The Leaf

Drive

Raymond

The day went by excruciatingly slow. Humans in 2019 had a lot of time on their hands.

Raymond could finish Tony Wesley's filing for the day in four seconds. His co-workers were of limited intelligence and high verbosity, so to mute them was an easy decision. His girlfriend, a brunette with breasts that poured out of everything she wore, seemed happy with Tony's immature games. Her file disclosed she just liked sleeping with him and let him believe he was running the show to get what she wanted, completely uninterested in his personality. Mocking him with her friends, exactly what he deserved.

Instead, Raymond went to the Claire Wesley folder on his drive. Everything about her and her life. Measurements of how her mind and body worked. No secrets. Unopened. Raymond didn't want to start with a bigger advantage on her on top of him being artificially enhanced, his brain faster when accessing and filtering information. Public information was enough.

Just watching the world around him was enough entertainment: lives in slow-motion, riddled with petty problems that could have been easily avoided through a conversation.

It was not his place to interfere so he retracted to that place in his mind where he kept his home folder. All he was, all he needed. A man from his time could live without the body continuing: his mind was contained in a minuscule capsule. In case the body died, it would fall on the ground, never to be found again. Inside it he could live forever, everything he wanted -- a thought away. It was what would've happened to Raymond had he stayed for the natural death that awaited his body over the next few months, in his timeline. His mind would've continued as it was, unlimited possibilities available to him, controlled by him.

The human carcass was irrelevant, all lectures said. It was only the mind -- what humans in 2019 called 'heart' -- that should be cared for.

There was something about going to fix a faulty wire through rows of tomb-sized pods where humans shaped like blobs laid connected to CPUs -- no need for a kitchen, or space for a table, a bed -- that kept making Raymond think about his own life. Darkened corridors led to more stacked labels, all same words: Human Over Matter Experience. After seeing how the Wesleys lived, Raymond couldn't consider them homes anymore.

Raymond's contemporaries lived their best lives virtually. They had long stopped sleeping in the same space: the old practice was considered unhygienic, antiquated. It surprised him how harmless it actually was.

Leaving the sleazy motel through a long shower, he auto-piloted back to the Wesley home, a white box with full window walls on three sides and two perfect parking spots drawn in front of the garage door, making it more obvious that the couple owned only one car. Claire didn't drive, she never went anywhere alone.

Her smile in the doorway, before he even knocked, surprised him -- albeit messing with the History Logs again. It was such a small thing and her smiling was so rare that Raymond couldn't help but smile back.

"You'll never guess who called today," Claire invited him in, then retracted into the living room. Raymond followed her, stopping at the top of the two stairs that delimited the living room from the entryway, as Tony Wesley was shown to have done that night.

A red dress stained the couch, making Raymond's adjustment to the lights around him more difficult.

"Nico," she straightened.

"Oh no," Raymond faked surprise, playing her game, happy to see her relaxed, going along with his adventure. She had a full-length black silk robe on, picked out of a considerable collection.

"What did she want?" he said his line.

"We're invited for dinner." She saw him blink, then hurried to a switch on the wall, turning the lights lower. "I'll change in no time," she showed him the dress.

"There's no hurry," Raymond said. "Apparently Tony didn't take this news very well so this conversation went longer on the Logs. Just stand there for a few minutes more," he instructed her. "We can talk about anything."

Claire

"Like how you can't wear that dress," Raymond said. Something Tony would've, but in a different voice: upset that she couldn't.

"It's not on the History Logs. They say you picked a white one, with a silver neckline," he showed her on himself where the line would be, and Claire remembered that bandage dress, how Tony said it wrapped her like a present. One of his favorites, probably selected to make him shut up. He hated last minute inconveniences, especially when coming from her friends.

Raymond stood there, watching her, then looked back at the betraying sofa, "It's a very beautiful color," he said.

Not answering was easier on Claire, feeling she'd said too much already.

"After you and Tony talk, it takes you maybe five minutes to come back down the stairs, fully dressed," Raymond sounded impressed. Tony felt it took her too long.

"Yeah, it's my superpower," Claire took the wine-colored silk with her, afraid it would say even more when left alone with him.

"I'll wait in the car -- just like he did," Raymond left her to do her magic.

In the garage, his hands confidently held the wheel, exactly like Tony's would have. Claire knew that because it was where she kept her focus on, all their many silent trips together. The only time Tony's hand sometimes left the steering wheel was when he wanted to go under one of her very accessible dresses. She pulled the hem down her thigh, it reached too far up, when seated.

After she put her seatbelt on, the garage door opened without anyone complaining about the remote. No one needing it.

The car didn't make any sound as it passed houses like hers, with presumably much happier families inside. Other than the occasional oncoming car, the roads spread clean, people avoiding the humid night in favor of eating in.

"Learned to drive?" she said, as the car stopped at the only streetlight on their route.

"It's Tony," Raymond said. "His movements can be reproduced, with how many times he did this route. I'm not really driving, his hands are," he stretched out his fingers as if showing her he could control them. "When I read about how you traveled I pitied you pre-modern humans -- with these slow and dangerous death traps. It's quite impressive how you all manage to stay alive -- Wesley is not paying attention to the road sixty-eight percent of the time!"

"Yeah, usually my fault. He got a ticket on our honeymoon because I was crying on our way to the airport," Claire remembered. Why was she crying? Something small like their order being late. An argument about her food choice, which always 'took longer'.

"It's him," Raymond said. "He can't focus, it makes him angry because he doesn't understand why."

"I don't care," Claire was done with Tony's drama. He always had a reason for being shitty.

"Every time," Raymond said, "He's thinking more about touching you than he is about driving."

It was not the words but the way he said them: as if he understood and agreed with Tony.