The Turing Test - [Open Novella Contest 2019 Shortlist]

1. God's Image

Have you ever heard your last breath?

Listened to it inching closer in the chaos, knowing that at any moment this inhale could be your final one, or its exhale could be the period that ends your sentence?

I know nothing of lasts, only firsts.

Now, with my eyes closed and my face turned up toward the sky, I hear it coming. It won't be long. Maybe that's why I draw out my breaths, holding onto them even as the foul, metallic air stings my throat.

Inside, I am the picture of serenity: The faintest whisper of a breeze flitting across the treetops, the comforting swish and sway of leaves against each other as the branches undulate.

I have never known peace so complete, but now it curls up in my stomach and purrs.

Slowly, I open my eyes, searching my crimson-coated forearms for gashes. I can't find a single scratch. I am whole, unbroken; the blood isn't mine.

I stand in a small circle of slick grass, and just beyond its radius the bodies start. Some are perfectly still. Others groan as they writhe, unable to rise. Ten, twenty, thirty...it doesn't matter. I regard them all with the same indifference, knowing that I should feel horror, but unable to muster anything.

And then I smile.

* * *

If two adults love each other, they should get married.

If someone proposes to you, they love you.

If you love him, you say yes.

I love Sven.

Of course, there's more to it than that. Does he ask about your day when he sees you after work? Does he give decent tips at a restaurant? Does he tell you the truth, apologize after a fight? Is he just as content to fall asleep beside you in bed as he is to get passionate?

Can you be all those things to him, too?

Somewhere, in that infinitely long list of requirements, some combination of them returns "true."

My nails beat an uneven rhythm on the strap of my bag, the extra weight on my third finger unfamiliar. The diamond perched there bounces the sunlight back toward my eyes, a constant reminder that I'm no longer just me.

I feel my lips twitch upward and remember what my therapist told me yesterday. You've disconnected your brain from your body. Listen to it. Every little movement—that smile you're giving me right now?—think about why. A squint, a blink, the tap of a foot—they all mean something. You are feeling. You've just lost the link that tells you what.

She calls them dissociative emotions, and I don't know if it's the right term or not but she's right about one thing: My brain is disconnected from something. It's like a semi-permeable bubble encases me, and feelings float somewhere beyond, but every time I reach through to try to pull them in, it comes back muddled in my hands.

That's why I love Sven. He's light in all the ways I'm dark—his hair, his eyes, his complexion—and it doesn't stop there. I close myself off, but he always reaches out. He doesn't let me live inside my bubble.

My steps slow as SynCo's headquarters rise into view. At eleven stories, it's a modest size for one of the country's tech giants, but what it lacks in height it more than makes up for in beauty. With mirrored floor-to-ceiling windows, a modern brick exterior, and a logo as tall as I am sitting at its top, it dominates the block. Any other day, it would slap an eager smile on my face, but today it sinks a hollow pit into my stomach.