update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/apres-un-reve.md

@@ -40,7 +40,11 @@ As the doctor stepped out of the room, Sylvie settled back into the chair. She c
 
 Everything was so loud, so loud.
 
-She had them all memorized, anyway. Right now, she just wanted quiet. She just wanted to think of Grace.
+She had them all memorized, anyway. All those overbright promises that hat circled her head like a halo yearning for the System somewhere above had grown wearisome. 
+
+Right now, she just wanted quiet. She just wanted peace and stillness. She just wanted to *think.*
+
+She just wanted to think of Grace.
 
 Grace with her silvering hair.
 
@@ -48,9 +52,9 @@ Grace with her fair and smooth skin.
 
 Grace with her liquid laughter and lovely voice.
 
-They’d fallen in love within months, shared only a scant few years together, before being separated again. An impenetrable boundary of distance, of emulated sensorium and embodied flesh.
+They’d fallen in love within weeks. A chance meeting at a work party --- Grace someone's plus-one, someone in accounting --- had led to an hour and a half talking about music. The chat had led to a concert. Then another. Then coffee. They'd shared only a scant few years together after that, one of them married, before being separated again. An impenetrable boundary of distance, of the immiscibility emulated sensorium and embodied flesh.
 
-Grace's decision hadn't been Sylvie's. Uploading, the thought of uploading, made her skin itch and eyes ache. To be removed from this world and sent to another, to the system, didn't appeal to her.
+Grace's decision hadn't been Sylvie's. Uploading, the very thought of it, made her skin itch and eyes ache. To be removed from this world and sent to another, to the System, didn't appeal to her. What greater life could the System offer? What did "a life beyond need" mean? That one could eat to one's delight? But she'd heard that hunger wasn't a thing, so what mattered satiation? That one could sleep as long as one wanted? Of what use were dreams up there? That one could live forever?
 
 It did appeal to Grace.
 
@@ -60,9 +64,9 @@ Grace with her deteriorating coordination.
 
 Grace with her pain, her depression.
 
-For Grace, it was a way to escape her body. That body that Sylvie loved so much, and was such a prison to Grace. A voluntary procedure --- "Help combat overpopulation!" the posters howled --- but  also a way to neatly sidestep the MS slowly claiming her body and mind.
+For Grace, it was a way to escape her body. That body that Sylvie loved so much, and which was such a prison to Grace. A voluntary procedure --- "Help combat overpopulation!" the posters howled, eugenics veiled thinly, and then with a wink and a nudge --- but  also a way to neatly sidestep the multiple sclerosis slowly claiming her body and mind.
 
-After the upload, Grace had communicated with Sylvie through text, through mails sent to her terminal which she'd pore over at work. She begged Sylvie. *Come join me, come upload,* she said. *The posters, they're all true, they're all right.*
+After the upload, Grace had communicated with Sylvie through text, through mails sent to her terminal which she'd pore over at work. She asked Sylvie. She begged her. *Come join me, come upload,* she said. *The posters, they're all true, they're all right. We can be together as if nothing had changed. At least, nothing for the worse.*
 
 The thought *still* made her skin itch and her eyes ache, but all the same, she kept dreaming of Grace. Dreaming of softer eyes, of a voice more sonorous. Her Grace shining like the dawn.
 
@@ -73,18 +77,22 @@ So she'd relented.
 > Les cieux pour nous entr'ouvraient leurs nues,  
 > Splendeurs inconnues, lueurs divines entrevues,*
 
-Sylvie's mind was filled with Fauré, with that rolling, lilting theme. With Grace's voice at the piano.
+Sylvie's mind was filled to overflowing with Fauré, with that rolling, lilting theme, with Grace's voice at the piano. Even as she was put in a hospital gown, even as she was wheeled back to the operating room on a tired gurney, it played in her head. Maybe she hummed, she didn't know.
 
-"We're going to keep you awake, okay? We need to, in order to tell when the upload is complete, but you'll under local anesthesia. It'll make you feel a little dreamy, may have visual disturbances." The doctor's smile was kind. "Some report it to be enjoyable."
+"We're going to keep you awake, okay? We need to as part of the process, you have to be conscious but you'll be under local anesthesia. It'll make you feel a little dreamy. You may have visual disturbances." The doctor's smile was kind. "Some report it to be enjoyable."
 
-"Okay. How long will the upload take?"
+"Okay. How long will it take?"
 
-"The procedure will be about forty five minutes to prep you for upload, and then the upload will happen in two stages," the doctor said. "You'll be uploaded to a local node at our center, which will give you access to a waiting room of sorts for the system proper. The upload to the system will take several hours via Ansible --- it's a lot of data going a long way, you understand --- so the waiting room will usually have you fork and the copy will be uploaded."
+"The procedure will be about thirty minutes to prep you for upload, and then the upload will happen in two stages," she said. "You'll be uploaded to a local node at our center, which will give you access to a waiting room of sorts for the System proper. The upload to the L<sub>5</sub> point will take several hours via Ansible --- it's a lot of data going a long way, you understand --- so the waiting room will usually have you stick around while another copy of you will be uploaded."
 
-"Create a copy of myself and let that be uploaded while I watch," she murmured. Sylvie thought for a moment, "What about the copy that remains?"
+Sylvie thought for a moment, "What about the copy that remains?"
 
 "It's free to quit, like a program on your terminal quitting. But they --- the...ah, sysadmins --- usually request that it stay around in case the upload to the system gets interrupted for some reason. Cosmic rays or whatever technobabble fits that day."
 
+"And I just...wait?"
+
+"Wait until the upload's completed, then you'll either quit or the sim is halted.
+
 "And what will I feel if things go wrong?"
 
 The doctor hesitated, looked to her team. It was another team member, a man with a thick French accent, who responded. "We don't really know. The local node will pick up on it and alert us. Death just looks like death to us."
@@ -101,7 +109,7 @@ The anesthesiologist nodded, "Good. Here it comes, then."
 
 The chill ache was replaced with a comfortable warmth.
 
-Not warmth, she realized. Nothingness. Floatingness. Leaving-the-earth-ness. Gone-ness.
+*Not warmth,* she thought. *Nothingness. Floatingness. Leaving-the-Earth-ness. Gone-ness.* Some part of her giggled. Dreamy indeed.
 
 "Sylvie, can you hear me? You won't be able to speak or blink or nod, but can you try and take two quick breaths? It may be difficult. We'll intubate if necessary."
 
@@ -109,10 +117,12 @@ Sylvie obeyed. Or thought she did, at least. She couldn't tell if the breaths we
 
 Time wandered.
 
-Voices rang with the timbre of bells, though she could still understand them. Surgeons talking to technicians.
+Voices rang with the timbre of bells. Sometimes they formed words, sometimes they were broken down into their component tones and she could only here formants, fundamentals. Surgeons talking to technicians.
 
 A dull, basso organ note of something grinding, her vision vibrating, blurring the sight of the light above the bed.
 
+The light? A light? Were her eyes even open?
+
 The light took the form of Grace, and Sylvie more readily gave in to the effects of the drug.
 
 Grace with her angelic smile. Grace lifting her up, away from the earth. Grace running, running into the ring of that surgeon's lamp. Clouds, clouds parting.