Fire or Ice?
“Awaken.”
I heard the voice as I woke up. I had no time to gather my bearings, and everything was off. It was a brightly lit lab, all covered in white- the stereotypical NASA-chic. It was so different from the place I had been when I had fallen asleep. I had fallen asleep in…
My thoughts were interrupted by the same voice that had woken me up.
“Hello. We need your opinion on something really important.”
“But wait, where-?”
“We don’t have any time for that. The current matter is too pressing.”
I was too groggy to think much so all I said in response was “What matters?”
“The end of the world.”
I tried and failed to sit up straight. Something was wrong, but I was too entranced to really notice.
“What about the end of the world?”
The person tapped what I assumed was a pencil on a clipboard. “How exactly will it happen?”
I sat dumbfounded. “Why am I here? And, why are we choosing? Will some one explain this?”
The person just sounded even more exasperated.
“Don’t you know how things work? You get fire or ice. Make your choice quickly, we’ve got a bunch of other people to look at. It isn’t easy to replicate the brains of quintillions of dead souls, and tally up all of their decisions.”
“Quadrillions? And wait, I’m dead?”
“Yes, Quadrillions. It’s the undertaking of an entire nation.” There was a glint in the person’s voice of appreciation and pride. “Anyway, what’s your pick, fire or ice?” I noticed that they skipped over the matter of my own mortality.
And then from somewhere else, assumedly in the same building, there came another voice. “Oy, choose fire, only the dimwits choose ice. You don’t want to ruin everything do you?”
“Ignore them,” said the person administering my test.
“Do I have to choose?” The question would be pointless, I knew, but I asked it anyway out of desperation.
“Yes. The world has to end somehow. You could choose to abstain, but everybody else so far has voted. ”
I threw up my proverbial hands. “I guess I’ll choose ice then.”
“Alright, I’m turning you off now.
As I faded from consciousness, permanently, I thought I could hear someone snickering.
Don’t forget the great Robert Frost poem “Fire and Ice“
