yourself to live like normal

After spending days in bed, only surfacing momentarily to attend to basic faculties and to prevent bedsores, you suddenly lunge out of bed, your personal doctor Sophie clone getting startled.

Sophie 1: "I'm wasting away in here like a damn mummy! Get me a bikini, sunglasses, sun lotion and one of those huge-ass straw hats - I'm going to the beach."

Doctor Sophie: "U- but-... Of course."

In five minutes flat, you're out of the compound for the first time in weeks, sauntering on the sweltering streets of L.A. barely dressed. A mad hot lady such as yourself would be quite the head-turner if Sophies hadn't become such a staple of the city by now. They're especially prevalent on the Rodeo Drive that you pass through. All having fun shopping, trying street vendor foods, laughing it up, being their own localized centers of attention.

You relish every step of this excursion. The sun helplessly beating down on your glistering, well-oiled skin, the approaching ocean breeze blowing the hair from your face, the flapping of your sandals against the stove-hot asphalt - having holed up indoors for so long, it all makes you feel more alive than ever.

Your day of sunbathing at the beach goes swimmingly. You eat ice cream and a nice expensive lunch, watch surfers and waterskiers, lose 2-20 in beach volleyball and get the worst sunstroke you've ever suffered through. All the ups and downs of life, condensed into a tiny manageable package. You think about ordering a taxi but decide to wobble back home by yourself.

What an amazing day, you think. There would only be so many like these, and one day as it may, you'll get run over by a drunk driver and the charities in your last will are going to have a field day.

It's almost certainly inevitable that you'll die, but who knows? You always thought for certain that you wouldn't one day start to spontaneously self-clone. In any case, you figure it's best to live worry-free and die happy.

ENDING 86 -The Chalice of Life-