Finish the Fiction Story Contest - Week #37 - @bananafish

Lucid Dream
by @f3nix

There it was. An immense sphere, soaked in the amniotic liquid of the lucid dream. An embryo of edges, curves, dimensions, and impossible geometries. Static and fluid at the same time, iridescent, elusive and hypnotic in its eternal becoming.

There it was. After the struggle and the debris. There it was. Yoh's conscience.

Strung like pearls, millennia had relegated it to a mere legend, while Yoh raged freely on Earth. The existence of the conscience on a deep and subtle plane had been denied by the Master Demiurges, who originally created the source code. Their self-fulfilling prophecy had become inexorable, relegating Yoh's conscience first to the status of children's fable and then to nothingness. It had slept for a long, long time.

There, on board of the DDG-31/DD-936 Decatur, drifting in the outer space, Ethan had plenty of time for being instructed by the orbital station's A.I. about the possible effects on him of Yoh's conscience sudden epiphany.

It was not a God but it got close. This implied that the disintegration of the self, on all the planes of existence, was a more than spontaneous and probable event, as someone reached its proximity.

A sound of laborious ants interrupted Ethan’s astonished musings. The meta-viewer force fields were working around him incessantly, raising the programmed shields.

The mere sight of its unstable geometries would have been fatal for him. The neural system of his exoskeleton was crackling and working hard, at the edge of its computing power, to prevent the involuntary assimilation. Now he found himself immersed in a bath of waves that could have slipped him into oblivion instantly if he had not activated all the exoskeleton’s guard levels.

He felt like an infinitesimal dipteran, imprisoned in a dense amber atmosphere.

The Conscience's voices suddenly whipped Ethan's synapses like a thousand organ pipes in unison. He fell to his knees, eyes wide open and incredulous: no A.I. could ever have prepared him for this.

"I am. I happen. By dreaming, I have sung the creation of infinite worlds. Are you a Master?"

Ethan recorded the strange question, slowly taking courage. Standing up on his trembling legs, he pulled off his helmet and shouted:

"Conscience of Yoh, I am not a Master. I am the last of your creations, forgotten in your long sleep".

A deafening, golden silence.

As the most intimate essence of each cell began to evaporate through his cybernetic shell, Ethan frantically sought one last thought.

My Entry:

For some strange reason Ethan’s last frantic thought landed on Thanksgiving Day, at his in-laws place in Detroit, Michigan.

In the morning they’d all enjoyed watching the Lions play the Bears at Ford Field.

On the car ride back home, they had all felt defeated except Uncle Buck who kept burping “Da Bears”.

As they neared the driveway to the house, Ethan’s brother-in-law said, “If we all convert to Islam the Lions will have to change their team colors to match that of the wild beast that roams the Sahara.”

Uncle Buck burped, “Da Bears!”

While Ethan shook his head in amazement. Sitting shotgun he met the eyes of his father-in-law and for a moment felt the bond of his follow Christian.

They all kept drinking in the house as the women folk talked on and on in the kitchen fussing over the Thanksgiving Dinner. Only Ethan’s brother-in-law didn’t drink any alcohol, he just sat in the corner of the living room reading the Quran while the Cowboys played the Redskins.

Ethan went outside at halftime to smoke a cigarette and his brother-in-law joined him.

“What’s with all this Islamic shit?” Ethan asked a little inebriated.

“Look brother, its all about finding God in the end. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian or into Islam. The manifestation of God in and of itself becomes the single goal we all strive to achieve, just a different slant man.”

“What?” Ethan said and pounded his Bud Light. He would need some more soon.

“Think of death for example. My new religion teaches me that death only happens when it is meant to happen. You cannot die unless it is your time to die. Only your time to die is destined and cannot be cheated. It’s concepts like that my faith wants to follow.”

That conversation stayed with Ethan all through his early years in the Air Force, continued with his acceptance into Astronaut training school, and finally until this moment with the Conscience of Yoh.

And as the Conscience of Yoh with God like powers began to dissolve his physical self, he felt conflicted. Did he not believe that his death at this time had somehow been prearranged? Written in the stars so to speak as prophecy, destined? He couldn’t help to feel it true.

And yet, did that now make him Islamic?

He had always meant to die with his boots on as a follower of Christ ready to kneel at the cross. Only this death, in this manner, with his stupid brother-in-law’s speech in his mind, left him speechless as his final thought lead him to the Quran.

Thank you,
Cyrus Emerson

Red Roses the audiobook for your consideration at the Voice Arts Awards (NYC), and the Grammys (LA).
https://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Red-Roses-Audiobook/B07F2LWHPN

Red Roses narrated by Kira Omans
www.kiraomans.com

Red Roses music by Rike Luxx
www.rikeluxxbeats.com

Red Roses sound by Pond5
www.pond5.com

Also, available from The Author:

Fear and Loathing in the State of Jefferson - ebook
https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B079R5KLPN&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_GsURAbAVDYNEM

Lost Angel – Introduction with Ray Manzarek of The Doors
https://www.downpour.com/lost-angel?sp=249812