Resurrection
Three days after her death, Gemma was resurrected.
Her wife, Eloise, was waiting for her, but the woman’s tearful smile failed to arouse any emotions. Gemma no longer had a beating heart. Any love she’d had for the woman had died with her. She felt nothing when Eloise kissed her – her lips and tongue moved by muscle memory alone.
Gemma extracted herself from the embrace and turned to the screen. Her death, and resurrection, had been live streamed to her millions of global followers.
“We were right,” she said.
The screen filled with an endless cascade of red hearts rising from the bottom to disappear off the top.
“There is nothing.” A few hundred wow emojis slipped into the flood of hearts along with some simple thumbs up.
“Resurrection is not immoral. The dead are not ripped from a better place. As I’ve said all along, the dead are simply unalive.”
An angry emoji scowled at her as it drifted up the screen, then another and another. Not all her followers were fans of Gemma’s theories on life and death.
“The unalive don’t need to use the world’s resources. Death and resurrection are the only solution to the world’s problems. It’s the alive who pollute, consume and destroy. The time for the alive is over. It’s time to die.”
“Not like this,” Eloise squawked when Gemma’s hands latched onto her throat. Her red face turned purple then blue. Released, Eloise flopped to the floor.
“My wife will now be resurrected. If you care for the planet, you’ll join us in our revolution and die.”
Angry face emojis flooded the screen, and the feedback panel filled with denouncements and threats to call the authorities.
Gemma didn’t care. One would soon be two, then four, then eight. Death was inevitable and, thanks to her, life was not.
Three days after her death, Gemma was resurrected.
Her wife, Eloise, was waiting for her, but the woman’s tearful smile failed to arouse any emotions. Gemma no longer had a beating heart. Any love she’d had for the woman had died with her. She felt nothing when Eloise kissed her – her lips and tongue moved by muscle memory alone.
Gemma extracted herself from the embrace and turned to the screen. Her death, and resurrection, had been live streamed to her millions of global followers.
“We were right,” she said.
The screen filled with an endless cascade of red hearts rising from the bottom to disappear off the top.
“There is nothing.” A few hundred wow emojis slipped into the flood of hearts along with some simple thumbs up.
“Resurrection is not immoral. The dead are not ripped from a better place. As I’ve said all along, the dead are simply unalive.”
An angry emoji scowled at her as it drifted up the screen, then another and another. Not all her followers were fans of Gemma’s theories on life and death.
“The unalive don’t need to use the world’s resources. Death and resurrection are the only solution to the world’s problems. It’s the alive who pollute, consume and destroy. The time for the alive is over. It’s time to die.”
“Not like this,” Eloise squawked when Gemma’s hands latched onto her throat. Her red face turned purple then blue. Released, Eloise flopped to the floor.
“My wife will now be resurrected. If you care for the planet, you’ll join us in our revolution and die.”
Angry face emojis flooded the screen, and the feedback panel filled with denouncements and threats to call the authorities.
Gemma didn’t care. One would soon be two, then four, then eight. Death was inevitable and, thanks to her, life was not.