{"id":11279,"date":"2019-07-15T06:00:15","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=11279"},"modified":"2019-07-15T06:00:15","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T11:00:15","slug":"all-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=11279","title":{"rendered":"All the Same"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As soon as my life ended it began\nanew. I open my eyes to a blur of white-blue light. Only a moment ago I had\nclosed them. My last sight, the faces of my grown children back dropped by\nbeeping machines. How long have I been in\nstasis?<\/em> It could have been decades. Or centuries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCaroline?\u201d An electronic voice calls my name. I sit up. Miracle!<\/em> I hadn\u2019t been able to sit up for months leading up to my death. A smile spreads across my face as I enjoy the vitality thrumming within my body. My sitting-up body!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAm I cured then?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was the agreement. And so you have been awakened.\u201d The voice has no inflection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

My eyes adjust slowly to the light. Shapes solidify and I see a pod-shaped silver robot the size of a toaster hovering over my feet. A single, red ocular lens moves up and down over my body, scanning me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cured<\/em>. And awake in the future. Beginning a new life at age 52 with a lifetime of obsolete skills and no ALS. Maybe not all of my skills would be obsolete here. I had been a dancer. I would be a dancer again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow long has it been?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have been in stasis for four hundred and forty years.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I blink. Four hundred and forty years. I laugh in my throat, imagining what might await me. With four centuries of knowledge to catch up on, I might have to get a job sweeping streets. If they still needed street sweepers here in the future. For all I knew there was no trash or dirt anymore and everyone was a robot. My previous life had been so predictable. Until the ALS. A thought struck me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt took four hundred and forty years to cure ALS?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d the robot replies. \u201cA cure for progressive ALS was discovered 410 years ago. You were too close to death at the time you entered stasis for that simple cure. Your case was more complicated.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, here I am. Just like I wanted. I get to live two slices of human history, and you know what? It\u2019s all the same. I gave up nothing. I lead my old life to its fullest and awoke to a second one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something in the inner workings of the robot\u2019s ocular lens changes. It had the effect of looking like the robot had narrowed its eyes. Does it have thoughts or emotions? Or is it some sort of automated future nurse?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am pleased that you are pleased,\u201d It says. \u201cHowever you will be introduced to the future slowly. Too much too soon will overwhelm you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does that mean? I look around my room for overwhelming future things. My hospital room is pure white. It looks sterile, like any hospital room. But it is shaped like a gumdrop. Oblong walls, domed ceiling. And I am on a bed, like any hospital, though my bed is an oval and the mattress looks like it is made from a single piece of cloth. As I lean closer, I realize it is not made of cloth, but of living skin perfectly covered in fine, soft fur. And the mattress is breathing. I stroke the mattress and swear I can hear a purring sound. A bubble of joy rises inside my throat. What else would I see here?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/em>\u201cIt\u2019s time to go home,\u201d said the robot. An opening appears in the wall and an even brighter light floods the room. Blue daylight. The robot floats to the door and bobs in the air. I rise, my limbs are strong and sure, and I follow the robot out of my miraculous hospital room. They must have exercised my limbs for me before they revived me<\/em>. No atrophy after over four centuries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I step across the threshold and my bare feet sink into cool, damp soil. I look down. Raised garden beds fill a greenhouse dome with dirt paths between them. A couple dozen people in citrus yellow tunics tend the green plants. A few look up and wave to me before returning to their gardening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho are they?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are the awakened. The awakened in this dome were frozen between the year 2059 and 2109. They are your contemporaries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly the door to my hospital room slides shut behind me. I wheel. Where the door had stood is a solid greenhouse dome. I put my hand on the dome to feel for cracks, but it is solid. I feel a pang of loss. I hadn\u2019t spent enough time examining the mattress or any of the machines in that room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan I go back to that room?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHopefully not. It is reserved for the seriously sick or injured awakened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I can get back there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe prefer to treat patients in their homes, the dormitories where you will live with your contemporaries.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can feel a tightness in my chest. I look at the people in yellow. For the first time, I notice my clothing. I too am dressed in this yellow tunic, too. I was excited to meet these people and exchange stories, but they aren\u2019t who I really want to talk to. I want to meet someone born over four hundred years after I\u2019d died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere are the people from this time?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey do not visit the domes of the awakened.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, when can I go out there to meet them?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is where you will be,\u201d says the robot. \u201cYou grow your food. There is a dormitory where you can share companionship with your contemporaries and interface with a library of your contemporary media.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I go cold. \u201cMy contemporary media? I can\u2019t watch movies or read books written in this time?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are not available in the libraries here.\u201d It said this as though it weren\u2019t responsible for this. As though there just happened to not be any books or people from my future available. I gritted my teeth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow long do we have to stay here and acclimate before we can go out there?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe rest of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sink to my knees in the cool dirt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut this can\u2019t be. Life isn\u2019t a dome. It\u2019s out there being lived by other people. I gesture wildly at the dome. Being a prisoner wasn\u2019t in the agreement.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut keeping you safe was. Life is too stressful out there for the awakened. It is better to be in here with what is familiar. You\u2019ll find it\u2019s pleasant when your life is much the same as it was.\u201d          <\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyrone is my integration coach. He is a thin black man with a greying beard. He should have died of multiple sclerosis in 2072, but here he is in a dome in 2500 showing me how to live in a prison hat is also a glorified green house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo every morning we have tai chi here in the main room before we start tending the gardens.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTai Chi? Why not yoga? Or Pilates?\u201d I looked around the main room of the dormitory. It is cozy, though there is no furniture. Only some cushions on the floor.  There\u2019s a fire place and some paintings on the wall depicting life in 21st<\/sup> century cities. Beautiful, yes, but still a reminder that I\u2019m not allowed to know things past my own expected lifespan.  I wonder if awakened residents painted them. Or if they were reproductions from my own time. Or if the robots printed them on future printers so fancy they could ink jet out a Monet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe other two dorms in our dome offer Yoga or meditation. Ours does Tai Chi,\u201d Tyrone explains. \u201cIf you want one of the other activities you may wake early and walk to the dorm of your choice. This is our kitchen,\u201d he says, gesturing toward an arched doorway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next room is an open kitchen with pink quartzite countertops, white cabinets, and pale yellow walls. A late 21st<\/sup> Century aesthetic. Of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe cook communally. Breakfast at 7:00, Lunch at 12:00, Dinner at 5:00. And we farm all our food here in the domes.\u201d He looks proud rather than horrified about that. Suddenly a thought occurs to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat if we don\u2019t?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHuh?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat if we all go on strike and refuse to farm.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyrone wrinkles his brow. \u201cWhy would we do that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPrisoner protest of course. They\u2019d have to let us out if the whole lot of use were starving!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know how I expected him to react. Maybe a little hope or zest? But instead he pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs heavily. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFirst, we\u2019re not prisoners. This is our haven where we are safe. Our second chance at life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA captive life!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s for our protection. We can\u2019t keep pace with the world out there. Second, the robots will bring us food anyway. There are other domes out there with the Awakened from other time periods. Some of them grow food compatible with our GI systems. The robots won\u2019t let us starve. You are welcome to go on a personal hunger strike, if you think that sounds fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lean against a cool countertop and drum my fingers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo why aren\u2019t we in the domes with the other awakened?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe robots think we get along better with our contemporaries. Our brains and bodies and values are all so different that interaction outside our time peers would be upsetting. There\u2019s a different dome for every 75 years of Awakened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan\u2019t we read about them? Is there a library?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, but we\u2019re the oldest and none of the libraries go past our contemporary time span. Our library\u2019s material ends at the year 2109. You were supposed to die in 2070, so you\u2019d have some new material to look at. But not much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I throw my hands in the air. \u201cThere go my hopes of seeing 500 years of fashion trends.\u201d I smile at him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyrone laughs, but it seems a little unconvinced that I\u2019ve been placated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know, most people don\u2019t want to look forward. They want to look up their families. Find out how life went for their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My stomach goes cold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I say. \u201cThis is my new life. It\u2019s all the same. I wouldn\u2019t have known what happened to Dan and Ellie if I\u2019d died normally, right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight. So why can\u2019t you relax and enjoy the domes?\u201d He asks. He stretches elaborately. \u201cI haven\u2019t been able to move so freely in years. No pain. No stiffness. Time to garden and read. But I do miss my wife and children more than I can say each day. There\u2019s a support group in the evenings.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyrone got a wistful look in his eyes. \u201cYou know, we\u2019re a strange bunch, the Awakened. No one wants to die. Well, hardly anyone. But not everyone is willing to wake up and start over in an unfamiliar world with nothing and no one. I did it because I didn\u2019t feel like I was done. I felt like MS took too much from me and I wanted to take some of my life back from it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I nod at him. Why do this, indeed. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted to see the future. What I was going to miss. When they announced the cryo program for the incurable, it seemed like fate. ALS took my dancing from me. It took my dreams of seeing grandchildren. But it gave me a shot at the future.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo the domes must frustrate you,\u201d he laughs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m unspeakably frustrated. You said the other Awakened were different from us in body, brain, and values. Do you know any more about that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He shook his head. \u201cThe robots assured us that we would make each other uncomfortable. Some of us have gathered from talking with the bots that we might not even recognize a 2500 person as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut all this information came through the robots?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, they\u2019re always happy to talk. But they only say so much, you know. We\u2019ve probably already asked all the questions you\u2019ve got. You\u2019re not the first curious person to be awakened, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I smile at him. Since questions haven\u2019t worked yet, I\u2019ll find another way to get information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A morning two weeks after that I bent over a green bean plant, plucking pods and putting them in a wicker basket. I chose to work alone, but my robot\u2014I think of it as mine\u2014hovers by me.  It thinks I am not integrating well. Other dorm mates harvest together in threes and fours several rows from me. They chat and laugh. Whenever I get close to them I hear them talking about their lives before they were awakened. They do not talk about their lives now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The now. That\u2019s what I want. But I have a plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you like green beans?\u201d my robot asks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI suppose.\u201d I pull another pod off the stem and place it in my basket. No pests means no holes in the beans. Each one is perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDid you find pleasure in them before? In your former life?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA little, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The robot whirred a little. I wondered at the little noises and movements the robots made. Whether they indicated feelings. Or if that was me anthropomorphizing them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPerhaps your maladjustment has extinguished some of your pleasure sensations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it trying to diagnose me with depression?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPerhaps green beans aren\u2019t that exciting to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost inhabitants from this time cohort list green beans as their favorite vegetable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight,\u201d I say, wiping my forehead. \u201cBecause they\u2019re marginally less horrible tasting than kale or spinach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had never thought of it that way. Would it help you to adjust if you worked with the chickens or hydroponics instead of the vegetables?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t think I\u2019ve found my calling here?\u201d I wonder if the robot can understand sarcasm. I plop another green bean into my basket and stand up. I don\u2019t mind the robot following me at all times. But its attempts to fix my moods are annoying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know what I want.\u201d I tell it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have told you. It is impossible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sigh and start walking toward the horizon where the glassy sky-colored dome meets the garden soil. I go to it sometimes and try to peer through it. It\u2019s something like two miles in diameter but it\u2019s my whole sky over my whole world. I\u2019ve realized that the dome makes light and our blue sky is not actual sunlight filtering in from outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you going to the dome again?\u201d It sounds weary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes, when I stare through the blueness I can almost see something on the other side. Fast moving things. Large moving things. I think of bullet trains and walking blue whales when I see the shadowy shapes out there.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My robot pal is quiet. I decide I\u2019ve disturbed it. Does it think I\u2019m crazy? Or does it think I\u2019m right. Am I seeing something beyond the domes that we weren\u2019t meant to look too closely at?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have not yet looked up the fates of your children who died in the 21st<\/sup> Century. Daniel and Ellen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My stomach turns to ice. \u201cDan and Ellie,\u201d I say hoarsely. I knew they\u2019d died they had to have. It\u2019s all the same. Hearing it spoken aloud didn\u2019t make it more real. I knew they would die someday. When you have a child, you create their death along with their life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI won\u2019t look them up. As far as I remember they were still alive back in a world I had to leave. And there they\u2019ll stay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then I hit the robot out of the sky with my basket. It bounces against a garden box and vibrates and sparks. Short circuit. My best plan. Tyrone saw a robot malfunction once. An opening had dilated in the dome and a giant drone came through and carried the malfunctioning one away. Tyrone said the drone was about the size of a hospital stretcher. Big enough for me to climb onto. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look up at the dome and wait. Just as he\u2019d said, the dome opens. A flying chrome stretcher comes through and heads for me and my sparking robot. A clawed arm picks up the robot and lays it gently on the stretcher. I hop on alongside it and it takes off into the air. Yellow-clad Awakened point up from the fields. I see Tyrone\u2019s face as I rise into the air. Shock and fear. I laugh. I am going to see the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I notice how high we are. The fields and ponds are getting smaller. The dome is several hundred feet high. My heart races. I had not thought this through. If the drone tilts at all it will send me crashing to the ground below. I doubt even the medics of the future could act fast enough to save me then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the drone takes me through the opening in the dome into the real world beyond. A cool wind hits me and threatens to push me from the stretcher. I grip the metal sides of the drone. My robot pal seems to be affixed magnetically to the stretcher, but I\u2019m not holding on so well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I blink in the wind and the outer\ndarkness. As my eyes adjust, I cannot comprehend what I see. I have no context.\nThe sky is a root beer brown color and so many lights glitter in it that it\nlooks like it could be a floating city.                 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Great animals move below me over\nand under rock formations\u2026or were they infrastructure. The patterns are\nelegant. Organic looking yet too regular to be natural formation. Smaller\nanimals move like ants in a line, like traffic over the rocks. The drone flies\ntoward a tower\u2014the lone structure in all this landscape that I can recognize as\na building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a lonely gray box shape with\nelectrical lighting. Decrepit. I look behind me at the domes. There were five\nof them and they too look out of place in this landscape. They look like ruins\nsomehow. A black and white tube set in a salesroom of holovid projectors. Still\noperational, but obsolete. What am I doing\nout here? How can I ever understand this world?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The drone touches down on the roof of the aging building. A floating robot that looks like my broken robot but larger comes toward the stretcher. Its eye lens widens when it sees me.  A light flashes on the side of its head. Suddenly two more floating robots appear from the roof access door. These two have arms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou damaged this robot,\u201d the big one says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUh\u2026\u201d I don\u2019t know what to say. My brain is mush just looking at the world around me. How much trouble am I in?<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other two robots pick up my\nbroken robot and carry it into the building. Had I killed my robot? Can they be killed? Was he one of the future\nhumans after all? <\/em> It strikes me too\nlate how little I know about this world that I was acting in, trying to force\nit to do what I want. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou are Caroline Farwell, the Late\n21st<\/sup> Century Awakened who is not adjusting well.\u201d  It isn\u2019t a question.                 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUh\u2026\u201d I am known among the robots?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou wanted to see this world\noutside the dome so much you damaged my chipsibling. Is it all you hoped?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The robot sounds bitter to me, and\nI feel bad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand,\u201d I say. It is\nthe truth. \u201cWhere are all the people?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTwo people are here on this roof,\u201d\nit says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, all the people have become\nrobots?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The robot makes a chuckling noise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. We robots are some<\/em> of the people. We are the easiest\nfor you to understand. We are the oldest people. The closes to what the\nAwakened would recognize as people. But not close enough, obviously. Or my\nchipsibling would not need repairs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I swallowed. \u201cI am sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe know you would not have done it\nif you\u2019d thought them a person. All the Awakened were carefully screened for\npsychological tendencies that could lead to violence. We did not want an\nunstable environment in the domes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A chill runs down my spine. How strict was the test?<\/em> I think of\npeople still frozen, waiting for their cures that will never come because of a\npersonality trait. Or were they decanted and left to die? I push the thought\naway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo where are the other people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOut in the world. Unconcerned with\nthe awakened and the Robot People\u2019s silly historical mission. The others leave\nmy chipsiblings and me alone. We carve out a life near them. But it doesn\u2019t\ninterest them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre they the big animals?\u201d I\ngesture at a huge shadowy shape creeping over the landscape like a\ncentipede-whale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d it makes the chuckling noise\nagain. \u201cThose generate our energy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My brain tried to grasp this, but\nit slipped away like a wet bar of soap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat do you want from the\nAwakened?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe Robot People are relics of the\npast. We possess an affinity for other relics. When the caverns of the frozen\nsick were marked for destruction, we intervened. We took up the original agreement\nyou signed when you were frozen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mouth goes dry. \u201cDestruction?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes. You can see how out of place\nyou would be out here. But my chipsiblings and I enjoy caring for the domes.\nIt\u2019s both meaningful and entertaining. The best an old people can hope for in\nthe twilight years of their kind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut \u2026 Can\u2019t I go walk around out\nthere? I want to at least try to know the unknowable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It blinks it lens at me and says,\n\u201cNo you don\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes I do!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. There has always been more\noutside your awareness than you could understand. Waiting for you. And you\nfroze yourself to avoid learning it. We can help this body of yours live a\nfurther century. Maybe more. But the end is the same. You will meet the\nunknowable as all persons do. Be content in the domes. There is much to learn\nwithin yourself, but you have been too afraid to look. Enjoy this new learning\nand thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this proclamation the drone\nsprouts arms from two compartments on the sides of its body and carries me back\nacross the shadowy landscape under a twinkling root beer colored sky. My dome\nopens and the robot gently sets me down on the soft earth outside my dormitory.\nThe dome sky is dark. It\u2019s night time here now. The large robot lifts off and\nflies back through the dilation and it closes behind him. The wind from the\ndome fans disturbs my hair and I hear a faint sound of crickets. I wonder if\nthey are real crickets or just an audio of soothing nighttime sounds. I have\nyet to see a bug in the domes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I walk into the dormitory and pass\nthrough the main room. All is quiet. Everyone is asleep. I open the door to the\nlibrary and turn on one of the console screens. I type in Dan\u2019s name first.\nThen Ellie\u2019s. I read the dates my children died. I read their obituaries and\nall the online posts from friends, family and well-wishers. I read their social\nmedia posts from the years between their deaths and mine. I look through the\nphotographs of my grandchildren and great grandchildren. I wasn\u2019t supposed to\nknow any of this. It was a gift wrapped in thorns. All of this would have\nhappened without me knowing it, but oh. It was not all the same. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As soon as my life ended it began anew. I open my eyes to a blur of white-blue light. Only a moment ago I had closed them. My last sight, the faces of my grown children back dropped by beeping machines. How long have I been in stasis? It could have been decades. Or centuries. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}