Elysium Chapter 5

Maeve uses a digital afterlife service provider; 'Elysium'. This follows her journey.

5

          Maeve punched the two numbers into the remote again. She'd lost count of how many times she'd done this. Static. Juno. Fade. Repeat. She knew it had been roughly two years in the analogue-world. Juno kept talking about visiting her but never did. That wasn't entirely accurate, she thought. She had visited her. At least, that's what Juno said.

          Juno was lying—of course—but Maeve couldn't wrap her head around why. All she had to do was contact Elysium, right? As Sharon said; she wouldn't be able to visit at the moment. But the fact that Juno kept telling Miranda she'd visited, told her—yeah—Juno was lying.

          Unless, Juno wasn't visiting her. Perhaps it was her analogue-self—her bio-self—Juno had been visiting. The bio-self she left behind, but then—Why hadn't she seen that?

          Maeve had only seen through Miranda's eyes, but surely, at some point, she would have seen Juno visit her bio-self in hospital.

          The old TV thunked to life as the buzz of static faded in. Juno was in the kitchen cooking something, stirring a pot on the stove.

          Maeve missed her cooking, looking around at the several empty ice cream tubs and pizza boxes. She'd manifested a lot of comfort food and hadn't bothered to manifest the remains away. She longed for the smell of the slow cooker, or something sizzling in the oven.

          "Juno?" Miranda's disembodied voice sounded on the TV.

          Juno turned to Miranda.

          Maeve reached out and touched the screen. She had started doing this whenever Juno turned to the camera.

          "I'm thinking of going back to my parent's for a while. Back to Canada. I was wondering ... you want to come with me?" Miranda asked.

          Juno placed the lid on the pot. "I ... don't know if I'm ready."

          Miranda placed her hand on Juno's shoulder. "I know it's not my place to say; but I'm worried about you. You can't keep punishing yourself like this. You have to let her go."

          Maeve was beside herself. This Miranda person just saunters into Juno's life, tells her to abandon her partner of nearly ten years and what? Pack her bags and elope to Canada?

          No way, there was no way. Sure, there might be some reason Juno wasn't trying to visit her in Elysium. But she wouldn't abandon her—the O.G. Maeve. Absolutely no way she wou—

          "You're right," Juno said, "but I need to visit her at least one more time before I go."

          "Could I go with you this time?" Miranda asked.

          Juno stared back at the pot for a moment. The '112 Rock & Roll's Greatest Hits' floated in the air from the record player, lingering in the tension before she continued. "yes ... yes I'd like someone to be there."

          Maeve wondered where her bio-self ended up, as Juno started the car. Maybe a care home, or if the mental decline had been more severe; maybe a special health clinic. Or if her symptoms worsened; hospice.

          Sharon's words echoed in her head. "How quickly we forget the lives we lead."

          She hadn't thought about her bio-self at all. She was here now. Was that what mattered?

          Maeve turned her attention back to the screen, as the car slowed and parked. Miranda, still directing the screen, looked out of the car window. Maeve's questions about what happened to her bio-self were answered abruptly. Two stone pillars, with a metal arch and hanging sign marked the entrance.

         

-Strawberry Fields Cemetery-

          They'd joked it would be perfect to move into one day. That is, before the brain tumour had developed.

          "One last visit," Juno said, as her image faded into the static void.

          Maeve sat feeling utterly abandoned and empty. She was the imitation after all; the fake.

          The bio-Maeve, the real Maeve, the one her partner had visited all this time instead of her; would lie in Strawberry Fields, forever.

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