{"id":1912,"date":"2024-01-01T11:04:41","date_gmt":"2024-01-01T11:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1912"},"modified":"2024-01-01T11:04:45","modified_gmt":"2024-01-01T11:04:45","slug":"short-days-long-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/short-days-long-dreams\/1912\/","title":{"rendered":"Short days, long dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTell me how it started, Doctor Frost,\u201d she said, leaning close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was the winter of \u201957 when I first opened my new eyes and saw the world as it really is.\u201d I replied. The garlic on her breath irritated but I would not give her the satisfaction of knowing my objections. \u201cOf course, I would not have been able to process the wealth of visual inputs I then had, but for the expanded processing capacity I\u2019d installed two years previously.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut why go so far?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I decided I hated her face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy obsession with bio-cybernetic prosthesis had reached the level of a compulsion,\u201d I said. Doctors are prone to this kind of addiction, but usually medics, not surgeons. \u201cWhich is why I kept on doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd why did you start doing it?\u201d She glanced over her spectacles. Smug, I thought. She thinks she knows all the answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause I\u2019m a sick bunny. I had a progressive neurological condition, which means bit by bit my body was shutting down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy heart and lungs were first. They reached the point where malfunction was likely rather than possible, so I just did it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen my limbs and other internal organs. Each replaced by a better version. With each iteration of replacement, I had to add electronic control capacity: a computerised brain. My nervous system was broken, so it too was a necessity rather than just desirable.\u201d I replied. \u201cI confess, I wanted it, though. Designing my mind-computer interface was, I\u2019m proud to say, a work of genius. My genius. When I turned it on and my consciousness flooded into its silicon home, I was astounded at how my thought processes sped up, and the depth of complexity I had. I was like a god.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd what happened next?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs November progressed, my eyesight started failing, and I realised I had to take another step to rid myself of the old meat,\u201d I said. Poets say eyes are the windows of the soul, but I knew by then I was soulless. So, I did it without hesitation. \u201cA surgeon without eyes is of no use to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd when did the dreams start?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was about then, when I replaced my eyes. I found my remaining biological component, my brain, was turning over more thought processing to my cybernetic implants. Brain scans confirmed this. But because of my accelerated perception, the short days of winter seemed very long indeed, and most of my time was spent waiting for things to happen. So, I daydreamed: long, strange thoughts of burning skies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI see, go on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy December, my meat-brain atrophied, so I decided to dispose of it completely. It wasn\u2019t as if I needed it anymore. I didn\u2019t feel different afterwards.\u201d I paused. This is where it got confused, which is odd for a cybernetic mind. \u201cI was still me, but now I dreamed of death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour death?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, everybody. And that\u2019s when I woke, and everyone was screaming.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cTell me how it started, Doctor Frost,\u201d she said, leaning close. \u201cIt was the winter of \u201957 when I first opened my new eyes and saw the world as it really is.\u201d I replied. The garlic on her breath irritated but I would not give her the satisfaction of knowing my objections. \u201cOf course, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1129,1130],"tags":[114,750,269,95,7,29,12,799,9,14,651,1089,11,172,1042],"class_list":["post-1912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1129","category-january-2024-a-winters-tale","tag-but","tag-eyes","tag-first","tag-had","tag-her","tag-how","tag-my","tag-replied","tag-said","tag-she","tag-so","tag-started","tag-was","tag-when","tag-why"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-uQ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1914,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions\/1914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}