When I Could Fly

[merryeccentricities]

Cubefall was--

Cubefall had been--

Well.

Joly had been a robot. A very pleased robot. And it hadn't occurred to him before he decided to be a robot that it would be...

well. If he had words for what he hadn't expected that would be something at least. But all he has are questions; and the questions he has, about sensation and spirit and change and desire, are not the sort of questions he's used to considering. He doesn't even know how to start.

But he has friends who are used to such questions, or something like them. And that's why he's pushing open the ever-unlocked door to the red-painted room.

"Bahorel? Prouvaire?"

Comments

[vive_lavenir]

"Oh, yes," says Jehan, quietly. "Dreams of fire, and of green growing out of ash...of apocalypse and rebirth. Unlike any dream I've had as a human." He hesitates before saying, "You didn't sleep, did you? As a robot?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly shakes his head. " It's -- it was one of the reasons I decided to change back, at the end. And a very notable difference. Dreams are, they're very central, you know? Well, of course you know." Joly has to admit that Prouvaire's sense of the importance of dreams is probably closer to accurate than that of many doctors over the decades.

"It's just-- I realize how physically based it is! So of course dreams would be different with another sort of brain, but to have no dreams at all was-- strange? And it's..oh, I don't know. It's part of how people, how humans, at least, sort of create ourselves... I mean, it's incredibly complicated."

He laughs a little. " I make it sound so grand, and my dreams are the most useless things! Boxes of penguins--But still. I don't know how much I'd have kept being myself, over time, without it."

[vive_lavenir]

Jehan's eyes fill with tears. This is so like Joly, to hit upon a profound truth and then try to lighten it with a joke. It's somehow very touching. "Oh, my dear Joly. Boxes of penguins! It sounds utterly absurd, and utterly charming, and you're wholly right. You wouldn't be you, did you not spend your nights dreaming of boxes of penguins. Everything from your science to your friendship with Bossuet would be different without that time spent in dreams, when your mind runs free of logic and immediate perceptions."

[merryeccentricities]

Joly nods, and falls quiet for a while. He's not sure what else he actually needs to say.

"I almost didn't change back." he says, eventually.

[vive_lavenir]

Jehan slides down next to Joly, and slips his arm around him.

"I understand," he says. "But I'm glad you did."

It would be odd to hug a robot Joly, for one thing.

[merryeccentricities]

That was something Joly considered, yes. Though less than people who know him might expect. But he's not sure he's ready to explain that yet. He leans against Prouvaire.

"Did you think of staying as a phoenix?"

[vive_lavenir]

"Yes," Jehan says, in a low voice. "I did. But I knew I wouldn't. I don't know if I could create anything, as a phoenix. And--it would have felt like I was abandoning people. All of you. Somehow."

[merryeccentricities]

Joly hugs Prouvaire back, hard. "Of course you couldn't give up that part of you. And-- I am glad you chose to keep this form."

He sighs. "I almost stayed. I half-planned to, I think, almost by the end of the first day. It was so easy. And what I do-- everything I want to do would have been easier. I could have learned faster, and still done careful work, and lifted injured people without shaking them if I had to-- it all would have been simpler."

[vive_lavenir]

Jehan nods. "Yes, for a doctor--you would have so many abilities as a robot, and it would be so hard to give up...but Joly, consider this also: as a human, you can feel what other humans feel. And your relation to them as a human doctor will be different than a robot's." He pauses to reflect. "I don't say better. But different, and...perhaps you were wise not to give that up."

[merryeccentricities]

He nods, his head still on Prouvaire's shoulder. "That's what I thought, when I decided I'd better not. It was very easy, that other form, and...it's not, being a human." He laughs a little. "I can't say 'being alive', I'm still not sure how that is for us, but-- human. It hurts, and it's hard, even for comfortable people, and frightening, and...it seemed choosing to leave those things, and then continuing to treat the people who endure them, would be a, a sort of betrayal. A dangerous thing, at least."

[vive_lavenir]

Jehan wraps his arms more fully around Joly. "Yes--it would be choosing to stand above them, remote and invulnerable, rather than treating them as an equal. A bourgeois doctor might be healthier and stronger than a poor woman screaming in childbirth, but at least he bleeds and sweats and weeps with her." His hand comes up too ruffle Joly's hair. "As I said. I'm glad you're still you--completely you."