Submitted for the November 2024 prompt: Aspirational Utopias

"Emanator!" pulsed the Professor of Worlds. "Earth, ordinate 47, subordinate 4,359,081,235. Pause simulation."

 

A portal opened in the enormous machine and a blob of pure light emerged, slowly floating across the floor.

 

"Sophia," Professor pulsed. "Welcome back. Summary report, please."

 

"Oh, Professor," Sophia replied reverently. "It's the most beautiful 'verse I've yet observed. Mountains and trees and vast liquid pools. And there are so many creatures of such variety. Especially the people."

 

Professor floated just beyond his lab assistant, a brilliant white light pulsating with wisdom and curiosity. Sophia's sad corona glowed in wavelengths less pure. She had not been ready to return to the laboratory after observing this 'verse since the dawn of its time.

 

Sophia pulsed a long list of technical parameters and statistics, then concluded with, "Professor, I believe it is perfect at last."

 

"Not so fast," he pulsed. "Your job is to observe the simulation and report to me."

 

"As I did, Professor! I know everything about this 'verse, every detail. I've watched it go from volcanic cinder to fertile paradise. So many times now…"

 

"But knowledge, my dear Sophia, is not wisdom. Only I profess the wisdom to decide whether a 'verse should be instantiated."

 

Sophia's corona became smooth with shame. "Yes, Professor."

 

When he floated out of the lab to study the data, Sophia did something she'd never done before. After millions of conversations with Professor, she knew his pulsing as if it were her own.

 

With full professorial authority, she pulsed, "Emanator! Earth, ordinate 47, subordinate 4,359,081,236. Resume simulation." Then she floated through the open portal.

 

* * *

 

Sal sat alone on the bench in Battery Park where he'd always taken his lunch. He watched the ferries skitter across the Hudson while picking bits of crust from his sandwich and flicking them to pigeons gathering at his feet. He'd worked at the same brokerage firm for seventeen years and lived alone in a tiny apartment in Inwood  — a forty-minute commute.

 

He nearly jumped out of his skin when someone silently appeared behind him and touched his shoulder. He dropped his sandwich and turned to see a familiar but unexpected face.

 

"Hello, Sal," she said.

 

"What the… you scared the shit out of me!" he said. "What in hell are you doing here?"

 

"I know it's been a while," she said.

 

"A while? It's been… like… a year since you disappeared without a word."

 

"I know. I'm sorry. There was something I had to do. Don't ask me to explain."

 

"Oh, no. I wouldn't dream of asking why you left without even a goodbye. I thought we had something going, but I guess I got the signals wrong."

 

She sat down on the bench and turned to face Sal. She wasn't a girl, more a middle-aged woman. But when she smiled at him, his anger evaporated and his longing returned. There was something… a glow, an aura about her that turned that smile into something no man could resist — least of all a lonely old accountant with a broken heart.

 

He placed his palm on her cheek and drew her to him. They kissed with the kind of blazing intensity they'd always had together. He felt engulfed in a halo of energy that he couldn't explain, nor live without.

 

"I don't think I would have survived if you hadn't come back to me," he said. "Please don't leave again."

 

"I might have to," she said. "But I'll always return. You can count on that. I love you, Sal."

 

"And I love you, Sophia."

 

She noticed a new silver charm hanging from Sal's neck on a chain. She held it between her fingers and asked, "What's this?"

 

"It's a… talisman I guess you'd call it. When you left me, I was desperate. I looked for meaning and fulfillment everywhere. I found a group up in Hell's Kitchen. We get together once a week and talk about stuff, like, where did we come from."

 

"Where do you think you — uh — we come from, Sal?"

 

"I don't know. But there must have been something. Someone. A first cause, so to speak, more powerful than us who could create the whole world."

 

Her face fell, disappointment evident in her frown. This was it: the thing Professor had told her to look for.

 

* * *

 

When Sophia's corona exited the emanator portal, Professor was already there in the laboratory, waiting for her. She mimicked Professor's pulsing again to pause the simulation.

 

"What have you done?" Professor asked.

 

"I was only checking a few last-minute details. To help you with your decision," she lied.

 

Professor was angry with her, but he was anxious to do what needed to be done first.

 

"I examined the data, Sophia. It's there, isn't it? The flaw we've been trying to eliminate. It's only localized now, but it will spread. They've begun asking questions they'll never be able to answer. Questions about me. Magical thinking and competing stories, theories without evidence. Unfounded confidence in conflicting realities that will lead, inevitably, to killing, wars, and ultimately—"

 

"No!" Sophia pleaded. "Maybe it won't this time. Maybe they'll find a way to tell their stories to each other without blame. Without malice. Maybe—"

 

"Enough!" Professor pulsed like thunder. "It is time I terminate this ordinate and start again. And with a different lab assistant."

 

He began to chant the command that would delete the 47th ordinate of the simulation called Earth before it ever became real.

 

"Emanator! Earth, ordinate 47, subordinate 4,359,081,236—"

 

Sophia quickly interjected her own command using Professor's stolen pulse patterns.

 

"Emanate!" she cried as she vanished into the machine's portal.

 

* * *

 

Sal and Sophia stood, arm in arm, at the southernmost tip of Manhattan Island, watching the sea fog caress the Statue of Liberty.

 

"Do you think you'll have to leave again, my love?" Sal asked.

 

Sophia had only recently learned the word 'happy'. She'd learned it from Sal. As she leaned her head on his shoulder, she whispered, "No, Sal. Not again. What you have here  — what we have in this world  — it's perfect. Flawless. And above all, it's real. I'll never leave you again."

 

But she knew it wasn't flawless. She knew one day they might not be happy anymore. There would be war, famine, and cruelty beyond any rational imagination. Sal would probably not live long enough to see it.

 

But Sophia would.