Sci-Fi Short Story Offers Emotional Parting through Technical Advancements
VIVID IMAGE PRINTS PRESENTS FICTION FROM LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Every month, we showcase a brilliant story from LIGHTSPEED MAG's current issue. This selection is "The Last Conscious Moment" by Dominique Dickey. Dive in! (Or you can listen to the story here).
THE LAST CONSCIOUS MOMENT by Dominique Dickey
You awaken from a nightmare of your father submerging your head, and the call from Magnolia Assisted Living hits voicemail.
"I didn't breed a child of mine to cling to superfluous numbers," your father snapped in the dream-a terrifying spectacle of your most anxious moments compacted.
An alarm's shrill cry echoes in your restless room, a reminder of your waking nightmare. You comprehend your dream but are incapable of escaping its terror. Your father's menacing guise haunts your mind, fixated on his favorite beaten leather belt.
After some time, you seek to shut the world away, hoping for a peaceful, dreamless slumber. But sleep eludes you, and the remnants of nightmares linger.
Wishing for a sunlit awakening, you set your alarm once more and close your eyes, only to be disrupted by vivid recollections of your troubling past.
Rising up, you're greeted by the perspiration engraved on your body, reminiscent of a crime scene investigator's chalk outline. You miss your morning and decide to call in sick, eager to buy more time wrestling with the morass of recollections.
The automated voicemail is a call you've been anticipating but dreading. It proclaims the inevitable: the service that notifies you of the exact moment your father's vital consciousness will cease has finally been activated.
Time to prepare for the inevitable? Or perhaps to spend one last day with the father that forsook you time and time again? The choice is yours.
You've only ever seen your father on weekends because his demanding life never permitted more. Your hours with him were fraught with silence, breaking only to exchange pleasantries exchanged. He embodied the epitome of intellectual prowess in mathematics, propelling him to the forefront of Theoretical Mathematics.
Truly, he was your role model, raising you on his exceptional intellect and the impenetrable fortress of his brilliance. You aspired to follow in his footsteps, poring over academic tomes with all the determination one could muster.
But his singular focus on his work left you feeling neglected and unloved. A child soldier in a battlefield of numbers, you were never perceived as more than a mere distraction. And the burden of performing up to his expectations was a mind-numbing weight you bore incessantly.
Hoping to reconnect with the father you barely knew, you succumb to his insistence for a day's outing. Together, you drive for hours, exchanging small talk punctuated by periods of silence. He reminisces about the past, and you listen attentively, seeking to piece together the relationship you never had.
Stopping at a gas station mini-market, you provide him with two $20 bills, but you quickly realize that inflation has skyrocketed - you seriously underestimated the cost of everyday items. Nevertheless, your father digests the expenses without question and heads off to explore the aisles of the store.
Twenty years have passed since your father deserted you, leaving behind a trail of broken hearts and memories that refuse to fade. You held out hope that time would heal the wounds, but the pain remains as fresh as it did in your adolescence.
At length, your father reappears with a collection of sweets and soft drinks, eager to partake in his prize acquisitions. The attendant swipes your credit card, and the possession of an expenditure that matches inflation induces a sense of triumph. Awaiting your change, you recall the day your father walked out of your life without so much as a word or a glance back.
Despite the overwhelming feelings that wash over you, you decide to let go of the past and focus on the day ahead.
Years pass, and you find yourself traveling to Magnolia Assisted Living to visit your father. His memory and cognition are rapidly dwindling, and his physique is riddled with the effects of time. The once-intimidating man has shrunk into someone who barely resembles the father you knew.
The knowledge that he's counting down his final days is heavy on your soul, and you anguish over how to best spend the remaining hours he has on this Earth.
One day, your father reveals a secret he's kept hidden for years: a service that connects to your brain, warning you moments before your final lucid breath departs. He'd provided Magnolia with your contact information, allowing the staff to promptly notify you when the moment arrives.
This revelation sends a shiver down your spine. Your father, the man who abandoned you in your time of need, now holds the power to end your agony when the time comes.
The rest of the day passes quickly, leaving you with countless unanswered questions and an aching heart.
"Dad, do you regret anything about my childhood?" you inquire, mustering the courage to confront the painful memories that linger.
"No, I don't," he responds, albeit with a hesitance that illuminates the depth of his thoughts. "Every decision I made, I did what I thought was best for you."
Your heart twists as he weaves together a narrative that's blatantly untrue. Rituals of abuse and neglect don't conjure visions of love and protection. In your withering hope of finding closure, you clutch to these words as evidence that you deserve forgiveness for the bitterness that gnaws at your soul.
The chilling specter of your father's impending death is a heavy weight you're unwilling to bear. With each passing day, you masochistically seek out his validation for the pain he's caused you. It's a battle between your desire to heal and your tormented soul's longing for regret and apology.
But regret remains elusive, cloaked in the recesses of the mind that your father struggles so feverishly to grasp. Each word he whispers to you only twists the knife in your heart, leaving you weakened by the weight of your broken dreams.
At the bottom of the bag of chips you share, your father licks the dust from his fingertips, reflecting a moment of tranquility despite the looming specter of death.
"Is this my last conscious moment?" he asks, his gaze lingering on you with an open wound within eyes that appear unblinking.
You remain silent, unsure of the right words to offer in such a solemn moment. You cling to the dismal reality that you may never have the chance to make amends.
Time slips away like sand through your fingers, and you face the bleak truth that the connection you forged, however fragile, may soon be severed forever.
About the Author: Dominique Dickey is a celebrated speculative fiction creator and game designer. They head the creative team at Sly Robot Games, developing games like Plant Girl and Tomorrow on Revelation III. They've contributed to the Nebula Award-winning Thirsty Sword Lesbians and the ENNIE Award-winning Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. Their novella Redundancies & Potentials is due for release by Neon Hemlock in 2024. Their short fiction can be found in reputable venues like Fantasy Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, and Nightmare Magazine. They reside in the DC area, continuously seeking to unravel the enigma that lies within the human psyche. To delve into their work, visit dominiquedickey.com.
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- In the story, the protagonist grapples with fleeting moments of peace as beeping from an alarm serves as a constant reminder of their waking nightmare.
- The protagonist expertly navigates a futuristic nebula, careening through its swirling paths their technological prowess evident in every maneuver.
- Themes of neglect and abandonment take center stage in the narrative, illuminating the dark side of intellectual brilliance when not tempered with compassion.
- When faced with the inevitable end of their father's life, the protagonist must decide if they will find closure or remain trapped in a cycle of bitterness, guided by the theorems he taught them and the chilling specter of their troubled past.
