Written by Michelle Koubek / Artwork by Marcia Borell

Because I had a body, no one cared about me. In a classroom of monitors, I was the only girl, the only student, with a beating heart, and I hated it. I blamed my parents, good people but old-fashioned because they didn’t believe in digital immortality. I was trying my best not to resent them for this. It was hard on mornings like this one.

I waved my right arm above my head as I had been doing for the past fifteen minutes. The pixelated face of my teacher did not look my way no matter how much I flailed like a fish in a mudbank. I pulled at the hems of my T-shirt to keep the skin of my side from peeking out. I blushed as the student in the monitor behind me laughed, distorted and inhuman as if the transition to digital existence had ripped his soul away.

“Ms. Thomas?” I called.

The violet pixels of the woman’s mouth on the front board frowned.

“You know that we do not call out in this classroom, Lolita,” the board, my teacher, said.

“But, Ms. Thomas—”

“No more,” the violet lips pursed, “or I’ll call your parents.”

I dropped my hand, my eyes returning to the sky out the window on my left.

Giggles came from behind me again, and I picked at my nails. They were torn up things, victims of the years I’d spent in similar classrooms, and they were attached to stubby fingers which I preferred to hide in the pockets of my jeans. It was embarrassing how primitive they were.

“Jessica,” I whispered to the monitor on my right. “Have you looked outside?”

“Ms. Thomas just warned you about talking,” the monitor answered without pivoting towards me.

“You don’t understand,” I said.

“The only confused one here is you,” the monitor hissed. “I don’t associate with people who will be dead in eighty years. You’re a waste of time.”

I didn’t say anything in my defense, because I knew she was right. It was a mystery why they even bothered forcing me to get an education. By the time I graduated high school, one-fifth of my life would be over. Sometimes, when I looked at my father, I saw myself in thirty years, crinkled and deliberate like a balloon with half its air, I was afraid to become him. It was beyond me why he thought it was so great to be a flesh and blood human. And why did he have to suck me into his delusions? I wanted to live forever like my classmates.

I turned to observe the sky again and leaped out of my seat.

“Lolita!” the front board shrieked.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Thomas, but don’t you see it?” I asked. “That meteor is heading straight for the valley.”

“The valley?” the monitor to my right swerved, so Jessica’s face watched me. Her cheeks were round and her skin was smooth, and I wondered if the body she discarded was anything like the digital image she selected.

I nodded.

“But that’s where the hubs are,” the pixelated lips of Ms. Thomas remained parted after the words escaped. The classroom whined as the nineteen other monitors adjusted their angle to see the burning fireball approaching the Earth. It reflected on their screens, so their faces appeared red like demons. I tugged at the fabric on the inside of my pants.

“Why didn’t you speak up about this!” the front board yelled, inciting everyone to stare at me instead of the meteor.

“I tried,” I said, “but I couldn’t tell what it was at first. I’m sorry. I even called out.”

It was the most attention I’d ever received at school as a body nobody cared about, yet throughout my childhood I had imagined what it would feel like to be seen by my peers, and this was different. They did care about me in that moment. In fact, every one of those faces was filled with remorse. The problem was that, underneath their awakening, there was a tremendous amount of fear. It took away every good feeling I thought I would have at being noticed. All I wanted was for things to go back to how they were.

“It’s about to hit!” the monitor that displayed Jessica screamed. I didn’t turn to see it, my sight caught by Jessica’s pixels as they scattered across her screen like dust swept in the wind. It took no more than two seconds for every dot of color that she consisted of to vanish and a staticky sea to replace her. The classroom sizzled as I glanced from monitor to monitor and then to the front board where Ms. Thomas’s face usually loomed over us. The ocean of static was everywhere.

I stood and watched them for a minute, waiting for their regretful faces to rematerialize. Outside, in the valley, smoke rose in tentacles which gave the impression an alien had come to erase the mistakes of our generation. Whether it was alien or chance, I didn’t know, and the fate of my classmates was also uncertain. It was possible the meteor missed the hub and their signals had only dropped temporarily. It was also possible everyone on the monitors would never return.

I walked towards the door, my arms wrapping around the top of my body like I was holding myself in a hug, something that my digital peers gave up for immortality. Throughout my years with them, all I ever wanted was to be seen and in that last instant, I finally was. It may not have been much and I knew I would need more one day, but it was enough for now. After all, life was too short to hold a grudge, and I wanted to be happy like girls my age used to be.

“I’m coming,” I whispered with a scowl out the window towards the smoking valley. “I’ll save you. I’ll find a way.”