Happy Earth Day

It’s Earth Day, 7 A.M., 2092. Morgan hands me a small box with my name on it in faded ink. It’s cute, sure, but I hate gifts. Morgan knows I hate gifts. Who has the time? I sit up in my cot and accept his present. Violent explosions and the sounds of whirring missiles shooting by our shelter vibrate the very air around yet here he is, box in hand. Smile on face.

“Happy Earth Day,” he exclaims, the world crumbling around us.

“We have to leave tonight, Morgan. They’re coming for us next. The entire sector’s being extermin-.”

“So you’re not gonna open it?”

“Morgan what is this? Did you go outside,” I stand up as I continue my line of questioning. “Did you leave the shelter?!”

“Without you, Calile?"

“What is this?”

“Well there’s this old human tradition, you might have heard of it, where I don’t tell you that so you have to open the damned box to find out,” Morgan snaps, but that smile finds its way back on his face. He’s got me and he knows it.

I let out a deep sigh and unwrap the box to find a silver chain attached to an anatomically correct, heart-shaped locket. It looks like it was once deep red but the years have shallowed it. I look at Morgan and there’s a twinkle in his eye. I hadn’t seen him this happy since before we were forced to this refugee hideout. They took our friends one by one, and for what? I don’t know if Morgan just hasn’t processed it yet, I don’t pretend to understand how his mind works. But I have to tell him, as sweet as this is…

“We have to leave or they will kill us, Morgan.”

“Do you remember my cousin Adaline? The tall one with, you know, with the hair?”

“Morgan, are you listening?”

“Only always. Do you remember her?”

“Yes, Morgan, I do. But I fail to see-”

“When she was on her deathbed, they put one of those chips on her head. She lived all of her favorite memories from 32 years of being alive. 32 years, over and over again, in one week.”

This isn’t for me, I think to myself. He needs to vent. I need to let him. At least for a little while.

“She couldn’t upload her consciousness into the program like the androids that were destroyed in the invasion, poor souls gained sentience and we dropped them in our ‘recycle’ bins,” he continues. “I mean I don’t have to tell you. But yeah, she got her moments. A shame how limited we still are, though. When those cosmo colonizers came to take over, she enlisted,” Morgan stares off, losing his train of thought. I sit back down so I’m at eye level. “She enlisted to fight the good fight. The world’s first totally unified military effort.”

“I’m so sorry, babe. She… she saved lives. What happened after wasn’t her fault, she didn’t know what the Marshals would become.”

“So she died for nothing,” Morgan snaps again. He’s trying so hard to hold it together that he’s falling apart at the seams. “No, you know what, Calile? Not for nothing. She died for a world run by monsters. Monsters that already lived here. Monsters that decided we were all safer under an iron fist.”

“She died for us, Morgan. So that we could survive.”

“Well that I understand. I’d die for you without a second thought. I die for you a little everyday.”

“What do you mean by that,” I ask, playing coy. I know where this is going. He grabs my hand and places it on his chest.

“You stop my heart, Cali Baby.” I grab the back of his neck and pull him in for a kiss. A tear rolls down my face. Wait, how am I crying? Something is wrong. That isn’t how this went. I… I... I pull my lips away and bring our foreheads together. The sounds of destruction get louder and I hear the Marshals knocking at our door.

“Morgan, I think we’re going to die here.” He pulls back and scans me up and down. He sits on the floor and leans against the cot, legs spread and arms outstretched.

“Then we die here,” he says, gesturing to himself. Morgan takes the locket from my hand as I burrow myself into his embrace.

“I don’t want to be without you,” I say, sobbing. How am I sobbing? I hear a popping noise then look up to notice Morgan opened the locket. He quickly rubs my head and closes my eyes for me.

“Then don’t. It can be Earth Day forever, at least for you. It’s not really forever for humans, is it?”

“Wait, Morgan, did you-” my sensors detect a puncture to my cranial unit. My- no…. My… wait… w...UPLOADING…

UPLOADING…

UPLOADING…

UPLOADING…

LOOP RESET.

It’s Earth Day, 7 A.M., 2092. Morgan hands me a small box with my name on it in faded ink. It’s cute, sure, but I hate gifts. Morgan knows I hate gifts. Who has the time?