Future Preservation

Every single day life on my island followed pretty much the same pattern. Until I saw the ghosts. I was on the beach with my cousins, scuttling over the rock pools searching from some crabs to use as bait. We were going to go fishing later on the edge of the reef. Then, out of nowhere, a bunch of hazy blue ghosts appeared, flickering into existence near the coconut palms. I yelled a warning to my cousins, but by the time anyone else looked they were gone.

“Stop playing around and help us find bait Pia,” Roko said. I ignored him and walked back towards the tree line. I stood, just where they had appeared, and they flickered again, this time, a few steps back. One older lady standing at the front hunched over to write something on a page – and then they were gone again. They weren’t what I expected. Usually, in my village if we are visited by a spirit, it would be one of our ancestors, coming to our aid with divine wisdom and knowledge from the afterlife. These ghosts were different. They were four people, all of different colours and their clothing was odd. They were from somewhere far away from here.

I’m not an idiot. I know there are people with paler skin and even some whose skin is darker than mine. And I know of the ‘Western world’ and of their modern technology, like planes and phones and medicines. But that world doesn’t reach us here. You may take a boat for several days until you reach the capital, and there wait a few days longer to get on a plane. But for what reason? They will never have the peace we have, the connection to our land, our culture, our traditions. It is a sad life, chasing happiness through competition and callousness. At least that is what the village elder tells us.

Elder ‘Ofani told us that when he was a young man, they even once brought phones to our island. And you could watch videos on the screen from the internet that was beamed down from little satellites that flew around the world at great speeds just to stay perfectly above our heads. But they people of our island, they didn’t those videos, or the troubles that they caused. It led to hate, and violence, and crime that threatened to split our small community apart.

I don’t know or care too much more for Elder ‘Ofani’s stories. I decided I also didn’t care about these ghosts. I care about catching a bigger fish than Roko.

I turned to head back to the rockpools when I saw the tracks of a larger coconut crab leading towards a palm. Forget the fish! I thought, nothing beats coconut crab. I ran over to the tree and looked up. He was perched above me, higher than I could reach. I could climb, but why climb when I have my pole. I ran over to our gear and grabbed our fishing rod, kneeling over in the sand to strap our bush knife to the poles end.

“You see, sometimes the crabs use their claws to grip into the tree. So locals devised a pretty neat solution with modern equipment to flick the crabs off. Years earlier, this may have been done with some flint on a palm branch,” a voice said. “Nothing beats witnessing anthropology in real life, does it class!”

I snapped my head around at the sound and locked eyes with the older, female ghost. She froze.

“Are you a demon?” I asked. “Why are you here pale demon?”

The ghosts didn’t move or say anything. Maybe I was imagining the words. What did they say again? Their images were still flickering in and out of existence. But they didn’t seem alive. In a flash I grabbed the knife and rod off the ground and swung it at them. It cut through the air like nothing was there, but I know I saw the youngest looking girl at the back flinch as it sliced through her invisible belly a moment before the disappeared again. I spun around frantically looking for them.

“Where did you go?!” I shouted.

Roko came running over to see what the fuss was about. I tried to explain it to him, but he said there was nothing to worry about. After some time, I calmed down and we went back to the rock pools and collected our bait. I forgot all about the coconut crab.

Days passed and I didn’t see or hear the ghosts again. Every now and then I swear I could feel something watching me from a distance. But I think I was imagining the blue haze that appeared out to sea or deep into the bushes. No one else ever saw anything. Then, a week later, Roko and I were fishing at the same spot, and I remembered about the coconut crab. Roko wandered off to the rock pools and I headed to the patch of palms looking for any fresh tracks. As I turned a corner I stumbled on her again. This time she didn’t see me. She, and two others, were busy watching Roko. I knelt down behind a bush and waited. They began to speak about Roko and what he was collecting. All of them were taking notes and talking about our gear. The ghosts were studying us!

After a moment I had enough, and I leapt from the bushes. “Why are you watching us demons?!” I yelled. Another flicker and they were gone. Roko still didn’t believe me, but from that point on I became obsessed.

I went to elder ‘Ofani and asked him if Westerners knew how to transfer themselves without planes. He told me it was called teleportation, but it was not a real thing. I told him I had seen. He assured me that they were just ghosts from the spirit world, clearly lost, and that I should not interfere with such things. But that wasn’t a good enough explanation for me. So, I decided to set traps and wait for them. Of course, none of the traps physically caught them, but I did see them on several more occasions. Particularly when I did unexpected things, like colleting all of the shells on the beach and placing them in a circle or catching fish and tying them to the coconut palms.

My family began to get angry with me. It was my job to bring in food for the day, and Roko had told them about my ‘crazy antics’. My father sent me to elder ‘Ofani for wisdom and help. I told him again about the blue ghosts studying us. He gazed behind me, and for a moment I felt like I was being watched again from another place. But nothing is his gaze shifted until he turned to look upon me sadly.

“My boy,” he said, “There are no demons here interfering with our lives. We live peacefully here on the island. Can you leave these Western apparitions alone?”

I told him I could not. He paused again. This time for longer.

“Well perhaps you should got and see the Western world with your own eyes. See the wonders of their technology. See that it brings no joy and then return to us, where you can fulfill your true purpose.”

I eagerly agreed, and we made preparations for a boat to take me the very next day.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

A few weeks earlier, Professor Williams sat down heavily at the desk rubbing her eyes with both hands. Her students sat silently, waiting for her to speak.

“I think he saw you flinch Caitlyn,” she said, exasperated.

“I didn’t mean to…” Caitlyn began.

“It’s fine,” she sighed. “It’s not your fault. These things happen. It’s something wrong with the machine. They are never supposed to see us.”

She slumped back in her chair for a moment longer, staring at the virtual reality device before her. The class still waited with bated breath.

“Just go home…” she said. “Come back next week and we’ll go back in. It will be right as rain!” Her fake cheery expression fooled no one.

For the next few weeks Professor Williams and her classed became plagued by the boy. Here she was, just trying to teach modern anthropology of small island nations pre sea-level rise, and this one subject would not leave her alone! They were meant to be happier there. That was the deal that the island chief had made with the university. After their home island disappeared underneath the rising tide for the final time, they were offered a place in a climate refugee camp, along with nearly 100 million others from across the globe, or they were offered to enter a digital twin, where they as a society could continue to live in their traditional ways forever more.

Of course, it was important for the university to study these cultures and understand their traditions. As each body was placed in stasis to enter the digital twin, they were still ageing and dying over time in the physical world. And there was no real progeny on the island, only digital copies of children. One day in the future there would be no more ‘real humans’ on the digital island, only artificial intelligence, trained by what data they had collected and aided by the academic notes. If this culture was to be preserved accurately, they couldn’t have a boy chasing around ‘ghosts’ of the observers hanging fish in trees and creating weird rock circles. It would ruin the data.

The situation became more grim, and Professor Williams knew that there was really only one way out. Eventually, one morning she entered her office and checked her emails. She hadn’t seen Caitlyn in class for a while and was hoping to receive and explanation shortly. Instead, she finally received the email she had been anticipating for some time. Elder ‘Ofani had given his blessing, the boy, subject #2597, was going to leave the island. Professor Williams knew what that meant. Some time later today, lab techs would go into the vaults underneath the university and unplug Pia from his life support and the virtual machine. His body would be donated to the medical department, where they would seek to learn how to extend life in stasis infinitely. No one ever came back after leaving the island, Elder ‘Ofani, as the leader who accepted these terms for his people, understood that.

Professor Williams sighed and closed her laptop. She needed more coffee before class today. At least studying Roko would be easier without Pia interfering anymore.