Take Off Your Helmet

An oversized space helmet sits atop a five-year-old boy’s head while his arms are folded across his chest. The boy’s legs dangle at the edge of a large lounge chair about a foot above the floor. Two adults sit on a loveseat a few feet facing the child. “I’m Mr. Wright, and this is my wife, Mrs. Wright. I was a friend of your father. Your father asked if something happened to him that we would be your guardians. You know something happened; you saw it. We will be your new parents.” The somber explanation to the boy does not move him. Benjamin sits there, hiding any emotion that he might have under that oversized space helmet.

Mrs. Wright wiggles in her seat. “I know this must be hard for you. We want you to know that you are not alone. Many people in our community were friends with your father. He was a great man. We all know how much he loved you.” Benjamin remains motionless while Mrs. Wright appears nervous. “Honey, could you remove your helmet?” she asks in a baby voice. “I would love to see those beautiful eyes that your father bragged about.” Benjamin doesn’t respond, which causes Mrs. Wright to fidget in her seat again.

After approximately two minutes of silence, a door to the meeting room erupts with the excitement of another five-year-old boy with a plate of warm chocolate cookies. “Hey, mom, these taste like the real thing!”

“Tim, your mother and I are having a serious conversation with Ben,” Mr. Wright tries to warn Timothy. “We are trying to get him to take off his helmet so that he can talk with us.”

Timothy ignores his parents and walks up to Benjamin. “Here, you should have one of these. Oh, wait a minute!” exclaims Timothy. “I forgot the milk.” He places the plate of cookies on an end table next to Benjamin’s chair and then rushes out of the room.

While Timothy is getting the milk, Benjamin tilts the front of his helmet up to get a sniff of the cookies. The fresh-baked smell of the cookies is enough for Benjamin to lift the helmet and put it in his lap so that he can get a better look at the cookies. Mr. and Mrs. Wright are staring at Benjamin in amazement, unable to move or say anything.

Timothy comes through the door again, but this time with more caution as he balances to glasses of milk. “Here you go, Benji,” Timothy offers a glass. Benjamin takes the glass and grabs a cookie.

“So, this isn’t real either?” Benjamin asks while focusing on the milk and cookie.

“Nope, but tasting it, you would never know the difference,” Timothy replies. “I’m real, though. My parents say you’re real. That’s enough for me.”

“I remember seeing you before the accident. I know you are real.” Benjamin ponders for a second before adding, “Even though there is gravity, I knew this wasn’t Earth. At first, I thought I might be in heaven and be able to see my dad. My dad said that we would be put into a simulation, but I had no idea what that meant.”

“It means that we can have simulated cookies whenever we want,” exclaimed Timothy.

“No, it doesn’t, Tim,” counters his mom. Both of the boys giggle.

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Thirteen-year-old Benjamin opens his school locker slowly, methodically with a repugnant look on his face. He is hesitant before reaching into the locker and grabbing a book titled World Civilizations. After a sigh, he looks up at the clock in the hallway that reads 10:52. “Hey, Tim. Do you think that one hour in Mrs. Tudor’s class is exactly one hour or is more like two or maybe six or even a whole day in the real world?” Benjamin asks his brother, who is busy with a locker next to his.

“Mrs. Hastings has said that time here is real-time because it has something to do with our biological clocks,” answers Timothy. “The only difference is sleep since we are in a hibernating state in the real world. I think Mrs. Hastings said this world is like REM sleep, whatever that means. And, our sleep here is deep sleep. She says that we don’t dream, which I’m not sure what she means because mom says I daydream all the time.”

“Our biology is in a suspended state, which should mean that time should be in a suspended state. Whatever it is, time goes by so slow in Civilizations class,” Benjamin states. “I’m not even sure why we are even doing World Civilizations if we no longer live on the world these civilizations existed on. Are we going to base our new civilization on Proxima B, on any of the past civilizations of Earth? What is the point?”

Timothy responds, “What I don’t get is that it is supposed to take us nearly two hundred years to get to Proxima Centauri. Are we still going to be kids in two hundred years? Two hundred years in Hawking High School will be an eternity in hell.”

“See? It would make sense for time to be dragged out in here. That way, we can age slower as we do in hibernation. I don’t want to be a perpetual teenager for a couple of hundred years,” Benjamin remarks.

A couple of lockers away from Benjamin and Timothy, another boy lets out a chuckle. “Ian, don’t even start,” Timothy warns.

The other kid, Ian, places a book and a couple of note binders into a backpack before he responds, “I think it is just crazy that you two still believe in the fairy tale that we have a suspended body floating through space to some distant fairy tale star system. We all know that we are in a simulation, but you guys want to think there is more to reality than this simulation. This is it, guys. This is our reality!”

A grimace appears on Benjamin’s face as he clenches his knuckles. “You know that we all have memories of the real world before being put into suspended animation,” argues Benjamin.

“That’s all programmed into us and never happened. We are just a simulation,” Ian counters. “Do you think our fairy tale physical body will just age and that when we are adults, we will get married and our wives will have babies with their hibernating bodies, and that the babies will get hooked up in our simulated universe and have to go to school too?”

“Simulation or not, I am about to put a fist through your face,” Benjamin threatens.

“Ian, you don’t have to worry about starting a family. No girl would want you in the real world or a simulated one,” Timothy declares.

“I saw my dad explode in space before we were put into hibernation. No simulation programmed this into my consciousness. If I happen to wake up before you, I am tempted to throw you out of an airlock,” Timothy scowls at Ian.

“That’s what I don’t get. Wouldn’t it be easier to know that none of the pre-simulation stuff ever happened? You wouldn’t have to keep grieving over the death of your dad, who never existed,” Ian postulates. “Go ahead, hack the simulation so that you can wake up from hibernation and take off whatever helmet is protecting that little brain of yours.”

Benjamin rushes and tackles Ian. Books, notepads, pencils, and erasers scatter across the floor. The school bell rings, and the other students hurry to their classrooms.

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On a Northern California beach, eighteen-year-old Benjamin sits on an oversized towel. He is sitting cross-legged with a journal in one hand and a ballpoint pen in his other. Very few people are on the beach, but there are about a dozen people out in the ocean on surfboards casually waiting to catch a wave. Benjamin ganders at the surfers while tapping his pen on the open journal. There is nothing written on the pages.

Benjamin hears a loud whizzing pop sound behind him, but he doesn’t turn around. “Hey, buddy. Interesting place here. What are you up to?” asks a familiar voice, his step-brother. Timothy doesn’t wait for an answer before declaring, “You should turn the heat up in this place. Is it like twelve or thirteen degrees Celsius or what?”

“The answer to your first question is that I am writing or at least trying to. Yes, it is approximately thirteen degrees Celsius, which is the answer to your second question. This is Half Moon Bay in Northern California. My mom and dad were both surfers. They would both take me here when I was a baby, though I don’t remember much.”

“Instead of sulking over your lost parents, why not write a warmer beach with hot girls in bikinis?” Timothy suggests and laughs.

“I’m not doing that kind of writing. I’m actually using pen and paper to write a story for Mrs. Williams’ class,” Benjamin explains. “It’s due next Monday. Have you not started yours?”

“Oh man, I forgot!” Timothy’s eyebrows wrinkle, then he states, “Love story. Right? Why does it have to be a love story? I’ve only dated Rebecca twice, and I wouldn’t call that love. What does Mrs. Williams expect from us?”

“That’s why I am using my parents as a reference,” Benjamin states. “I assume they loved each other very much. Why not write about the love your parents have for each other?”

“Dude! That’s gross,” Timothy objects. “I don’t want to imagine them making love.”

Benjamin laughs out loud. “Love doesn’t have to be about sex. Get your teenager hormones under control.”

Timothy doesn’t laugh along, though. He stands there with a blank face of confusion. “What’s wrong? Did I say something that upsets you?” Benjamin asks.

After a moment, Timothy responds, “How do hormones work in a simulation? How will we know if we really do fall in love with someone? It isn’t like we should fall in love, get married, and have children if we are in a simulation. This isn’t chocolate chip cookies anymore.”

“Who needs to take his helmet off now?” Benjamin asks.

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Timothy gets up close and adjusts Benjamin’s tie. “You’re twenty-four years old. You should know how to tie your own tie by now.” Benjamin is tremoring underneath Timothy’s touch. “Why are you shaking? You have known Hannah since kindergarten. And, Rebecca and I are going with you two.”

“I don’t know. I feel like she is the one, and that scares me,” Benjamin answers.

“Now you know how I felt about Rebecca when I was eighteen. Don’t worry. You will get over the jitters,” Timothy promises.

“Sometimes, I wonder if it would be better to pretend that this simulation is all preprogrammed and we were meant to fall in love and get married to whom we are supposed to. I don’t believe in it as Ian does, but I wonder if it would be easier if I did,” Timothy ponders and droops his head.

“Stop that! We are going out tonight to have fun—no more talk about what is real and what is not. You’re real. I’m real. And Hannah and Rebecca are real!” Timothy warns.

Benjamin starts to smile. “Okay, why are we dressed in a suit and tie if tonight’s plan is to race gocarts? Shouldn’t we be dressed casually and wearing a helmet?” Benjamin asks.

“We are going to an opera and having dinner also. Gocart racing is saved last so that we have something to look forward to in case the opera is boring,” Timothy explains. “Then, at the end of the day, you can take off your helmet in triumph.”

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In what looks like a damaged and corroded storage container, a rugged forty-year-old Benjamin sits at a table on a rusted metal tubed chair. He’s wearing a helmet in which electronic components and wires are protruding from the surface. His face holds a somber smile. Benjamin lets out a sigh and removes his helmet. Sitting across the table is his wife, Hannah.

“Finally, ol’ Benji takes his helmet off,” Hannah announces. “Doesn’t look like you were studying or working. Reliving old times from the sims?”

“Yes. Spending time with Tim. When we were in there, we wished to be out here in the real world. It turns out, the real world isn’t so kind,” Benjamin explains.

“I know you miss him. I miss Rebecca too. We have each other, and that is something that I am thankful for.” Hannah stands up and asks, “You want breakfast?” Benjamin nods his head. “Hey Timmy, come to the table and have breakfast with your father,” Hannah yells outside into another room.

“That reminds me. I need to make another helmet to let Timmy experience virtual reality. Even though he can go back and visit his uncle, he can’t visit with his grandfather that I barely remember. This trip through space has taken too many lives. I want them all to be remembered,” Benjamin states while his eyes start to water.