Celebration of Life

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. That final shriek of terror where the universe hears nothing. Like life has been some grand movie, then right at the climax you press mute, because the second you see what’s happened you’ve already moved on, ready for what’s next.

Somehow that final, silent scream is what comes back to Julia every time she imagines the accident with her brother. She wonders if there was time for anyone to hear it, in the ship perhaps. Maybe it all happened so fast that there wasn’t time for screaming. Julia accepted that she’d never know, or maybe, in many months she would—after Nikolai recovered. It was possible that she could save up enough to buy a voice synthesizer and microchip capable of translating twitches in the cheek muscles the way Stephen Hawking did. Unlike Stephen Hawking however, Julia didn’t have a fortune and Nikolai didn’t have a legacy—there wasn’t much for people to remember him by.

Nikolai was left alive, only what was left of him was a fraction of what he used to be. He wasn’t ever going to walk again, according to the doctors. He’d also lost three of his senses—sight, sound, and smell. You could count taste—his ability to eat was limited. Talking wasn’t an option either.

To his work, Yangtze—the successor of Bezo’s Amazon—Nikolai was effectively dead. He was as good as his parents who were floating around in a space graveyard. Yangtze did show some display of grief. They planned a celebration of life for Nikolai. A funeral. It must have been a technical oversight, something some A.I. perceived after scanning a report of the incident. It made sense however, since everyone except Julia had barely questioned it. To them, Nikolai was as good as dead. Watching him on life support and being the only one with the love to stay by his side, Julia was aware that he was still very much alive.

She’d been with him in the hospital for three days now. The room was devoid of any energy, even despite its bright white lights which shone from the ceiling in two parallel strips. The walls were white. There were no paintings or pictures, just one window with a dreary view of the mega city. Julia was the brightest thing there was in that room. She possessed a special optimism that was evident in her eyes and rare in today’s world. It was her hope that Nikolai could tell it was her in that room with him. If not, she hoped that he could at least feel the warmth of her hand holding his, that he could feel his sister’s radiant glow.

Looking through the window at the smog ridden skies sitting in stasis like broke-down cars, Julia’s mind kept drifting back to the crash. It was 6 days ago and she couldn’t help but feeling the funeral was the last time anyone was going to remember Nikolai. In a way, she wasn't wrong. With the unfamiliar world she found herself grown up in, everyone and everything moved fast. There was no time to take a break. Mourning would get in the way of work, so there wouldn’t be much time for it. Speed was everywhere, she thought to herself. It was what took her brother’s life.

It happened like this. New Year’s Eve. The turn of a decade, in fact. People had dreamed of things like the reprise of the Roaring 20’s but decade after decade left only disappointment. Nikolai was ready for a change. Following months of hard work, he had saved up only to spend it all on the night’s celebrations. Everything he was forced to bottle up: the dopamine addictions, the loneliness, the loathsome desk job, the lack of sleep—he was ready to let it all out.

Of the most expensive of Nikolai’s purchases for the night was a rental of a Space Coupe Mk. II. There’s the thrill of a party bus, the function of a space shuttle, and enough power to be the fourth fastest space vessel in the world. Take it outside of Earth’s orbit for laps of high speed thrills with literal out of the world views—the result is a cocktail of unbelievable fun and inexplicable danger. For what, common folk don’t know is that Space Coupe Speed-racing has fast become the leading cause of death for the young 1%. These things were swept under the rug. Take a night like New Years Eve on the turn of a decade, and it doesn’t take a genius to know there’ll be at least five times more racers out on the edge of Earth than any other given day. Out there, the sky is the limit and their rocket’s speed echos the same motto. So that’s how it happened.

* * *

There was hardly had any time for confusion or disbelief prior to her living brother’s funeral. It was only upon her arrival home the night before that she had some time to herself. Then, as she got in bed, she remembered that she was asked to speak at the event. Speak about her dead brother who hadn’t passed on. The request was a strange one. She’d hardly given the task any thought; all her time had been spent at the hospital. Julia relaxed at this, deciding it would therefore be quite natural to speak without a script… but what would she focus on? Would others find peace in reminiscing of old times? Would they wish to hear of his greatest achievements? Giving these thoughts attention only brought Julia back to one thing: he’s not even dead!

The hours passed and soon the sun was up and Julia gave up on sleep all together. The night had set her mind ablaze. It was her first time for thinking all week and she had some catching up to do. The thinking was needed, she concluded. Unfortunately her crazed look was an inevitable side effect. These things failed to come to attention to her. It was only when she arrived at the celebration of life and talked to people other than nurses and doctors for the first time in days that she noticed. Or at the very least, they did.

“Oh uh, hello,” greeted an unfamiliar man in a suit. Fancy smartwatch. Probably a co-worker of Nikolai’s. The man in the suit looked down at him in the wheelchair, but covered in bandages nearly head to toe, it could have been anyone. “My name is Jeff,” he said, kind of like it was a joke. “I work at Yangtze. I’m sorry for your, uh, loss,” he stammered.

“Ah don’t worry. he’s alive and well!” declared Julia. “Just not quite the same as before,” she continued, taking a sudden jab at Nikolai’s shoulder, enough to shake him side to side like a mountain of jello. He was unresponsive. She struck an awkward smile. The man’s watch made a little jingle. Some notification for a health app telling him he forgot a workout.

“Ah, ha ha. Well, uh, I’ll see you inside.” He promptly marched off, glanced at his watch, and learnt that he had forgot a workout. Julia thought that it was crazy how smart those watches were. The interaction reminded her of the joys of life. She smiled.

Continuing into the funeral home, Julia spun Nikolai around in a circle all while balancing it on the back wheels. A glance from Jeff had no disapproval, only confusion. At least now he was moving closer to how she felt.

The funeral home was new—built in the last decade—so the result was the generic modern bleakness. Like the hospital, it all lacked comfort, because it lacked personality. Instead of white plaster, was light grey concrete. The blinding, airplane cabin style of lighting was the same. Julia thought about when her and Nikolai were in high school—the transition over one winter break saw them entering the newly constructed school. A truly modern work of corrugated metal and an abundance of windows. All their experiences in the colourful hallways of the old building—filled with pictures and posters and funky designs of the late 20th century—it was all gone forever. Soon, even the memories would begin to fade.

Julia’s mind drifted back as she entered the ceremonial room of the funeral home. It was all pretty routine. There was a row of about forty chairs, most of which were empty. A decorated coffin took centre stage—nothing more than a prop. Aside from having Nikolai alongside her in the wheelchair—breathing—coffins were a thing of the past. Bodies were dumped into space because more “space” was of the essence. There wasn’t room for coffins in the limited cosmic worlds of space graveyards.

Above the coffin was a large projector. It took place of the in-person speakers, ready to present a preset slideshow, along with a collection of photos of Nikolai from before his so-called death. On a portable stand was a Yangtze poster, because they had funded the event and they hoped that their presence reminded you that there was same-day delivery on orders. The world had come a long way from one-day delivery, to say the least.

It wasn’t until Julia took her seat and happened to turn around that she noticed a second projector facing the stage. There was a collection of faces and names on a grid—a live group video call. Great for the majority of attendees who couldn’t find the time to attend in person. Julia could see that 112 people were in the call, although less than 10 of them currently had their cameras on. The unknown faces were idling in await for the ceremony to begin—eyes down at a phone or zoned into a computer tab separate all together from the zoom call. Pornography, perhaps. Moreover, the connection was dodgy at best. Gloomy faces froze and moved in choppy frame rates, teleporting from here to there.

Aside from Jeff, Julia, and Nikolai himself, there were only three other in-person attendees. One was I.T. and two were funeral staff, which were only in-person illusions, since they were robots. The start of the last decade made services such as mortician and security obsolete for humans, since the tasks were simple enough to be programmed. Most people found it hard to tell from afar, but the artificial breathing movements were what gave it away for Julia. She wondered if it was better to have in-person A.I. or human faces on a screen—she couldn’t decide.

The I.T. guy was real, at least. He knew enough to keep the A.I. charged and connected to wi-fi, but his main job was to run the slideshow for the afternoon’s event. No doubt the A.I. could do it, but filling the role of “I.T. guy” was something we liked to keep for ourselves. We needed that sense of control.

For some reason it had been decided that hosting the ceremony didn’t require the human charm. A projector shot out onto the main projector and a synthesized voice boomed through the speakers. It almost sounded human, only something was a little off and that gave the whole act away.

“Good morning, everyone,” spoke the sombre voice from the ceiling. “Today we are here to celebrate the life of one who is dearly departed. Nikolai Pontin. May his soul rest in peace.”

Julia glanced at Nikolai. Covered in casts and wrapped in gauze, his breathing was still more natural than any of the A.I. workers in the audience. Actors, programmed to pretend to care. The artificial host continued with the same scripted words. It felt like spit in the face, to have someone with no familiarity speak about how great of a person Nikolai was. What did this artificial voice know about being a person? Julia felt a terrible angst grow inside her. She wanted to ask the audience about it all when it was her turn to speak. Were they even listening?

Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep! It was Jeff’s smartwatch. A notification was reminding him of something important he was forgetting.

The voice droned on. It seemed to have an air of mockery toward Julia—a complete disregard for Nikolai’s being.

Julia tossed and turned. Her breathes grew faster. She glanced behind, the frozen faces of the group call remained unchanged. The number of attendees now read 63.

Then the voice from the ceiling thundered, “… Julia Pontin to the stage.” Hearing her voice brought her focus back. Through the following silence, it summoned her, along with her anger and resentment for how these people acted—how they faced the accident, or rather, completely failed to.

A single deep breath. Julia stood up. She took hold of the wheelchair, carting Nikolai up onto the stage along with her.

“Good morning everyone,” she began, calmly suppressing the anger. “I’d like to see the faces of those I’m talking to.” She gave it a few seconds. The blank stares of the two droids in the seats remained the same. The I.T. guy looked hopeful. Jeff was possibly a little scared. Slowly, people’s cameras turned on. Faces replaced the names of dozens of attendees that had yet to abandon the meeting. Their faces were blank, but they were there.

“Here is my brother Nikolai,” she began. “And he’s not dead yet.”

Julia carefully grabbed the gauze surrounding his head and began unravelling, letting it fall to the floor. For the first time in years, the tired faces began to change.