Capsule part 2

Mike wakes up. He is really sore all over and his mouth is dry and smells like nuclear.

He hasn’t opened his eyes yet; they seem to be glued together. He discovers that he can raise his hands. He swipes over the face and removes the stickers on his eyelids. These are also the first things he sees, and ironically enough they have a roaring lion picture on them. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is the first thing that goes through his head. He can clearly remember the roaring lion on the screen while he has been watching movies. “Well, that’s where I remember the lion from!” thinks Mike to himself, meanwhile making a disgusted grimace at the memory of the lion breaking his neck in two seconds. At least it didn’t hurt. Wait, but why does everything hurt now?

Finally, he takes a moment to look around. There is a kind of bubble-like thing over him, and he can actually remember himself climbing into it by himself. It is the capsule he has spent his life in for the past few years now. He doesn’t realize this yet though. It is not the type of capsule as The Matrix has, and also not the one as Avatar has. This capsule has a waterbed in it, and if you lie in it, you are dry and float as if there is nothing existing around you. It is just as warm as your body needs to not feel anything. He makes a little wave under him and then a sudden move to get up. He is pulled back by the tubes and wires. Mike is bald as it is a better connection on direct skin than through hair. He pulls the stickers off; yes, they have roaring lions on them. There are also some tubes coming out from his shoulder. He can remember the surgery before stepping into the capsule, where permanent canals with closable caps and everything were installed. These are meant for life support—liquid food, vitamins, or whatever your body needs to keep the brain running. Mike pulls the tubes off and carefully closes the caps. He was told it is important. Apparently, here is a button that says Open, and he presses it. The bubble disappears, like the one in Wicked from 2024.

It takes a few attempts for him to be able to get up and out. Mike is slim and weak. Nothing like the man he remembers being back in his mansion. He hasn’t used his body for a very long time except for the exercises that this machine has provided with water movements. The moment he is out, the bubble appears and the whole capsule goes through a self-cleaning process. Mike shrugs to himself at the thought that if something had happened to the machine and he had been inside it in the meantime, it would have flushed itself like a giant toilet bowl. At the same moment, the capsule next to him flushes itself as well. Only there is still someone inside it. He realizes that he has been flushed exactly like that all this time. Fair enough, at least besides his mouth he doesn’t seem to smell otherwise.

He begins to walk away to the door he can see at the other end of the lines of capsules. The room has timid lights on and it is rather cozy. It is hard to walk. He almost can’t even remember anymore how to walk and leans on the other capsules a lot to support himself. He then finally notices that the people in there are naked. Mike is also naked, but it’s not like he has so many options because there are no clothes on the site.

He makes his way to the door and stumbles out.