward,” she said, her raven hair hanging in curtains by the sides of her face. M13 could tell anger simmered beneath. “Sunsets also for that matter.”

Before M13 could speak another word, her hologram vanished. He found himself alone again by his rover, surrounded by the desolation of the lunar desert. It was time for him to go back to the construction site anyway, he figured. They would make up later.

But F25 did not transmit at sunset. Nor did she connect for the following sunrise. Soon enough, M13 realized his long-distance relationship was over. She represented his last anchor on Earth, and without her, his heart might as well have drifted away in space to infinity, broken at the thought of the decades of loneliness that awaited him on his remote orbital encampment.

***

Years passed. M13 avoided the sunrise. The minute he woke up in the morning, he ran for the construction site, toiling away at the dome with every fiber of his being. He drowned himself in work and outperformed everyone else. A lot of progress was being made on the community spaces underneath the airtight glass domes.

The young man farmed the synthetic soil in Dome 1, setting it up for bountiful harvests. He then helped to set up the pipes of the great artificial lake in the crater under Dome 2. The foreman even praised his pace connecting the residential sector under Dome 3 to the power grid.

The colony amounted to bitter work. By now, he understood his generation wouldn’t be the one profiting from it. The youth of tomorrow relied on this hope for a better future, but his destiny was sealed. His life’s purpose was to serve the best interests of the colony, even if it meant nothing came out of this sacrifice for himself.

***

Forty long years had passed. The last spaceship was scheduled to arrive from Earth today. The minute M13’s shift on site finished, he hurried for the landing dock. Hurrying might have been a strong word. He was an old man now, well past the age of retirement, and only worked because it was the only thing keeping him alive. His steps did not bounce anymore, even with the help of the reduced gravitational field. Everything felt slower, harder.

Upon arrival on deck, he saw the ship had landed already. From the side of the imposing space shuttle, a gateway opened. Hundreds of people exited. He searched the crowd. She had to be there. Why couldn’t he see her?

At last, he spotted F25, recognizing her through the spacesuit. Her raven hair was now grey, but her face was just as beautiful. She saw him too. For a second, he feared she would ignore him. Space had severed the physical bond between them, but all these years, he had kept the fire of love burning in his heart, hoping time would help their passion flourish some more.

Thankfully, he was right. She ran into his arms, and he lifted her with the ease of a young man, just like he used to do in his twenties. The collective weight of their spacesuits took its toll, but the extra effort did not matter to him at all. If anything, he could have lifted the weight of the whole world on his shoulders in that moment for their relationship to be rekindled.

They headed for Dome 2. Once past the metallic airlock chamber, F25 took off her spacesuit into the open air, breathing freely in an open space for the first time since her childhood. She was wearing the red dress. M13 could finally see it in color again, and it was as though he saw color for the first time.

That night, they watched the digital sunset projected on the dome’s surface by the side of the artificial lake. The orange hues may not have been real, but they were close enough. She held his hand.

“I was right,” she said, her voice frail but warm.

“About what?”

“Holograms really are not the same.”

As they kissed with the passion of young love, the artificial night sky appeared on the surface of the dome. A flickering digital moon reflected on the glistening water. None of it was real. The natural satellite was smoke and mirrors, the lake was a pale imitation of reality, and the grass they rested against was lifeless as a rock.

Amid this spectacle of imitation, only one thing stood out as true: their love. It had survived the hurdles of space and time and would live on, even as they passed away in their sleep that night, dreaming hand in hand of sunrises and sunsets.