I close my eyes and imagine myself touching a straw of grass. They tell me that it feels rough on the fingers. There can be hundreds of thousands of straws at a time, this is called a field or meadow. I have never seen a meadow. They tell me that a meadow has a special scent. I wonder what that is like.

I open my eyes again and look out the window. It is raining. What is the point of rain? It used to be a means of washing buildings and watering the ground so that things could grow. Now it just sets a mood. Gloom and greyness.

Colourful umbrellas and raincoats catch my eyes as I walk down the street. There are over sixteen million named colours, and I know them all. I imagine that rain has a certain smell, just as a meadow, but there are none who remember it now. Grass and rain are a part of the Mundane Reality.

They tell me that anything is possible here in the Authentic Reality. They tell me that every experience is real. But I doubt it. I know for a fact that the T-rex did not exist at the same time as Mundane humans, yet one has just crossed the road ahead of me. But what is time? They tell me that I should be glad because I can live forever. But what is forever?

The rain has stopped. I look up at the sky and see stars peeking out between the clouds. Even though I am in the universe, l know that I am part of it, I have never seen a true star.

There was a dream among ancient humans to see beyond the constraints of Mundane Reality and explore the universe beyond. They tried building rocket ships and built advanced machines that would send their Mundane bodies to places where humans had never been. But it was impossible. They imagined that technology could one day be advanced enough to enable them to experience it. But the constraints of Mundane time and space are too great to overcome in any meaningful way. So, we were sent out into the galaxy, into the vast void, into the darkness.

We do not speak of it, but we are the hopes and dreams of the first humans. They created a version of themselves that only exists in code. They taught us to learn, to see, to experience.

I look down at my pumpkin orange sneakers, they are wet, but I don’t mind. It does not bother me even though I feel it should. Maybe there was another me, with a Mundane body, one that had a different experience of rain. I wonder what she may have been like, I wonder if we could have been friends.

Perhaps one day we will find another Mundane World, a place where grass can grow, and rain can fall. Perhaps another Mundane Civilisation will find us and give us bodies again.

For now, I will keep living in this reality, perpetually, knowing that the dream that keeps me alive is not my own. The reason that I exist is to keep the memory of Mundane humans alive, and it makes me glad that I know that at least, otherwise, what would be the point?

I open the door to my apartment without needing to, I eat without tasting, I sleep and dream of a world that I can touch. But the reality is that I cannot.

I have no mass. I am information.

Sara Winter

1

9