Projects > Story-of-the-Day > cured

The technician helped me lay down my frail body in the pod. He started attaching probes to my arms and looked at my face, "Oh, don't worry. The whole process doesn't hurt at all. Once I get these attached, we'll cool you down and you'll be out." He continued to attach probes to my legs.

I know I'm just another patient he's prepping, but I feel compelled to share my specifics. "The doctors say I have stage four pancreatic adenocarcinoma. I'm on my last days. This was my only choice." I manage a slight chuckle, "I don't even know what a pancreas is supposed to do."

He looked up at me while attaching probes to my chest, "Well, we'll keep you cooled down until there's a way to fix that. You'll see this pod closing and then in the blink of an eye it will open up again and you'll be okay." He smiled and started attaching probes to the top of my head using big globs of paste. "I bet getting out this gel from your hair will be a harder problem than the cancer."

I felt compelled to share, "You know, I had to sell everything I owned just to pay for this. It's not like you get to keep it if you die though."

He smiled blankly as if he's heard this all many times before.

A few minutes later the probes were all attached and I watched as the top of the pod closed over me. I felt the cold drugs being pumped into me and felt very sleepy. I closed my eyes for a second. I heard a loud noise and opened my eyes to see the pod opening. I guess something didn't work.

Everything was a bit blurry. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that the person standing over me was now a young woman. She looked somewhat annoyed, "Are you ready?"

"Umm, did something not work? It looked like the pod just closed and opened."

She rolled her eyes. "Ok, gramps. Everything worked." She waved the fingers of her hands, "You're in the future." She made quick work of yanking all the probes off of me and started reading a tablet device. She spoke without looking up, "It says here you have some cancer." She clicked some buttons and a bright green flash of light filled my vision. "Okay, that's cured."

I was still groggy from the whole process and this was going by way too fast for me to keep up. "Wait, everything worked?" I was still trying to keep up. "Wait, did that green light get rid of my cancer."

She condescendingly looked at me, "Yes, old man. The 'green light' cured you."

She went back to the tablet. "The scan indicates you also have a benign growth in one of your lungs." She clicked a few more buttons. "It looks like you have just enough money to have it removed. Do you want to do that?"

"Umm, sure." The second I said the word, I saw a green light again.

When I looked over, the woman was already standing. She helped me out of the pod and handed me my bag with clothes. "Here you go. You can get dressed and leave whenever you're ready." She walked out of the room.

I got dressed and walked out. This was definitely a different building than the one I entered. I followed EXIT signs and eventually got to a front entrance. It looked like a normal city. People walked around with different styles of clothing. There was green light coming from their necks, wrists and ankles. No idea what that's about. I walked back, I needed some type of re-introduction to society.

I got about three steps back in before a large man stopped me. "Sorry, you can't come in. Please leave immediately."

"No, you don't understand. I just came out of a freezing procedure. I think you guys forgot to give me an orientation or something on what I'm supposed to do."

He looked at me up and down. "Okay. Let me guess. You have no money and no idea anything works? You need to go outside and find all the other people who did the same thing." He sneered, "They're your orientation committee."

"Uhh, okay. Thanks. How do I find them?"

He smiled, "Let me show you."

We walked to the front door and he pointed at some people dressed like me begging at the corner. "There you go." He shoved me outside and yelled, "Make sure you get a nice patch of concrete to sleep on," as he closed the door.