Which Way Do I Look?

A short story

Robert Greer looked left as he stepped into the street in front of his Medford, Massachusetts apartment building. A Chevrolet sedan approaching from the right blared its horn, causing him to leap back onto the sidewalk, adrenaline igniting his blood like rocket fuel. 

“Asshat!” he shouted to the passing car. “You’re going the wrong way!”

When Robert realized that all the cars were driving on the left and not the right, his legs wobbled, and his knees nearly gave out. I don’t get it, he thought. Did the US adopt the British road system while I was sleeping?

Swiveling his head from side to side like a bobble doll, he crossed Josephine Avenue and turned toward Broadway for the ten-minute walk to the supermarket. His fridge was almost empty, and the few staples—milk, cheese, and orange juice—were well past their expiration dates, everything fuzzy blue and green. He wasn't sure how the refrigerator's contents deteriorated to such a gloomy state because he and his wife were good about checking expiration dates.

As the automatic door at Broadway Market whooshed opened, a voice whispered in his head: Veggies. 

Yes, more vegetables, Robert agreed. Less cheese and bacon, too. 

That’s a good boy, the voice replied. Buy veggies. 

The store’s fluorescent lights flickered and buzzed as if filled with fireflies. 

In the right-most aisle, where the fresh vegetables and fruit should have been, Robert found only ice cream. He scrunched his eyes and scanned the store. Every aisle sold ice cream.

Robert located the manager and asked, “Why do you only sell ice cream? Where is the other food?”

The forty-year-old manager with black glasses and blonde hair pulled tight in a bun, whose name tag read Grace, replied, “We sell four thousand sixty-six different kinds of ice cream, from the regular name brands like Häagen-Dazs to pedestrian ones like CVS Gourmet, to exotics such as Pain Perdu. Plus hard, soft, with sprinkles, sugar stars, cocoa, or plain, to name a few condiments.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re supposed to eat veggies, Robert, but ice cream is what all of our other customers demand.” She moved so close to him that their noses almost touched. “All of them, except you.” She poked Robert in the chest with her finger. “Eat your veggies,  and don’t come back.”

“Whatever. I’ll go to another store.”

Robert sprinted along Broadway. As his heart sped, he recalled his heart attack and the loud ambulance that whisked him to Boston Memorial Hospital. He remembered the pain, an inferno of unimaginable intensity burning his chest and veins, and his wife holding his hand as he lay in his hospital room.

Robert recalled the doctors circling, their white coats streaming like a jet’s contrails, and remembered the high-pitched beep, beep, beep of machines.

Robert abruptly turned back toward Broadway Market, his New Balance sneakers squeaking against the pavement. “Who is the store manager to tell me I can’t have ice cream?” Robert asked the wind. “I can have as much ice cream as I want. That’s a fact.”

Profound disappointment painted Robert’s eyes when he entered a standard supermarket selling meat, fruit, dairy products, and household items—everything you’d expect a store to offer. Robert zigzagged through the aisles until he found the ice cream cooler in the back, a dreary display selling just one vanilla brand from a company he’d never heard of. 

Robert wandered through Broadway Market for nearly an hour, an empty basket swinging in his hand, finally leaving with nothing.

He looked both ways three times before crossing Broadway. The cars had resumed driving on the correct side of the road. A bright, daytime full moon hung over him. Is the world normal again? 

A tap on his shoulder. “Robert, hold on.”

Grace, the supermarket manager.

At least her name tag read Grace. This woman was two inches taller, ten years younger, African American, and without glasses. His eyes widened. 

Grace narrowed her eyes. “You’re confused. You feel something’s wrong, don’t you?

He nodded.

“I’ll explain. Do you remember your heart attack? The hospital?”

“Yes.”

“The part you can't recall, what nobody can, is dying. That moment when we transition from living to the other is never imprinted in our memories. You’re dead, Robert, at least in a corporeal sense, but not dead as far as your brain goes. The doctors downloaded your mind to a machine at the moment of your death, and you’ll live here forever, immortal.”

The windows in the office building next to them vibrated as a three-story tall tractor-trailer drove by. 

Robert shook his head. “How can that be? Does Maria know about this?”

“Your wife was at your side when you died. She wanted this for you.”

Robert’s eyes went wide. “I'm in a computer? I’ve never heard of putting people inside machines.”

“Inserting human consciousness into a machine is new. You’re among the first in the Xrem Twelve-B, which is in Boulder, Colorado. There were a few glitches, as you’ve seen, which is not surprising for such a complex system. That’s why the supermarket only sold ice cream. That’s why the other Grace scolded you to eat vegetables. Software bugs. Nobody wants to spend eternity being scolded to eat veggies.” She chuckled. “We debugged the system, and everything will be a-okay from now on.”

A lime Mini Cooper—his car—pulled to a screeching halt in front of them, gray-black smoke wafting under the tires. Robert’s wife opened the passenger door, aimed a pistol at Grace, and shouted to Robert, “She lied. You are in a machine, but you’re not dead. Hurry, get in!”

“What?”

“Now, Robert! Get in!”

Robert dashed into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“The machine kept you alive while you were in a coma—that you’re in a machine is true. But the AIs that control the software want you to stay.”

“Why?”

Maria turned the car abruptly into the entrance to I-93, causing Robert’s seat belt to snap tight. “For their amusement.”

Robert slammed his hand against the dash. “Wait! How did you get in the computer if you’re not dead?”

Maria's dress transformed into a store uniform with the name tag Grace, her skin morphed from pale to brown, her hair, face, everything changed before Robert could complete a blink—this wasn’t Maria anymore. She chuckled again, her laughs becoming wild, loud, maniacal, and out of control, so deafening that they bowed the car’s glass outward. 

“Welcome to forever,” she said.

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If you enjoyed Which Way Do I Look? I think you’ll also like my story, Petra Jones’ Phone.