Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

Abstract

here again. A plump, tired-looking woman in her forties, hair hanging messily around her weathered face, and loose, dry skin drooping from her cheeks and chin. Her blue pajamas are covered with dark brown stains. She walks towards me, her eyes glistening with tears of joy and loss.“David! My baby!” she chokes. Too overcome to articulate further, she embraces me again in a tight, loving choke-hold. I can feel desperation emanating from her body as I return the embrace.“I’m sorry my Baby,” she sobs into my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Please come back to me. Nothing is the same…”“I’m… here.” Of their own accord, the words depart my lips in a slow, strained whisper. Hearing them just makes her grip me tighter, intensifying the smells of warm milk and cheap wine. Behind her, the stars’ reflections in the black ocean shimmer and flow with the lapping waves. In all of this, I still feel… nothing. I quietly observe the stillness, until it is again shattered by the piercing ringing, disintegrating everything to white nothingness…Once again I wake. This time in a sprawling park, grass and dirt in my mouth. Again the auburn-haired woman is there, running up to me immediately. Crying tears of unabashed joy. She takes my hand and walks me around the park. Pointing out everything. The brilliant pink of the flowers. The drying yellow-green carpet of grass. The gazebo tilting lazily in the corner. The woman shows me all of it.“Remember? That’s where we had your first birthday party. You wouldn’t sit still,” she laughs sadly. “I guess you were too young to remember. Your father manned the barbecue, while I spent the day making sandwiches.”I finally twinge with feeling as I watch my Mother talking. My Mother. No longer just the strange auburn-haired woman. She finally smiles, lost in memories long past. We carry on walking until the familiar ring of the world ending echoes through…Again and again, I wake up, always somewhere new. Sometimes a mall. Sometimes a train station. Sometimes David’s house. Sometimes David’s school. My Mother is always there waiting for me. Every time she holds me as though she fears I’m about to slip away. And each time, she shows me a l

Options

ife I don’t remember living.Am I David? Am I this woman’s son? I don’t know who David is. I have never been to any of these places before. I don’t know anything about this reality in which I exist. The reality ends when the shrill siren sounds, only to begin again.I wake up on the road again. The same road I woke up on the first time. Only this time it isn’t empty. An acrid smell punctuates the smoke-filled, hazy air. The burnt-out husks of two destroyed cars lay on either side of me. All around me people are running, screaming and crying. Firefighters and police swarm the area.Standing in the center of the chaos, I feel the familiar grip of Mother, as she pulls me away. Off the road, away from the wreckage, into a doorway, through to white nothingness.“I’m sorry,” Mother says, sobbing once again. “I should never have let you go. I should have made you stay home.” She futilely wipes her tears away, but they continue to pour. “That car would never have… You’d still be alive… if only I hadn’t let you go. You’d be safe. You’d still be with me.”This time I approach Mother and hold her tightly, trying to hold all her tears in. She only weeps harder. “I’d get to see you graduate, see you get married. See your babies.” She pulls back to stare into my eyes. “I’d be able to see you… for real. Not just… here.”The shrill piercing ring starts, and the whiteness comes, only to abruptly stop, with color returning to the world. Mother holds me tight to her chest. “Not today. Not today. No alarm today. Today, I am going to hold you. To stay with you. For as long as I want. I don’t want to wake up. Not yet.”Mother and I embrace within the empty white space for what feels like an eternity. I know now who I am. I am David. I am my Mother’s son. Not the son she raised, the son that died, that she deeply misses. I am the son that exists in this dream space. The space where she comes every night as she sleeps.Eventually, the world-ending whiteness comes for me again. But I know that I will still be here, every single night. Waiting to provide solace to my Mother. I am real. And I will always be there for her, within this space.</article></body>

A Space of Existence

I wake to the bitter taste of bitumen. Stray gravel grazes my cheek as I clumsily lift myself off the ground and sway unsteadily in the middle of the road. For as far as I can see, there isn’t a single car in sight. Either side of me, tall, imposing skyscrapers reach upward into a hazy, uncertain sky.

I’m not alone. Around me, silent and distant people shuffle, paying no attention to the person standing in the middle of the road. As I look around and take the landscape in, I realize I don’t know where I am. Nor who I am.

The sounds of footsteps running on asphalt echo behind me, steadily amplifying, until I am forcefully struck from behind, a pair of thick, flabby arms snaking around my torso and gripping me. My assailant roughly turns me to face her— I see a fleeting glimpse of auburn hair and tears before she entraps me in a sobbing hug.

"My baby, my baby," she sobs, whilst painfully holding me. I stand stoically as the unknown woman emphatically embraces me, as though she has no intention to ever let me loose.

"I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. Please, don’t ever leave me again."

Her hands tighten around me like a noose as she buries her tear-stricken face into my shoulder. I feel nothing but nonetheless, allow myself to sink into her embrace.

A shrill, piercing ringing in the sky shatters the silence, as my body and surroundings fade to whiteness…

I open my eyes to find myself face-down again, granules of sand in my mouth. I roll over to see the crisscrossing leaves of coconut palms and a swirling blue and purple starlit sky beyond. As I sit up, a quiet black ocean greets me, surrounding the tiny island upon which I sit. The trees, the leaves, and the ocean are all deathly still.

I am not alone. The auburn-haired woman is there again. A plump, tired-looking woman in her forties, hair hanging messily around her weathered face, and loose, dry skin drooping from her cheeks and chin. Her blue pajamas are covered with dark brown stains. She walks towards me, her eyes glistening with tears of joy and loss.

“David! My baby!” she chokes. Too overcome to articulate further, she embraces me again in a tight, loving choke-hold. I can feel desperation emanating from her body as I return the embrace.

“I’m sorry my Baby,” she sobs into my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Please come back to me. Nothing is the same…”

“I’m… here.” Of their own accord, the words depart my lips in a slow, strained whisper. Hearing them just makes her grip me tighter, intensifying the smells of warm milk and cheap wine. Behind her, the stars’ reflections in the black ocean shimmer and flow with the lapping waves. In all of this, I still feel… nothing. I quietly observe the stillness, until it is again shattered by the piercing ringing, disintegrating everything to white nothingness…

Once again I wake. This time in a sprawling park, grass and dirt in my mouth. Again the auburn-haired woman is there, running up to me immediately. Crying tears of unabashed joy. She takes my hand and walks me around the park. Pointing out everything. The brilliant pink of the flowers. The drying yellow-green carpet of grass. The gazebo tilting lazily in the corner. The woman shows me all of it.

“Remember? That’s where we had your first birthday party. You wouldn’t sit still,” she laughs sadly. “I guess you were too young to remember. Your father manned the barbecue, while I spent the day making sandwiches.”

I finally twinge with feeling as I watch my Mother talking. My Mother. No longer just the strange auburn-haired woman. She finally smiles, lost in memories long past. We carry on walking until the familiar ring of the world ending echoes through…

Again and again, I wake up, always somewhere new. Sometimes a mall. Sometimes a train station. Sometimes David’s house. Sometimes David’s school. My Mother is always there waiting for me. Every time she holds me as though she fears I’m about to slip away. And each time, she shows me a life I don’t remember living.

Am I David? Am I this woman’s son? I don’t know who David is. I have never been to any of these places before. I don’t know anything about this reality in which I exist. The reality ends when the shrill siren sounds, only to begin again.

I wake up on the road again. The same road I woke up on the first time. Only this time it isn’t empty. An acrid smell punctuates the smoke-filled, hazy air. The burnt-out husks of two destroyed cars lay on either side of me. All around me people are running, screaming and crying. Firefighters and police swarm the area.

Standing in the center of the chaos, I feel the familiar grip of Mother, as she pulls me away. Off the road, away from the wreckage, into a doorway, through to white nothingness.

“I’m sorry,” Mother says, sobbing once again. “I should never have let you go. I should have made you stay home.” She futilely wipes her tears away, but they continue to pour. “That car would never have… You’d still be alive… if only I hadn’t let you go. You’d be safe. You’d still be with me.”

This time I approach Mother and hold her tightly, trying to hold all her tears in. She only weeps harder. “I’d get to see you graduate, see you get married. See your babies.” She pulls back to stare into my eyes. “I’d be able to see you… for real. Not just… here.”

The shrill piercing ring starts, and the whiteness comes, only to abruptly stop, with color returning to the world. Mother holds me tight to her chest. “Not today. Not today. No alarm today. Today, I am going to hold you. To stay with you. For as long as I want. I don’t want to wake up. Not yet.”

Mother and I embrace within the empty white space for what feels like an eternity. I know now who I am. I am David. I am my Mother’s son. Not the son she raised, the son that died, that she deeply misses. I am the son that exists in this dream space. The space where she comes every night as she sleeps.

Eventually, the world-ending whiteness comes for me again. But I know that I will still be here, every single night. Waiting to provide solace to my Mother. I am real. And I will always be there for her, within this space.