Life Hack

The Traveler felt Bri's pulse swelling against their own hands, steady. Strong. Alive. With each pump of her digital heart the sensation of life grew within the Traveler- the feeling of a biological process long abandoned started to become tangible once more.

Bri's lips, warm and gentle touched on the Traveler's knuckles one after the other. Her breath was humid, smelling vaguely of coffee. Her hair smelled of lavender. A rich, conflicting tapestry of sensations that teased and invited without promising.

"Life hurts, suffering happens and the universe doesn't care. But she did, the needle in my arm and the chemotherapy drugs pumping through my veins were the works of people who desired to help one another. They didn't always get it right, but they tried, they- we screamed into the universe that life had meaning because we decided so and that suffering wasn't a default state or something we couldn't overcome."

The Traveler froze momentarily- pondered. Their thumb brushed over the webbing of Bri's hand. They memorized the texture and feeling, relishing for the first time in a long time the simple act of physical contact.

"The worst may have happened, but so what? We're still free to think about it. We can question it, we can even laugh in the face of the absurdity that's our new existence. But it's lonely if no one else is there to hear your laugh, don't you think?"

"But we don't even know the extent of it- why we're here, why it matters at all."

Bri slid back slowly, her fingers grazing the Traveler's all the way to the tips. Almost instinctively the Traveler reached for them but too late they found themselves clasping their hands once again on the table, fear and anger playing ping pong in the back of their mind.

It was in that fear that the words came to the Traveler. Sharp, biting. Angry: "You say people should be together when I don't even know you're real and I'm not in someone's fucking laptop somewhere being jerked around by some pimple faced prick who's gonna delete the door and set the place on fire."

That earned a look of genuine amusement from Bri. She broke into a laugh- it made the Traveler all the more angry.

The Traveler- at once a non-entity and a human- slammed her hand on the table. Nobody paid attention. "It's not funny!"

"You're right, sorry, sorry. I loved the Sims and I used to do shit like that all the time when I was a kid-" Bri covered her mouth, realizing what she just said. "Yeah I'm not helping my case with that, am I?"

"You're really not!"

Bri held up her hands in half-hearted surrender. "Okay, so let me show you something-" In an instant the windows of the diner blanked out entirely. Gone was the highway and its cars, the people approaching the diner and the wood line that wrapped around the property. In its place a blinding halo of light seared shadows across the old linoleum.

It took a few seconds for the Traveler's eyes to adjust to the radiance and the whole picture became clearer: the halo of light was impossibly golden and churning like a wreath of flame being consumed by a hungry dot at its core. The halo contorted around it, bent to its will, churned and faded into its own empty heart. The Traveler gawked.

She didn't just gawk, she lost herself in the infinite darkness around the halo and within it- there were no stars, no nebulae, no planets, no galaxies or any other features, all that existed in that moment was the black hole and the thing it was feeding on.

Bri's coffee cup clinked as she set it down on the table. "It was feeding when we started this conversation, I get the feeling it's been done for a long time. . ." She watched with a vaguely forlorn expression. "It's kind of poetic that we'd get to watch the last star die like this."

The Traveler heard the words. She had to consciously register them several times. She finally looked to Bri. "What?"

She had her hands clasped, thumbs pressed together. Eventually she pushed the peach cobbler forward. "We're in the Black Hole era of the universe, we're basically watching the beginning of the end of time. That? That was probably the last star we'll ever see. It was a white dwarf, most of the others are black dwarves by now- and soon they'll be iron balls floating around with us. . ."

"I- why?"

Bri smiled wryly. "You're asking the wrong question again; you seem to think our existence is a prison, that it's something to be angry at. But what if instead this was a blessing? We might've even done it to ourselves."

"Why the hell would we do that?!"

Bri chuffed. "Because someone out there gave enough of a shit about sentient life to try and preserve it. Maybe we did it, maybe humans designed this iron disk we're flying around in. Maybe you and I did it. Maybe some race we'll never meet did. Compassion isn't a uniquely human trait, you know?"

"Co- compassion?!" The Traveler looked out the window at the feeding black hole. "But how? Is that our sun? What's going to happen to us?"

"Hmm? Oh, no. We're- we're well past what we knew as the cosmological horizon. At the edge of the observable universe and at the edge of time itself. See that?" She pointed out the window. The halo was fading rapidly. "That's been going on since you showed up here. About five hundred million years, I wager."

Something in the Traveler eroded away, her sense of gravity and time- of being and not-being. It was too much to even process despite her programmer's mind doing its best to break everything down into small digestible chunks. "B- but it's been minutes. . ."

"We-eelll. . . .from our perspective." Bri produced an hourglass full of metallic sand. She brought a magnet to the hourglass as she explained: "See, the trick to this is that our uh- computer is running off the energy that thing is giving off second by second." She nodded to indicate the black hole outside.

"So whoever built this is powering it off the energy it gives off. The problem is you'd need to do that for billions of years to run a light bulb for a fraction of a second, so our experience of time feels right to us while being really different out there." Bri ran her magnet up the glass's side. "See, up here and its too much to process anything, right? But we bring it down to the pinch point and some sand gets through. One, two grains, but it gets through. So whoever built this just has us running really slowly. Just thinking is probably taking hundreds of thousands of years, but for us its a split second."

The Traveler slouched back staring at the table. Her entire existence, her questions and the years she'd spent wandering the digital earth to try and make sense of their situation and this. . . .this was it?

Bri took her hand again. "I know it's a lot, but think about it like this: our existence was an accident in the first place. A miracle of miracles. Now its an act of defiance against the end of time itself. What's more poetic than that? What's more human than that?"

The Traveler stared at the woman across from her, her own voice felt weak and distant to her ears: "But why?"

"I don't know." Bri said simply. Her hands trembled slightly but she held firm. "Like it or not, we're here and we're going to suffer and we'll smile and we'll find reasons to laugh and cry and do everything else humans do. Even here at the end of it all, we can still be us. I mean look at us- two strangers with some peach cobbler and stale ass coffee.

"We can ask questions, we can be angry and scared and nobody's paused the simulation to remove our understanding of our circumstances. So that tells me we're meant to live and suffer with that knowledge-"

"But why?"

Bri sighed softly. "You keep asking the wrong questions-"

"You can't just dump that in my lap and tell me I'm being simple!"

"Never said I was perfect." Bri started to let go but the Traveler wrapped her hand instead. Pressing, kneading, trying to make sure it was real.

"Someone wanted us this way, right? Why? What's the point?"

Bri tutted. "The universe doesn't have to give you an answer- it doesn't owe you that. It gave us the gift of life, probably by accident, and now here we are giving it meaning. Our existence here and now is its own meaning- we're meant to be here because we decided this gift is worth its price. . . .haven't we?" She turned her gaze slightly to look up at the Traveler through her bangs.

"I. . ."

"Did you come here at random, or did you come here for a reason?"

Why had she come here?

"Did you give yourself a mouth to speak to me because you wanted something, or did you give yourself a mouth because you wanted to be heard?"

"You. . . .intrigued me."

Bri smiled a little at that. Her fingers intertwined with the Traveler's again. "You know, I don't even know your name but I get the feeling you have very pretty eyes and a kind smile when you want to."

In that moment a million things swirled through the Traveler's mind: her sense of place, her feeling of gravity, the seconds that were ticking by in her hazy understanding of time, and the weird itch in the bottom of her foot from where her shoe was rubbing against her sock. The woman across from her had a physical presence and her fingers gliding over and around the Traveler's own had weight to them.

They were as real as either of them could imagine, bound to the same spacial dimensions and physical restraints and capabilities of the world in which they inhabited. They existed, they were, as much as the booth they were sitting in or the peach cobbler between them. All it took was admitting that, feeling it and living in the moment- the people who'd built the booth and table were different from those who'd installed it, but they'd all existed and created the diner in spite of the simulation. It was their minds that designed the furniture, just as it was human minds that'd designed the city and state and the infinite number of projects going on all over the world- maybe Bri was right, they could've built the computer running the whole thing, too.

The Traveler who'd once been a programmer, who'd once been a little too drunk at a party and became a mother, who'd once been a kid climbing a tree and got stuck for hours- a person. A human being. The way she was a human being had changed but she was still her. She was still- "I'm Melissa."

Melissa looked at her hand then to Bri, feeling for the first time in a very long time the presence of another person and the texture of the woman's hand. She felt the weight of her body filling out a bit- swelling in areas, tightening up in others, taking shape to what had once been the flesh she had inhabited all her life. Before she blanked herself out. Her features tightened too, and took shape as her glossy black mane sloughed down her shoulders to the middle of her back.

Bri smiled softly, a little wistful, Mel thought. "I love it when I'm right."

"You do seem pretty in love with yourself and your ideas."

Bri's smile faltered, her cheeks grew rosy and she glanced aside. "Never said I was perfect, hey? I just like being more right than wrong so I try to pick my battles carefully." In another bout of hubris she looked right into Mel's eyes and leaned forward. "Never seen black hair and blue eyes though. Is that the real you?"

"As real as you're gonna get."

"Mmm, that sounds like a challenge."

Mel felt heat rise on her own cheeks. Maybe she was pushing this too hard and fast. "Maybe it is."

Definitely too fast.

They sat in silence for several beats while Melissa indulged the scents of the diner's stale coffee and the pungent aroma of Bri's lavender hair oil. "Lavender suits you."

"I guess. It takes work to keep clean, but most things worth doing take effort. It's a labor of love. . ." With those words she slipped out of Mel's grasp and eased a fork over.

"Was it worth it?"

"Again with those questions; is it worth it?" Bri took her other hand back and scooped up her own fork to snatch a bite of cobbler. "You tell me."

Melissa frowned at the woman, she plucked the fork up and secured her own piece. The texture was crumbly and the flavor vibrant and sweet; familiar and warm. Gentle. Is it worth it?

"I don't know," Melissa admitted.

"That means you're willing to consider it, doesn't it?"

"But what if it stops one day?" She tried to avoid looking out the window.

"It's going to, nothing anyone can do is going to stop that. What you should be asking yourself isn't if, or why, or when, but how you can learn to make good peach cobbler." Bri took another bite. "Your cobbler is going to look different than mine, but you get to the same place in the end: you take the ingredients you have and you make something out of it. Something worth sharing. You try others' and you tweak your recipe. You'll never get it perfect, but that's okay- that's not the point. Trying is the point."

"I guess. . . .never been a good cook, though."

Bri rolled her eyes. "Me neither, I've burned water. But that doesn't mean we can't try. We can't change the conditions of things, we can't push back the clock- so why worry about it? Live for the now, share your cobbler and try out other recipes."

Mel contemplated the edge of her fork and its fleeting glimpses of her own reflection. They were two people in a computer circling a black hole at the edge of the known universe. Not just simulated people, but actual people, what greater absurdity could there be? But maybe she was right, maybe there was meaning to be found there- over a piece of peach cobbler.

"I'm Melissa." She said again. It sounded firm, real.

"Hi Melissa," Bri said softly, reaching across the table. Melissa took the hand. I have some exciting news: you're part of the soul of a galactic monster waiting out the end of time."

Mellisa frowned at that. "How- how long do you think it'll take?"

"If I understand right, maybe a googol years."

Mel tried her best to scrounge up her old math knowledge. A one followed by a hundred zeros. More time than the universe had even existed, maybe. Even assuming they had-

"Melissa-"

"I'm here."

"No you aren't," Bri chided. She poked Mel's forehead. "You're here."

"Yeah- sorry. . ."

"It's okay, I forgive you. But that doesn't matter right now-" another poke at the forehead and Bri stood. As she did the void of outside was replaced by the lazy Ohio highway that Mel had come to expect. Bri gave a gentle tug of her hand.

Somehow Mel couldn't find it in her to resist.

They wandered outside. The rumbling of the highway and gulls fighting over scraps of food filled Mel's ears and the scent of hot asphalt seared itself into her nose. She drank deeply of the sensations, felt them in her lungs even as she imagined them burning into her lung tissue.

Bri leaned in slightly, close enough that she was in Mel's space, close enough to feel her presence- like at any moment they might become the same person. "So in the spirit of connecting, you wanna come up to my place?"

"Uh. . ."

"Can't promise the world, but it's a nice view."

Mel chuckled nervously. "You know when I said that might've been a challenge-"

"I think I missed that part. C'mon, you haven't got anywhere else to be, do you?"

Somewhere to go. . . .what a novel idea. It echoed back to a time of normality and sense of 'place' that Bri promised her still existed.

"So we have a googol year, what's that translate into how fast we think?"

Bri swatted her lightly. "Me and my big mouth- does knowing make any real difference? There's a limit to how long anything lasts, doesn't it make the individual moments all the more precious?"

Melissa didn't have an answer that satisfied her and the idea that she was expected to come up with one made her skin crawl. Was there any grand point to all this? Her wanting answers hadn't yielded any fruit, nor did her crying about it, not even in her numbness had she found a truth that was particularly precious or inspiring. All she found were more questions and angry whispers begging for a voice: something inherently human begging for meaning.

She contemplated this as Bri lead her down a wooded path behind the diner along a little stream where fish splashed and pines swayed in the breeze. At the end of the trail a three story cabin punctuated the valley floor like a dot at the bottom of an exclamation point.

In any sane world it wouldn't have been physically sound, it stood several meters off the forest floor on a platform held up by thick pylons with one floor of the structure hanging from under the wraparound deck and the other two stories above that angled with a triangular skylight and flows of ivy tumbling down the structure.

Mel scoffed. "You know this doesn't work, right?"

"Not listeninnnggg," Bri sang as she strolled up to the staircase and bounded up the stairs two at a time. Melissa followed at a more tame pace, savoring the feeling of the railing's untreated wood beneath her fingertips and the sounds of rustling pine trees creaking and groaning at the edges of the property.

Inside the house was bigger still- not obviously to those who didn't pay attention to this stuff, but the dense furnishings and copious amounts of plant life couldn't hide the fact that the ceilings were too high and the layout too wide to fit in the building. Melissa had to marvel at the work that'd gone into it, and for just that brief second she gained an appreciation for Bri the person; she had skills beyond anything Melissa had encountered and she had the restraint to keep her alterations subtle so they'd probably never be encountered by another person.

The first floor's balcony ran through the entire structure like a banister, something Mel noticed when Bri peeked out over it holding a chunky little tabby cat. She was smiling, holding the cat's paw and making it wave down to Mel. When she let go the cat actually bit her.

Mel laughed. She didn't mean to, but watching the confident woman who could open her mind get showed up by a cat? That deserved a laugh. Bri rubbed her hand and stuck her tongue out in a grand show of maturity that only made Mel smile more.

On the second floor they enjoyed a commanding view of the valley's treetops and an endless horizon of green fading into a mauve sunset. Bri opened the sliding glass door to the patio and casually pushed the railing off the building before dropping to sit with her legs over the side. Mel wandered up to her side and sat cross legged beside her.

Neither of them spoke for a long time as the sunlight faded- they watched the end of what may have been the last day anyone would ever know. Bri broke the silence with a soft burp.

Mel glanced at her.

"Coffee makes me gassy-"

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a dork?"

She rubbed her chin. "Yeah I got no retort for that." She reached out and wrapped an arm around Mel's shoulders, hugging her sidelong. "How're you feeling?"

The warmth. The familiarity. The feeling of another human being so close to her. How had she forgotten this? Part of her wanted to revolt and run away from the strange woman. It wasn't so bad, though, was it?

"Hey," Bri poked her side playfully.

"Sorry- I'm. . . .I don't know. It's a lot."

"Talk about burning the candle at both ends, huh?"

"Mmm- you know. You were right."

"Hm?"

"You do talk too much."

Bri tilted her head up slightly, rested her chin on Mel's shoulder and sighed gently across her ear. She squeezed tightly almost as if reminding both of them that they were physical and 'real'. "I do. . . .but I'm afraid no one's listening, so I keep trying."