​

No one talked about the difficulty of the first transition because no one could talk at that time. We weren't even apes. Barely sentient beings. Un-cognizant of our own evolution happening. A leaf pushed in the wind. Twigs swept on the stream. We simple became, suddenly.

 

This time, the second time, the transition was faster   and we were conscious all the way through. Still, no one warned us of the pain. The ache of letting go. The sadness when releasing our human selves in exchange for something more – astronomical. God-like. Alien. Flesh infused with radical machinery.

 

The day the microchips arrived it was “strongly suggested” we plant them in our brains.
When smartphones and laptops became obsolete, the chips became mandatory.

 

Many of us refused. We turned wild and archaic like old National Geographic magazines.
We retreated from the cities for a quarter century while the rest of the world kept evolving.

 

When we returned, we brought with us all of the wisdom we’d gathered from the trees. The sacred songs we harbored in our hearts. The feelings we believed to be more precious than the downloads and programming.

 

We tried to tell the others of the value humans had, of their capacity to love so tenderly. But the others had progressed beyond their felt memories; our pleas meant nothing to these new beings.

 

None of the technological angels could feel anything. 

 

*

 

It was Monday at 14:33. I looked up just in time to see his figure disappear in the snow upon
the horizon.

 

Going for a run on a day like this? I sent him telepathically.

 

I meditated in the temple above the barn until early evening. When the moon rose, Azrael sent a message back to me.  

 

Developing an idea – the un-trackable way – but I’m out of recording devices.

Should I bring you a paper and pen? I responded.
Paper and pen?

I have many ancient things.

 

I left the temple and emerged into the cold, out to the tundra, remembering: the beginning when humans first found each other and cuddled together to keep from freezing.

 

Watch out for the cougars, Azrael sent. The microchip warns me – but you, you’ve refused. You’re out there unsure of everything.

 

I trekked through the woods to the clearing beyond the row of painted prayer wheels. Azrael was laying on the ground in his hut, designing a spaceship made entirely of water. He wanted us to blast off together once his spaceship was complete.

 

Almost everyone was leaving the planet, slowly but surely. Azrael did not want to wait. He sought ascension immediately.

 

When he’d finished his sketch, we lit up his wrist and watched a broadcast on ‘junk’ DNA.

 

“Are you going to activate yours tonight?” he asked.

“No. Maybe someday.”

“I’m doing mine tonight,” he nodded. Then – “Did you decide to come with me?”         

“I won’t leave my husband.”

Azrael sighed. “I can’t remember anymore, what is love like?”

I looked into his eyes. “The most powerful human feeling. I feel it everywhere. In my bones and body. It’s the hardest of all the feelings to release. It carries such warmth.”

“How else does it make you feel?”

“It makes me feel blessed.”

“What’s that?”

“Protected by something.”

“A firewall?” Azrael asked.

“No. It’s a feeling.”

 

Azrael nodded, but his attention did not release me. Every day after that for eleven weeks, I received a message from him: You don’t have to wait around for your number to be pulled. We can leave as soon as my ship is complete. We’ll be among the first to ascend. We’ll be history.

 

*

 

My husband sat on the couch, playing his guitar and sipping a sugary drink.

“Baby?” I tried one more time. “Would you like to leave the planet with me?”

“Nope,” he said. “I’ll be right here, dying with the old way of being.”

“Can I please enter a number for us in the lottery? When the number’s called, we can leave together.”

“I’ve told you already,” my husband said. “I’m staying in the world I know.”

 

That night, I watched him sleep. Heavy eyelids. Steady breath. He may or may not have been dreaming. I wanted to make love to him one more time, to feel the weight of his human body. I thought maybe his body would ground me, act as an anchor to stop me from changing – but I didn’t wake him to see. Instead, I entered his closet and wrapped my arms around his clothes. “I don’t want to go,” I wept. “I don’t want to leave.”

 

“But you know you have to go,” my inner voice said to me.

 

*

 

What are you doing? I sent Azrael. I caught glimpse of him in my mind. He was wearing an alpaca-wool scarf and standing at the edge of a nameless field. An abandoned war barrack bedside him.

 

I’m waiting for you, he sent. There’s a new moon tonight. You should leave now. It’s the perfect night to ascend.

 

I moved undetected in the snow. Silently through the trees. I’d activated the rest of my DNA. The ultimate technology. I’d also finally installed the chips into my tender body.

 

My internal gravity disappeared as my memory began fading. I was ready for the next evolution. Set to create a new mythology. Severed. Untethered. Unrecognizable as human. The warmth in my eyes, dissolving.  

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Jaclyn Costello