Alone

Choose to affirm or to alone.

“Alone is a word that carries about as much practical, real understanding for this reclusive sect of monk as zero G has for us. It’s a thing, it exists and can be experienced should we choose, but the rules that govern our day to day existence preclude us from doing so.”

Z had lost count of the number of times he’d heard this exact speech delivered in this exact manner. If I hadn’t met the professor’s wife, I might have believed him to be an automaton, thought Z, laughing to himself at the professor’s expense. The sudden break in the professor’s cadence startled him, making him aware that he was lost in thought and laughing out loud. The first year students were staring.

“Sorry,” Z said, embarrassed at having an unexpected command of the room, “I guess it just seems funny to me—thinking that you wouldn’t exist anymore if there wasn’t another person with you to prove you’re real.”

“Yes, Zachary.”

Z hated to be called Zachary, but it was in commiserating with Eve and her disdain at the professor’s incessant use of Evelyn, that the two of them had first hit it off.

The professor scoffed, “It’s difficult to wrap your head around the idea because you have been alone, you have unshakable proof at having experienced firsthand knowledge of having continued to exist in that state.”

Experienced your wife firsthand, Z thought. Out loud, he said, “I think we should do them a favor then and have one of us show up alone. I mean, wouldn’t you want to know?”

“As you know, if you showed up in their preserve alone, they’d think you were a God. And if you tried to leave one of them alone, they’d physically restrain you to prevent it. Now, are you my assistant, my dear Zachary, or have you taken up the position of resident heckler?”

The professor had started to sweat a bit under the duress of having stepped off script, but the success of this quip restored his command of the room and he swept back into his pre-packaged patter, with heavy emphasis on the buddy system.

They landed uneventfully planetside and passed quickly through customs. All but Sammy, who seemed to forget the interplanetary ban on insect repellent. Z rolled his eyes. It had only been in place since the Fiddle Wars ended and the Browncluse planet joined the coalition.

“Will you please wait for Sammy and his buddy and then catch up with the group?” the professor said.

Z gave the professor a mock salute that the professor ignored as he led the group into the preserve. Z capped off his salute in a raised middle finger, self indulgent tool.

Not even three minutes from port, Sammy came to the abrupt realization that he’d left his camera at the customs counter.

Z observed three monks engrossed in conversation at the rail of the bridge they’d have to cross to reach the path to the main village.

“I'll stay here with them. You two hurry back.”

Sammy and his buddy shuffled quickly back the way they had come.

“Stay together!” Z shouted after them.

He turned to see that only one monk remained at the railing.

“Where’s your friends?” Z inquired.

“I need only one to affirm self.”

“Okay, sure. Um…you live in the village?”

“In the village, on the bridge, one lives in all places where one exists.”

“Well, when the kids I’m waiting on return, let’s all go live in the village together.” Z laughed a little, nervously.

“We may yet live in the village together, should we remain on that life’s path.” The monk turned and stepped briskly down the village path, effectively taking Z hostage and leaving Sammy and his buddy to make their own way. Z tried to keep up, having no time to think, let alone stop the monk and keep him at the bridge. Picking up his pace, he narrowed the gap.

When Z was no more than an arm’s reach away from the monk, he finally got his wits about him. “Wait!”

With less warning than he had left the bridge, the monk stopped, pivoting on his leading leg and shifting his weight in an abrupt about face. He caught Z, who had not yet begun to slow down, in a bear hug. Z couldn’t avoid bowling the monk over. He reflexively hugged the monk back as the two toppled and tumbled down a gently sloping valley in each other’s arms.

The monk stood, brushing himself off before doing the same for Z. “Today we affirm in adventure, come!” The monk began to glide swiftly through the forest brambles.

“Can we please go back? There are people who need me to guide them,” Z pleaded.

“I will be your guide. I will bring you to choose to affirm or to alone.”

With less grace, more personal injury, and on no visible path, Z followed the monk through the sharp and brittle brush piles of the forest floor. “I hate to be the one to break it to you,” Z said, “but I’ve chosen to alone a bunch of times and I'm still here to affirm with you.”

“You come from a world of telecommunications, do you not? A world of man-made satellites and electronic interconnectedness? What greater proof must you have that you must have one to affirm self?”

He thought again distractedly of Eve and the time they’d spent together.

The monk reached a clearing and his pace increased again. Z had to run now to keep up.

“Furthermore, you live in a world where you carry no personal mementos. No tokens, talismans, or photos. With your device left behind at customs, there is not one to affirm on you. You carry only this.”

The monk held aloft Z’s coalition card. The shining laser card gleamed in the bright sunlight. It was coated with a special sealant, a nearly indestructible epoxy, to protect the silver filament beneath and the data it contained. Not even a fingerprint would stick to its glossy surface. A scan at any laser reader in the coalition could satisfy all queries. But here, it was useless and completely indistinguishable from any other citizen I.D.

Z felt his pocket. It was empty. “Hey! What’s the big idea?”

The monk tossed the card behind him and Z caught it after several stumbles and near fumbles.

The monk slowed as the clearing narrowed to a path before opening up once again to a circular patch. Dense woods surrounded them.

The monk stopped in the center and turned to face Z once more. “I could not call myself a guide if I was not thorough. I wish for you to take note of one last thing and then you may decide.”

Z had grown more and more anxious as he followed the monk into the foreboding forest, but could not bring himself to leave the monk. The cuckold's multitudinous lectures to ignorant students rang in his head.

Just then, the largest tree in the circle, the one directly behind the monk— one that Z now realized was perfectly symmetrical, from top to bottom— opened out into the circular clearing.

Standing behind the door were the monk’s companions from the bridge.

“Of special note is that this place is a sanctuary, a place of preservation, yes, but also a place which was built for us and for our purposes. Outside of the villages, no other life exists on this planet. There are no native species of animals or plants of any kind.

“Everything around you is a prop, a fabrication, and this door can only be opened from the inside. In short, once it is closed, you will be fully alone—no living thing, be it plant, animal or spirit save yourself will remain to affirm.

“So, I ask you now, do you choose to affirm and live a mortal life, or do you choose to alone and risk the void in pursuit of Godhood?”

Z looked around and saw for the first time through the illusion. He saw the forest and grass for what it really was. A flash of the professor’s wife begging Z to take her away from it all flooded his vision and he thought that to affect her in this way and to hold the professor’s delicate ego so firmly in his hands was enough. Enough to alone, enough to think himself a God.

“I choose to alone.”

The monk walked slowly backwards, maintaining eye contact. He stepped back through the door’s threshold and paused and gave Z a pitying glance before closing the door on what was now an empty circular patch in the middle of a dense artificial wood.