Interment
Or, Aurora Plants a Seed
// written in response to a Foresight Institute prompt
A dense curtain of rain nearly obscured the foliage and hillsides flickering by, though the deluge only made the faintest stutter on the roof of the vehicle, highlighting the silence inside. Aurora rode alone and wished the rain would patter more peskily, as it had on the fragilely engineered Toyota of her youth. She could use the distraction.
She allowed her head to tilt and rest against the expansive window, studying the water streaming horizontally across the glass. She recalled how differently the water had behaved on the windows of that old Toyota, winding slowly down over the glass as they crawled along at 85mph - her father itching to switch into manual and her mother, fondly bemused, shaking her head. They had all loved that car. Her parents had insisted on ownership, and on manual capability. "So weird" she had perpetually taunted them, secretly as delighted by the novelty as they by the nostalgia.
A knot of grief grew in her stomach.
Breathe
She pulled her attention back to the glass, and, with a whispered command, played music.
A gentle, AI generated style synthesis of Bach and 90s jazz wound softly through the air, slightly sorrowful, yet comforting. The song choice reflected a lifetime of learning from her biomarkers, neural activity, calendar, and interactions. The algorithm recognized her loss and sought to provide what serenity it could.
“Save ensemble” she whispered, then added “it’s kind,” wanting her digital assistant to learn.
She listened, and imagined the streaming water outside as lines of music, dancing horizontally across the glass in peculiar fluid notation. It was as though the rain sang along - quietly testing the timbre of the roof, the road, the fields outside, and scrawling the tune upon the window.
Silently, she thanked the rain for falling.
She had dreaded a clear day, as it had been when her father passed -- clear, bright, gorgeous. She recalled the interment ceremony, the sensation of hot tears on her warm cheeks, the sky’s shining disposition mocking her grief.
She had loathed the sun for weeks.
That was 30 years ago. He had died early, tired, wary of the fruits of longevity research and scarred by the misuses of biotech witnessed in his youth.
The following years had been difficult for all of them, though her mother most. The loss of her partner of 43 years, and the prospect of living on, perhaps for decades still -- it had daunted. Ciara-Jane. CJ. Mom. They had nearly lost her then too.
Aurora and her sister had tried everything to re-engage their mother with the world, but it was simply gardening that had brought her back. Ciara-Jane’s renowned green thumb had proven a steadfast compass to her love of life.
In the years since, her mother had flourished–spending more time with her daughters, revivifying her bio-design practice, exercising, and finding new friends. Her appreciation of engineered plant's health and of the beauty added by splices of de-extinct flora opened her mind to aging treatments. Aurora had been shocked and overjoyed when Ciara-Jane had sat down with them and formally explained the course of gene therapies she was planning to pursue and why her own inquiry and research had suggested it was the best path and selection of professionals. That choice had demanded Ciara-Jane seek out a largely new personal spiritual community, hospitable to longevity technologies. The change had cost her friendships, the tools and choices remaining controversial to many. Yet, after choosing to live, her mother had returned to her unstoppable self, more vibrant than in decades. Choosing cryopreservation had come as the last step in a series of thoughtful health decisions. Aurora, aware of the growing promise of recent research, had supported the decision wholeheartedly.
Then, just over a week ago, her mother died.
At the age of 115, she’d gone peacefully and surrounded by loved ones, as she had hoped.
In the hospital, Aurora had said a final goodbye and let go of her mothers hand, departing in surreal grief with the rest of the family. Cryopreservation technicians had respectfully, but immediately, taken their place. She had expected to loathe being ushered away by unfamiliar hands–had even braced herself for the necessity of it–but the technician's faces and manner had partly sombered her. Solemn, professional, and deeply familiar with death, their demeanor held a strange and priestly equanimity, unenviable, and appropriate to their role. Their quietude reflected and deepened her grief.
Breathe
Today, the grief remained, though only the rain wept. Aurora’s task was a simple ritual, a favor her mother had requested–the planting of a favorite flower in a favorite place. Aurora’s hand grasped for the asteroidal iron locket around her neck - an abstract form resembling a sculpted G-clef - and held it in a fist against her chest.
She closed her eyes and sent her mind drifting with the music.
Not long after, the vehicle emerged from the hills and began an arching path through arid open inland plains, the rain lightening slightly. She recognized the terrain and gathered herself for arrival.
On the crest of a final slope, she looked down into a shallow valley to see her destination – the temple -- a large chapel of glass, buttressed by elegant, sweeping, arms of printed steel, presiding over a garden of fruit trees, grape vines, and flowers.
She knew the design well - her mother had contributed much to the early concept sketches, and modestly to the first fundraise, earning her family a share and free admittance access. The structure's form was at once organic and mathematical - printed steel buttresses swirled upwards like massive vines, each composed of unique lattice work. Rows of fruit trees spun outwards, the rows arcing in a fibonacci spiral.
The pavement stopped at a path several hundred feet shy of the temple. The vehicle pulled up and lifted the side-wall above her, framing a landscape view and offering one step sheltered from the rain. She donned her coat - its lining warming in anticipation of the chill and stepped out, eyes scanned the temple grounds for her friend, but did not see her.
Aurora pulled her hood over her head and enjoyed the tapping of the rain, casually dismissing an approaching umbrella-drone with a gesture.
Aurora found her friend Alex waiting outside, sheltering under the eves. They exchanged faint smiles and embraced.
“Should we head in?”
“Yeah, just give me a second.”
Aurora walked over to the edge flower patch and sunk her left hand into the ground, coming back with a fistful of soil.
“Ok, I’m ready” She breathed out.
They walked into a deep hall of vertical gardens - dense vines and hanging flowers concealed most of the walls, fed by a glowing fibrous meshwork of water, nutrients, and light sources. Tree-like pillars of printed steel climbed organically 30 feet into the air, then branched to mingle arms and support a kaleidoscopic canopy of lightly stained glass.
Shapely patches of wall un-concealed by flora were revealed a honeycomb pattern of diversely sized alcoves. Fractal gargoyles of abstraction reached out from large indentations while smaller pockets, belonging to individuals or families, hosted trinkets of remembrance, books, or remained empty.
By Midjourney - prompt: “small cathedral interior, view of stained glass ceiling and pillars 3d printed structure with metal threads in the style of organic stone carvings, botanical plant life coats the walls, intricate embellishments, alien worlds, neoterico architectural sculpture by person, angelic photograph”
By Midjourney - prompt: “a deep hall of vertical gardens - dense vines and hanging flowers concealed most of the walls, fed by a glowing fibrous meshwork of water, nutrients, and light sources. Tree-like pillars of printed steel climbed organically 30 feet into the air, then branched to mingle arms and support a kaleidoscopic canopy of lightly stained glass. Shapely patches of wall un-concealed by flora were revealed a honeycomb pattern of diversely sized alcoves. Fractal gargoyles of abstraction reached out from large indentations while smaller pockets, belonging to individuals or families, hosted trinkets of remembrance, books, or remained empty.”
At the base of the third column on the right, Aurora knelt to face one small prismatic cubby in the wall and read the inscription of her mother’s name. She took a breath, centered her hand in the space, and let the soil run out the bottom of her fist into a small pile. She made a small thumb-print in the middle, then ceremoniously removed her necklace and extracted a single seed from the locket. She placed the seed in the thumbprint, paused for a moment, and covered it with a thin layer of soil. She threaded a lighting filament and watering line from the pillar-face into the cubby, just above the seed.
She sat there kneeling, for one final moment, considering her work.
Breathe
She stood, looked up through the temple’s metallic branches once more, absorbing the expansiveness of the space, and walked out.
Alex shared the car ride back with her, though it was out of her way. They spoke of gentle mundanities of daily life and said goodbye out front of Aurora’s home.
She made her way along the brief stone walkway to the front door of her coastal home, breathing in the ocean air.
Inside, she removed her earpiece and put on water for tea, deliberately ignoring the call of her tablet on the counter.
The water had yet to reach a boil when she heard a knock and Alex’s voice, soft, cautious, and containing an edge of urgency: “Aurora?”
She opened the door, Alex’s eyes strangely excited.
“Hey, what’s up? Everything alright?”
Alex stared back at her, and again, her voice tinged with new concern: “...you haven’t checked your messages…” eye’s widening, studying Aurora.
Aurora registered the look and quickly strode to the tablet. The first notification was a forward from a friend in longevity research, who regularly aggregated and shared important developments in the field. She opened it.
"Lab of Owenson and Teller successfully revived canine ‘Leo’ in the first stable mammalian re-animation."
She looked up at her friend, and emitted a half sob, half laugh, shaken.
Alex stepped forward, her arms offering embrace, and Aurora leaned onto her friend’s shoulder and wept, as the grief washed through her. Then, through the tears, a soft, feathered feeling nestled in, and she began to laugh.
That night, the skies cleared. As Aurora sought sleep, she imagined the seed sitting in the moonlit temple, musing that, perhaps, one day, her mother would see it bloom again.
Author’s Notes
The above narrative attempts to illustrate a possible future in which lifespan and healthspan are extended, while research into longevity and cryopreservation hold much additional promise. It imagines concurrent broad technological advancement, and particularly suggests progress in biotechnology, vehicular and robotic autonomy, more intelligent and personalized algorithms, and asteroid mining.
This progress results in new strangenesses, such as:
Substantially differing lifespans (as between the father and mother of the protagonist)
Substantially overlapping lifespans (as between the protagonist and her mother)
Schisms, great or small, in and between communities with different views on longevity, new and varied spiritual practices (e.g. father refused longevity treatments, mother finds a new spiritual community over longevity treatments, the temple is strange, the cryopreservation technicians have a vaguely spiritual demeanor)
And different views and approaches to biotechnology and biological life broadly
Given the extended lifespans, the protagonist and her mother have grown close as adults, rendering her loss particularly painful. Additionally, her mother has chosen to undergo cryopreservation upon death, adding hope and uncertainty.
The protagonist, Aurora, goes through an informal ritual - completing a last request for her mother by planting a flower in a greenhouse-like temple. The meaning of the ritual is unclear - perhaps one of closure–a symbolic interment–but it remains somewhat ambiguous and she fights to remain stoic throughout the day. At the end of the day, she hears of the successful cryogenic revival of a dog, implying a much stronger possibility of her mother’s eventual revival. Her friend holds Aurora as she processes the moment’s overwhelming juxtaposition of grief and hope. Having confronted some of this, she concludes the day with more peace-of-mind. In hindsight, the meaning of the day’s ritual shifts away from one of symbolic interment towards a representation of her mother’s love of life and of a seed of hope.
I chose to focus on the build-up to a successful canine re-animation, because the context is important to imagining depth of initial reactions. I hope to explore the proceeding stages through additional characters’ eye’s.
Actionable feedback would be appreciated.
Some references:
See the Nexus series by Ramez Naam for particularly plausible and jarring abuses of biotech (as mentioned in ref. to the father's early life
Thesies about future technological progress were inspired by the original Foresight podcast episode, as well as Prime Mover's Lab Roadmap and the Founders Fund blog
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