Екатерина Юша – THE COMA (страница 1)
Юша Екатерина
THE COMA
EKATERINA YUSHA
THE COMA
The book tells the stories of several characters whose paths intertwine through love, family conflicts, and inner struggles. The main heroine, Lessie, faces painful relationships, experiences loss, and tries to find her place in the world—whether in her hometown, Paris, or somewhere else. A man named Elon appears in her life, bringing her new hope and love. However, the past and present, internal doubts, and external circumstances create complex situations that require moral and emotional testing. The story is filled with deep reflections on fate, love, loneliness, and the search for harmony.
Prologue
Would you want to live your life once more?
And if you were given the chance to rewrite the script?
In 2020, when few of us could imagine that a pandemic would begin with a heavily promoted respiratory virus, and that a century later the world would belong to corporations where everything would be paid for in energy or cryptocurrency, life still felt simpler.
We grew old. We died. We bought AirPods and spent days standing in lines for the new iPhone.
When we could no longer read the ingredients printed on food packages, and the name of an incoming caller blurred on a smartphone screen, we bought glasses. And if even the past was fading in the memory of those who had miraculously preserved their eyesight by the age of eighty, what could be said about milestone?
Back then, they meant too much.
We measured our worth in followers, likes, and views. For the sake of reach, we stepped outside our comfort zones, recorded ridiculous videos, danced in front of cameras, and willingly turned ourselves into caricatures of ourselves.
It was also the age of concentrated self-development. People made money from anything capable of creating the illusion of happiness, while every failure was blamed Mercury of retrograde.
If you asked me to describe that time in three phrases, they would be: “I am in the flow,” “I am in the moment,” and “I am in my resources.” Do not ask what those words truly meant. It is better not to know.
Today, however, vision can be improved through an application. Forgotten memories are no longer confined to a smartphone gallery – you can step inside them, inhabit them, and relive them by launching virtual reality.
That forgotten world was the place Lessie wanted to return to again and again.
She watched videos of herself petting a cat or watering flowers. It did not matter that in reality the flowers had long since dried and the cat had run away searching for food. One more problem simply ceased to exist.
Lessie Brick turned seventy-eight last week. She had been connected to the “Coma” program for twenty years.
She belonged to the generation that still felt nostalgia for fitness bands, the old AirPods, and the time when the corporation beginning with the letter “F” first presented its virtual reality project. Lessie was among the first to purchase a subscription.
The early version of “Coma” was either a one-way ticket or limited to two hours per day. Now the system had reached its thirteenth update, and all restrictions had finally been removed.
The only requirement was notarized consent allowing one’s consciousness to be uploaded into the virtual world, along with payment for the chosen period. When the subscription expired, the user would be returned to the real, unwanted world – or remain forever inside an alternative reality as a numerical code.
Subscription packages ranged from one week to several decades.
For those who paid in full, bonus options were available, including the ability to visit any historical period. Once, Lessie returned to the nineties.
That decade was no longer in demand. Those who had lived through it were mostly gone, and those who had seen Tetris or Tamagotchi were too few – and even they were slowly forgetting.
Lessie was among the latter.
Sometimes she and several other “tourists” – the name given to those who visited unpaid time zones – met at a school dance inside a hallway or an assembly hall, depending on luck. They used avatars selected from a standard catalogue. Paid zones were inaccessible to them. No one ever explained why.
People like Lessie, whose lives were quietly but steadily approaching their end, preferred the twenty-first century.
Numbers were no longer as important, because people were willing to pay for the chance to relive youth and do the things they had failed to do while wasting time scrolling through social networks.
Lessie wanted to remain young, and “Coma” granted her that wish.
The creators of the alternative reality had accounted for every detail, and now everyone dreamed of purchasing the same subscription.
People, shops, even advertisements inside “Coma” looked exactly as they had in 2020. This was the reality Lessie had bought for herself.
She paid for a fifty-year residence package, hoping that when the term ended she would no longer care about her appearance or about the year written outside the virtual world.
After her death, her consciousness would remain inside “Coma,” while her physical body would be cremated. This was stated in her will.
In the virtual city beginning with the letter S, Lessie lived an ideal life.
In reality, her friends were either dead or approaching death. But here, she and all her friends were young, beautiful, healthy, and full of energy to celebrate endlessly.
Here, Lessie tasted wine for the first time and spent a long time blaming herself for discovering it so late.
In her first life she had never accepted such ways of relaxing. There had simply been no time.
First, she focused on school so she would not become a street cleaner, as her father had once predicted, and so her mother would not have to feel ashamed before teachers.
Then she entered a local university to remain close to home, and later she built a family.
If she had known that excessive parental protection would grow into a web of complexes and silent psychological shadows in her adulthood, and that her children would forget her the moment they had children of their own, she might have spent more time pursuing her own desires.
If she had known that her husband would die so early from a heart attack at the job to which he had devoted his entire life at the cost of family time, would she have loved him more?
Hardly.
We are often told that every event brings us closer to an ultimate purpose.
But what is our purpose?
If one listens to self-proclaimed guides who claim to have understood this truth, does it become any clearer?
Will standing on nails or meditating change one’s financial reality?
Will a cryptocurrency wallet grow heavier if we surrender to the flow and listen to our heart?
Rhetorical questions.
Now Lessie no longer regretted the past.
The coins stored on her account could guarantee a new and comfortable life.
After spending her first year inside the virtual city, Lessie never once considered returning to reality. Everything in her time spoke only of approaching death.
Unlike the virtual 2020.
That was the year she decided to stay here forever – though she did not yet know that virtual love could cause no less pain than real love.
Chapter One
In this part of
Dawn was breaking.
Sunlight stubbornly pushed through the thick burgundy curtains into the room. Squinting against the brightness, Lessie slowly opened her eyes, pulled the blanket aside, and remained lying in the warm comfort of her bed for a few more moments.
She finally rose and walked to the window, throwing the heavy curtains open. The sunlight struck her face with the force of a Star Wars blaster.
The apartment, gifted by her parents upon her university graduation, overlooked the city’s central park.
The girl smiled sleepily at the new day, watched the dog walkers outside for a couple of minutes, and then began preparing for her long-awaited meeting with her brother.
Leaving the house, Lessie took a short walk through the park visible from her windows. The light summer dress she had chosen for the meeting lifted slightly in the wind, resisting obedience like a living thing.
Turning toward Saint Louis Street, she entered a small shop famous in Charle for selling the most delicious marzipan.
Arriving at the café
“Hey, sister!” she heard behind her.
“Hi. I didn’t notice you coming,” Lessie said, standing and hugging her brother.