Every other animal tries to find the thing by looking behind the mirror, unable to understand what it’s seeing. Vic doesn’t even look at the reflection. He sees nothing there; if he thinks it’s another person, he doesn’t care.
This is how it is, Beth says. She wheels him down the entrance ramps and into the garden, and then across the tarmac path. It’s even hotter than she anticipated, and within seconds she can see the beads of sweat on Vic’s forehead. She mops them with her sleeve. Jesus, she says.
Around her, other families are attempting to relax. All of this is too demanding. Being with people who are so far gone that they aren’t the people that they once were. And some argue that it’s like coma patients, and how you would stand by them, but Beth has heard the other side of the argument. That they’re more like the dead. There’s nothing inside them. They might look the same, and they might smell the same, but they’re different. The person that they were is gone. Inside them, the part that made them who they were, that’s gone. So what’s left? Beth’s heard the argument that there’s nothing. She’s seen the divorce figures for the vacant. Two years ago, a judge in America had annulled a marriage, but that was still an exception.
This is mortality, he said. Life and death. We’d never force somebody to stay married to a corpse. When a person loses this much of themselves, they have lost their soul. And what is left when you have no soul?
Most of the people here with her are parents, looking at their children, all grown-ups. Grey-haired men and women trying to act as if this is normal, because there’s a bond there that’s indelible. There’s no annulment between parents and their children. At their worst the patients are back to the way they were before they walked and talked, when they lay and were inattentive and cried for no reason. She sees the parents trying the same tactics they might have tried then. The snapping of fingers to try and draw their eyes. Calling their name, over and over, in the hope that it will stick. Nobody knows why the brain doesn’t work like it should after the Machine’s had its way with it. This would be much easier for all involved if it was just a wipe. One doctor who worked on the project wondered if the brain hadn’t had its ability to record memories wiped. As in, it had forgotten how to remember. Beth doesn’t like to think about it. So she and the parents lie on the lawns with their charges and they treat them like pre-toddlers. She knows that they wonder why she’s still with him, because they can’t see what she can be getting out of this. Nobody dreams of a vacant shell for a husband.
She wheels the chair out towards the gates, and the road. She wants to see how far she can push it without being noticed, if anybody’s going to question anything. There are no security cameras in the grounds because there’s no danger of the patients escaping, not when most of them can’t even walk. And those who can, can’t work door handles, or dress themselves, and certainly couldn’t get past the manned security desk. She pushes the chair further down the path, to the gates themselves, and then onto the street. She turns the corner and she stands with him and waits. She can see the people across the road staring at her. Or staring at Vic. It’s quite shocking, the first time you see him, because it’s not like seeing a disabled man. There’s no life in him. When you look at the vacant, there’s something wrong, and you can tell. It’s immediate. It’s what the overly religious factions who oppose the Machine use as evidence: they present the intangibility of the soul as proof of the existence of something less tangible still. The people across the road all turn their heads and stop talking. Beth ignores them. She puts her head down and looks at Vic, and she gently rubs the sides of his head. Apparently they itch, the burn marks; and she used to
This is how it is, Beth says. She wheels him down the entrance ramps and into the garden, and then across the tarmac path. It’s even hotter than she anticipated, and within seconds she can see the beads of sweat on Vic’s forehead. She mops them with her sleeve. Jesus, she says.
Around her, other families are attempting to relax. All of this is too demanding. Being with people who are so far gone that they aren’t the people that they once were. And some argue that it’s like coma patients, and how you would stand by them, but Beth has heard the other side of the argument. That they’re more like the dead. There’s nothing inside them. They might look the same, and they might smell the same, but they’re different. The person that they were is gone. Inside them, the part that made them who they were, that’s gone. So what’s left? Beth’s heard the argument that there’s nothing. She’s seen the divorce figures for the vacant. Two years ago, a judge in America had annulled a marriage, but that was still an exception.
This is mortality, he said. Life and death. We’d never force somebody to stay married to a corpse. When a person loses this much of themselves, they have lost their soul. And what is left when you have no soul?
Most of the people here with her are parents, looking at their children, all grown-ups. Grey-haired men and women trying to act as if this is normal, because there’s a bond there that’s indelible. There’s no annulment between parents and their children. At their worst the patients are back to the way they were before they walked and talked, when they lay and were inattentive and cried for no reason. She sees the parents trying the same tactics they might have tried then. The snapping of fingers to try and draw their eyes. Calling their name, over and over, in the hope that it will stick. Nobody knows why the brain doesn’t work like it should after the Machine’s had its way with it. This would be much easier for all involved if it was just a wipe. One doctor who worked on the project wondered if the brain hadn’t had its ability to record memories wiped. As in, it had forgotten how to remember. Beth doesn’t like to think about it. So she and the parents lie on the lawns with their charges and they treat them like pre-toddlers. She knows that they wonder why she’s still with him, because they can’t see what she can be getting out of this. Nobody dreams of a vacant shell for a husband.
She wheels the chair out towards the gates, and the road. She wants to see how far she can push it without being noticed, if anybody’s going to question anything. There are no security cameras in the grounds because there’s no danger of the patients escaping, not when most of them can’t even walk. And those who can, can’t work door handles, or dress themselves, and certainly couldn’t get past the manned security desk. She pushes the chair further down the path, to the gates themselves, and then onto the street. She turns the corner and she stands with him and waits. She can see the people across the road staring at her. Or staring at Vic. It’s quite shocking, the first time you see him, because it’s not like seeing a disabled man. There’s no life in him. When you look at the vacant, there’s something wrong, and you can tell. It’s immediate. It’s what the overly religious factions who oppose the Machine use as evidence: they present the intangibility of the soul as proof of the existence of something less tangible still. The people across the road all turn their heads and stop talking. Beth ignores them. She puts her head down and looks at Vic, and she gently rubs the sides of his head. Apparently they itch, the burn marks; and she used to
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