I don’t know what happened to me. My last memory: I speed towards the city centre on my yellow moped. Then, nothing. Next scene: I open my eyes, but still cannot see anything. Have I lost my sight? I can definitely hear. I hear beeping. And an artificial voice:

‘Item D-012 is awake.’

What? Am I item D-012?

The roof is opening above me. Am I in a coffin? The bright light hurts my eyes. There are a lot of things above me: lights, magnifying glasses, machine arms. No people though.

Anyway, at least I am not blind.

I ask the usual question, ‘Where am I?’

‘In Sector 7416-D,’ says an unexpectedly soothing artificial voice.

Oh, great! What on Earth is Sector 7416-D? I suspect there would be not much point in asking questions. Maybe I am only dreaming. I am awfully tired. I close my eyes.

When I wake up, I am somewhere completely different. I lie in bed, tubes are coming out all over me.

A face that seems to be somewhat familiar, leans above me. ‘Good morning, D-012.’

‘Erm – good morning. Could you please tell me where I am?’

‘In Sector 7416-D,’ answers the girl, visibly relieved that I have asked such an easy question.

‘Ah,’ I nod. I try not to look totally stupid, ‘and how did I get here?’

The girl stops smiling. She takes a deep breath and starts her monologue. It looks like she has rehearsed this many times, but she is still not satisfied by her performance. As she speaks to me, I find her face more and more familiar.

I do not want to distract her. I can see this is hard enough for her as it is.

What I can decipher from her long and complicated explanation is that this girl is my great-great-great-whatever granddaughter Liljan-D. She is 125 years old. She is a descendant of my daughter Esther. According to her, I am 236 years old. Which is interesting, since the life expectancy is only 165 years here. Although this calculation is somewhat problematic since I spent the last 200 years in a kind of coma.

I am not the only one. In the room next door, there are 67 more coffin-like keep-alive-machines in which there are extremely old people like me, waiting for their awakening.

I am not the first one who awoke anyway. ‘Item’ D-049 woke approximately one month before me. But they only lived for 32 hours. Their heart stopped functioning.

Liljan-D is a historohumanologist. She was hoping, just like her mother and her grandmother and great grandmother, etc., that I would wake up during her lifetime, so that she could talk to me. And here we are.

I ask her about Esther and anything she knows about our family. It is evident that she is prepared, she can easily recite all the facts, but we do not get any deeper.

Then, she asks me. Not much luck there either. Even I myself am surprised how little I know about my own historical era. What is important for me, that is not what she is interested in.

Soon we get tired of each other. We say goodbye politely.

After this, I have nightmares.

Next day (supposing that sleeping and being awake corresponds with days and nights, and that is not confirmed), someone else sits next to me. His name is Konner-D. I suspect that the D at the end of the names refers to our Sector. Konner-D is also a historohumanologist, but we are not blood related, thank God.

He conducts a lot of medical tests with lots of different machines on me. He types the results in his small palm machine. The tests are not painful, only strange.

The strangest thing is though that he does not ask me about my state of mind, after this 200 years of Sleeping Beauty state. He does not ask me what I think about their world, about what I remember of my own old one, nothing.

I do ask him many questions. He answers them in the briefest possible way. I learn that I was in a hospital in 2011. (He himself does not know what a ‘hospital’ was for, and he is not interested either.) Said hospital decided that they had no further use of my body, or what was left of it anyway.

So they gave it to some special researchers who were just about to test Vitalbox 1.0. Which is this coffin-like keep-alive-machine. So they put me in one.

At that time, I was item 8245.

As time has passed, they put me in newer and newer versions of this coffin. And I have survived all the transfers, unlike most of my fellow coffin-buddies. And I woke up yesterday in Vitalbox 24.071.

Unfortunately, Konner-D does not know anything about the work or private life of my daughter Esther. Nor about Liljan-D, although at least he knows her name.

Konner-D cannot tell me much about his own world. I only learn that Sector 7416-D is between Sector 7416-C and Sector 7416-E. And yes, everyone belonging to sector D, has a D at the end of their names.

Soon we get tired of each other. We say goodbye politely.

After this, I have nightmares.

On the third(?) day, Septer-D visits me. Surprisingly, he asks me about my past life. First hesitantly, then more and more enthusiastically, I tell him about Esther, about my yellow moped, about our travels, our flat, our everyday life, cinema, theatre, concerts, cafes, wandering –

All of a sudden, I notice that the red light is flicking madly on the little palm-machine in his hand. I ask what the machine is indicating. It turns out that, if I understand it correctly, the machine measures the frequency changes of my voice. Because Septer-D is a historohumanovoxologist, or whatever, who researches the frequency changes of voices of people of olden times.

I turn to the wall. I do not say goodbye politely.

After this, I have nightmares.

On the fourth(?) day, Ranja-D comes. Now, I am suspicious. I ask them what they are researching. Mimical muscle movements, if I understand it correctly.

I turn to the wall.

I have nightmares.

Item D-012 died at 013.87 on the 44.13.2211. Cause of death: heart stopped functioning.