Anticipation Day

MaryAnne put her fork down and cleared her throat.

“So, take a moment to look around. Think really hard about everything you can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste, like these delicious desserts. Just take it all in. Now, in the simulation, everything will be exactly the same. The color of that wall will be the same. The cushion under your ass will feel the same. The birds outside will sound the same. These desserts will taste the same. Everyone sitting around this table interacting with you will be the same. Everything will be the same.

Except…you’ll be someone else.

Your skin, hair, height, and weight will be different. Everything physical about you will change. But you will still be you. You’ll remember everything from your real life, yet somehow, you will be this other person in the simulation.

People will ask you questions about your simulated character’s life, and you’ll know the answers. You will just know, instinctively. It’s honestly the creepiest thing at first, but eventually you get used to it.

You’re groggy when you first wake up, which they said was normal. It’s like your real-life mind needs time to combine with your mind in the simulation to form some sort of ‘super mind,’ and it takes a few minutes to adjust to that.

Before you enter the simulation, you’ll chat with your simulation coach. They’ll confirm the details of the simulation, its length, some of the ground rules for the simulation, what to expect when you wake up, and what happens if you need to leave early. Make sure you ask any questions then because you want to be as comfortable and ready for this as possible.” She stopped to eat more of her eclair.

“When I woke up in my simulation, I was on a lounge chair on a rocky beach somewhere in Italy, and it looked like sunset. I had my clothes on and a bag with me. It took me a few minutes to sit up and shake the cobwebs off, but once I did and took in my surroundings, it was like I was really on a beach in Italy.

I could hear the ocean in the distance, with the waves crashing on the shore. I could feel the coolness of the rocks against my feet. I could feel the breeze on my skin, or whatever it was in the simulation. I could hear people around me speaking German, English, and Spanish. I could hear cars and trucks driving on the road above the beach, with horns honking occasionally.

I saw seagulls flying all over, probably looking for the last scraps of food. And speaking of food, I could smell it from the beach vendors—garlic, meat, fish, oils—it all came through the breeze and right to my nose.

And then the sunset. My god, the sunset. It was as if every color on the spectrum was forming in the sky above me. It took me back to my childhood, sitting outside with my dad, watching sunsets from our porch. I felt instantly calm. Maybe they set it up that way to ensure you entered calmly. Who knows?

Either way, it was a fantastic way to start. But then, I just kind of knew things about my simulation. I knew where my hotel was, what I had done the day before, and that I was on the trip alone. I just felt it and knew it.

It was as if memories were implanted in me, and I could recall them instantly. It was wild.

You generally knew everything about the simulated character. If someone asked me what I had for breakfast 17 years ago, I’d struggle; but I would also struggle in real life. But if someone asked me who my favorite cousin was, I could answer that. They give you enough knowledge to get through what any conversation in real life would be like, you know?” MaryAnne took another bite of her delicious eclair while others did the same.

Alexandra looked around, noticing how everyone was hanging on her every word. It was truly amazing and something she had never seen before from this group. Everyone was silent, waiting for her to continue.

“It just got more amazing from there. The sites I saw. The food I ate. The people I met. The smells I smelled. It all felt as real as real life. It was like I had the freedom to do whatever the fuck I wanted.

I told the simulation team I wanted to travel around Europe for a year. They gave me free reign to explore any European country, but if I tried to go anywhere else, the simulation would end.

Obviously, I was fine with that—I wasn’t planning to return to the US in my simulation. For what?” She seemed to ask herself the question, but no one responded.

“So, I traveled. I visited Italy: Rome, Florence, the Amalfi Coast, Tuscany, and Sicily. I took a boat to Greece and saw the ancient ruins in Athens, the coast of the Aegean, and then traveled up through Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, and eventually to what is left of Ukraine. I headed west through Hungary and Austria, finally reaching Switzerland to see the Swiss Alps—amazing and stunning. It was one of many places on my trip that just took my breath away.

I think I went to the Netherlands or Germany from Switzerland. I can’t remember. But in Germany, I toured Munich, Berlin, and Hamburg, which were phenomenal, and the people there, at least in the simulation, were amazing. From there, I think I went west through the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, which I had always dreamed of seeing.

The food in that region was unbelievable! Everything was so delicious and fresh and different. It was honestly the best food I had ever had.

Finally, I went south through my dream city of all dream cities, Paris, and spent what I think was three weeks there, seeing everything I could before heading to the south of France and eventually to Spain and Portugal before my time ran out.

The amount of detail in the simulation was mind-blowing. I remember looking at a blade of grass in France and seeing a colony of ants running up it. I thought, ‘How the fuck did they do that?’ Every detail of every place was meticulously thought of by whatever supercomputer created this thing.

It felt like a year of my life went by—a year! But it had only been seven hours when I woke up.

The experience was not comparable to anything else in my life. I felt re-energized and reinvigorated, and it felt like I was alive again. After the divorce, it was exactly what I needed.” She paused to take the final bite of her dessert. Again, no one said a word.