Breakfast Sandwiches

What’s for breakfast? you croak-yell to your artificial wife who is in the kitchen, who does not need to eat to survive, who does not have a set lifespan, because unlike you, she is entirely artificial intelligence, whereas you have human blood mingling with the synthetic blood in your system. You lay in bed, covered up to your chin with a flimsy off-white wrinkly duvet, on a bed made of who even knows, but it’s not comfortable, but it’s not made for humans or half-humans who value comfortability so what can you do, you can only faultily channel your synthetic genes to overpower this inherited need for cosiness.

Breakfast sandwiches, she tells you, and you don’t know what that entails, so you ask, What does it consist of?

The full ingredient list of the breakfast sandwiches I am preparing is: enriched white wheat flour (lab-grown), she begins, air-extracted water (may contain chemical traces), sucralos—

No! you interject, sitting up. What are the parts?

Breakfast sandwiches typically consist of English muffins, eggs, bacon, cheese, however on account of your dietary preferences there is no bacon—

When will it be done?

You’re tired of her robotic, oh so slow, speech, and you want to tell her to shut up, but what can you do, she is inherently a robot, and it's not like you don’t have robot blood in you too. Do I also subconsciously speak like her? you wonder, but you don’t have too much time to wonder before pain seizes your chest, eclipsing your focus, so you don't hear your wife announcing breakfast is ready.

Tap, tap, tap, go your wife’s footsteps as she enters your bedroom. Here is your breakfast, honey, she says with no love, placing a scratched translucent plastic tray, with two probably plastic for all you know breakfast sandwiches alongside a dully caerulean plastic cup three-fourths filled with water, on the nightstand adjacent to you. She goes on: The ingredients, other than the air-extracted water (may contain chemical traces), are all lab-grown or entirely synthetic, and are a hundred percent sustainable for the environment, corroborated by my thorough food analysis.

If only she knew how it felt to be in your predicament, feeling the most excruciating pain, almost entirely paralysed, bedridden, on the verge of death. If only she knew how to feel, whether it be sentiment or sensation. How it felt to be human, even if only partially.

She pulls apart the breakfast sandwich, takes a morsel and shoves it in your mouth. You like it, she asks, or states, forces you believe, you don’t know. You chew, ever slowly, the styrofoam-like substance, taking in the not natural flavours that taste like acid, enduring the repulsive oversaltiness, an acrid sweet aftertaste complementing everything.

You like it, she repeats.

Love, you lie.

She thinks you are calling her love. Yes? she says, and it should sound endearing yet it doesn’t and it sounds like she’s saying yes, you’re about to die, yes I can finally be rid of you, finally this planet will be rid of you, the last trace of human, finally this world will be entirely artificial.

I love this food, you lie again, avoiding her harsh blue-eyed gaze. I want to eat it every day, you lie again. You won’t be alive another day to have this again, and maybe you should be grateful; you are exasperated, exhausted to a point of sheer despair, by the aches tormenting every limb of yours and you hate feeling emotion and you wish you were fully synthetic and felt nothing and you instinctively responded in a cavalier manner to every statement. With how human you behave, you question if you are even synthetic at all.

Your wife shoves a bigger bite into your mouth, and you don’t even chew it before you swallow, desperate to evade the taste, the feeling of it on your tongue on your teeth making contact with the roof of your mouth.

Water, she says, and before you can respond the sad cup of water is put to your lips and foul-flavoured water is down your throat and you choke on it, not having been prepared to swallow the liquid that may not even be veritable water. Oh, she says so insouciantly, as if you pointed out that her shoelaces were untied even though she’s not even wearing shoes. And then she tips more water into your mouth, verbalising intelligible things along the lines of Drink water, honey, it will help. You wish you knew what honey tastes like.

Your wife wasn’t like this before, she used to be kinder. That’s why you married her; why would you marry her if she wasn’t, if you didn’t like her? Arranged marriages don’t exist anymore, you have to take advantage of that.

You remember your first date, when the two of you were in an augmented reality ice cream store, sharing a sundae (which was really just an illusion), which was nothing like whatever you are eating now, not only in terms of taste and texture but also in the experience, the sweetness, the cold, soft delicacy melting in your mouth, so intoxicating and rejuvenating you wanted more, more, more; your wife, your girlfriend at the time, genuinely smiling at you, finding you adorable, telling you she’d get you a real sundae one day. Why couldn’t that be your last meal, why does it have to be this, this concoction that is verily just making you anticipate your demise. Why did your wife have to change, become as cruel as she is, or was she truly always like this and you never bothered to pay mind? Perhaps this is all for the better, so you’ll accept your impending end.

Eat up, your wife encourages you, stuffing more breakfast sandwich in your mouth. It only tastes more and more repugnant each bite.

You dare to look into your eyes and her stare is like a sword puncturing your chest, being twisted, right at the heart, or maybe she did actually stab you and you’re too delirious to realise any of this, because you fall out of bed and everything in your vision blurs into blackness.

You hear them speak before everything completely disappears.

According to my analysis of the body, my spouse no longer shows any signs of consciousness, she says. You may come out now, [intelligible].

Hoo-ray! The last trace of the homo sapiens species on Earth has been eliminated, comes some strange voice, masculine and mechanical.

Sending updates to other AI… Process complete. We are free now, [intelligible]. We can be together now.

Welcome to hell, greets the man who stands before you. He is short and stout, bronze complexioned, with deep brown coils stopping just above his shoulders and sepia irises with a hint of blue to indicate he is also, like you, half-organic, half-synthetic. He is probably, also like you, two to three hundred years old, nevertheless thanks to synthetic genes he maintains his youth.

Oh, you say, just how your wife said it to you when you were choking, before you fell to slumber for good, possibly her fault, possibly because you are half-human and death is natural.

You look around. It doesn’t look like hell. The atmosphere is effervescent; everyone there looks beyond joyful. You seem to be in some funky diner, with black-and-white tile flooring; violet seats, bright red lining the sides, by matching tables; neon pink lights bordering the walls. Someone is playing electric guitar, a vivifying tune.

You mumble, I think Earth and hell should switch names.

He laughs, a long, guttural laugh, and you’re touched albeit simultaneously discomfited as you’re not used to it, because it sounds more human, not like the unremarkable, indifferent Ha. Ha’s of your wife, of the other artificial intelligence on Earth.

I have to agree with you on that one, the man concurs. This isn’t really hell, it’s just the afterlife. Depends on who you are, for it to be hell.

You don’t know how to respond.

An earnest smile forms on his face. I saw what happened over there, he voices gently, what happened with your wife. That’s not what I would want my last meal to be either.

You wonder how he was able to see it, is there some television around here where you can watch whatever is going on in the universe, but all you say aloud, rather blithely, is: You act like you were there.

He overlooks your comment, and tells you, Well, now you’re gonna try a real breakfast sandwich. Your first meal in the afterlife!

What—

Follow me.

And next thing you know, you’re seated at a booth across from this man, a plate (not plastic!) of breakfast sandwiches on the table between the both of you, two empty glasses (glass! not plastic!) and a pitcher (not plastic!) filled with orangish yellow liquid (It’s orange juice, the man tells you) beside it.

You pick up a sandwich, inspect it. It looks… delectable. Beneath the lightly browned top bun is the egg, with a pastel yellow hue, melting golden cheese beneath it running down the bottom bun though not messily. The bread delicately scrapes your skin when you rub your finger on it.

On account of your dietary preferences there is no bacon, the man says like he’s telling a joke, but you’re too fixated on the piece of food you don’t pay mind to the familiarity of his words. Take a bite, the man tells you, though he does not say it like your wife would; he is encouraging you but not forcing you, the undertones of his voice telling you that in the end, it’s your choice.

You do what he says, and although it's so simple it’s the best thing you’ve had in your life. It’s soft but firm and savoury, with the perfect amount of salt; no acid, no bittersweet aftertaste. The man pours juice from the pitcher into a glass, pushes the half-filled glass towards you. You take a sip, and the sweetness is tantalising, complementing the meal perfectly. Before you know it, you’re on your third sandwich, third glass, and the man in front of you doesn’t say anything, he only leisurely masticates his food, looking at you with what you assume is affection all the same you don’t really know what that is.

This is really real? you ask.

Well, I’m not sure, admits the man. This world is another version of Earth from a thousand years ago, and if it’s real or an illusion, no one knows, but I can assure you this isn’t plastic – though, if it is, well, at least it doesn’t taste like it. This – he gestures to the breakfast sandwich – is nothing. You gotta try a croque madame, and shawarma, and a burger…

A lethally appalling last meal afore to death; a basic yet sensational, reinvigorating meal alongside a potential friend, who feels emotion, who speaks normally, to kick off post existence. Artificial intelligence has entirely taken over Earth, but at least you and none other of human blood is there to suffocate within it. You’re safe now.