The Quest For Perfection (Is A Damn Fine Thing)

Part III: The Flooding of Fredrick Street - Chapter 21

21

After Tom left them, their lives picked up right where they had left off, but they were never the same as they once were. They remembered, each and every one of them. They remembered their lives as they were, not as they had been living them. Sarah looked at her kids and her husband and seen them flicker in front of them like a hologram. Albert stared at Betty with tears in his eyes as she placed a hand on his face and asked what was wrong. Mark and Kim shared not a word to each other.

They still sat around the table, with the BBQ sizzling and their façade families and their fake smiles surrounding them. Neither had the words to speak, let alone look at one another. Tom had explained it to them. They were in a shared dream state, a simulation of their perfect lives created in their minds. They were part of a project, an experiment that he had started. And there had been more than the 5 that sat in front of him. The Hendricks, The Murphys, the young newlyweds a few doors down (Pete and Liz Guthrie), Old Lady Morgan from round the corner, Mr. and Mrs. Kingston and Gordon the Gopher. Jessica. They had all lived here but had died throughout the project. It made sense, strangely, to Sarah, as she sat there now. It would explain why they hadn't seen any one on the street in weeks.

Now Tom had told them the truth, they had decisions to make and not a long time to make them. Soon they would start to remember. They would remember the true lives they lived before coming here. They would remember the mistakes they had made. And they would have to make a choice, to relive it all again in order to go back.

Kim was the first to break the silence. "Do you think it will hurt?"

Sarah looked at her. Tom had told them about the fail safe that he had planted in the simulation should they need to bring them out of the experiment quickly. For Tom, it was pushing a button and flooding the memories back to them, like playing a movie. For them it would be a whole lot more.

"I think that's the whole point," said Sarah as she squeezed Kim's hand, noticing how young she was for the first time. What could she possibly have done that made her want to start over again?

Silence had fallen over the table again. Each one of them were standing on the gallows now, waiting for the floor to disappear from beneath them but without knowing what lay beneath. Sarah looked over the guests at her table as they sat, frozen. Understandable, she thought. She felt a little cold herself.

Hadn't she always had the feeling that this life was too good to be true? It slid by so easy. She had everything she'd ever wanted, the white picket fence life she had always dreamed of and it was almost too perfect. Had she always thought that, or was the doubt only creeping it's way into her mind now that she'd learned the truth? Maybe she'd never know. But Tom had said something that made her think.

After he arrived and their families disappeared, he'd told them the story. But one thing he said, more to himself than to any of the ears around the table, had stuck out to Sarah. One of them, she couldn't remember who (maybe it was her?) had asked why things had started to go wrong. Tom rubbed the back of his head and sighed.

"Part of it was the mistakes we made, early on. Part of it was the meddling I was doing, being here. But mostly it was because you all kept picking away at perfection, causing it to unravel. The harder we tried in the real world to stop you questioning how happy and perfect you were, the more you questioned. It's like a loose thread on a jumper. If you pick away at it, eventually the jumper is going to unravel and fall apart. Except you guys were the loose threads, picking away at a perfect world."

Sarah looked at her family, thinking about what Tom had said. They looked like shadows to her now. Tom was right. She had everything she could ever possibly want, yet she had picked at it, not even aware she was doing so. She even compared herself to the people around this table, spending too much time looking around at others instead of looking at what she had.

"Can any of you remember you're life before?" she asked.

They all shook their head.

"At least not yet," said Mark.

"Well, if you remember this, it really was nice to meet you all," said Sarah.

Albert was the only one to smile and stretched his hand out to shake Sarah's. "And you."

Sarah smiled back. "I guess I'll see you on the other side."

And with that, they parted ways, Albert re-joined Betty and left. Mark and Kim left quietly. Kim hugged Sarah before she left. As they hugged, she whispered into Sarah's ear. "

"I'm scared."

Over Kim's shoulder, Sarah looked at her perfect family playing in the living room of the home that never was and tightened her hug around Kim.

"Me too. But, whatever happens, at least we'll always have had this."

They hugged once more before Kim lef and Sarah entered the house. She kissed her husband (who wasn't) and hugged her kids (who weren't) and sat down on the couch with them all. She was hoping to make one more memory of the life she never had, before closing the door on it forever.

And it really was only a moment. Sarah sat on the couch and held her family, trying to keep her eyes open. Eventually, she nodded off.

When she woke, she was alone. 

*

As Tom had instructed, they were all in place. Waiting for whatever was about to come next. As they waited, the ground of Fredrick Street started to shake. Sarah approached the window and looked out to see the houses of Fredrick Street that surrounded her start to collapse and fall down around her. That was the signal. Any moment now, they would be shown what brought them here. If they relived it and let it play out, they would return. Sarah looked out of the window, watching a firework display without the colour, as Fredrick Street collapsed around them.

Transcript of Interview with Ray Samson. August 26, 2015. Conducted by J.P. McNair.

I was sure that Ray was starting to shake a little, as he retold this part of the story. I was also sure that he was no longer in the room with me, but back there. Reliving it all.

How did he bring them out?

"He had installed a fail safe scenario within the simulation. It was genius, but cruel in it's own way."

If they had been under for so long, why was he so confident that he'd be able to get them out?

"I don't know exactly what he put into them, but whatever cocktail of drugs he used worked. Well, not for all of them."

You mention that it didn't work for them all.

"No. We're not 100% sure why. Maybe it was the new drugs that killed them, the adrenaline. Or maybe we were too late. I think they chose to stay. Somehow, they resisted the failsafe scenario. Refused to watch their past mistakes. To acknowledge that the people they currently were, wasn't the people they truly are."

What about the night porter? Tell me about that.

I could say him grit his teeth at this point. "The night porter. We didn't see that coming."