Author: Melissa Kobrin

Claire looked nervously at the coffin-shaped vat of green goo in front of her and tried to remember that this was one of the best days of her life. Her bachelorette party was going to be beyond her wildest dreams. And fantasies. The only reason Caleb was okay with it was because none of it was actually real.
She remembered the promises from the website. An immersive, full-sensory simulation. The experience of a lifetime. Indistinguishable from reality.
Glancing around, she saw that her friends didn’t look nervous at all. They were giggling and shrieking as they undressed and let the attendants attach electrodes to their bodies. Her sister was already standing in her pod, the simulation solution coming up to her thighs.
There was nothing to worry about. She scolded herself for being silly. This was going to be fun. She got her electrodes and mask attached and laid down so she was suspended in the goo. The last traces of blurry light abruptly vanished as the attendant closed the pod door above her.

Claire was still flushed as she climbed out of the pod. The things that one stripper did with his tongue… Her friends cheering as she crowd surfed… Dancing on top of the bar…
Her nerves buzzed with happy adrenaline and she grinned at the attendant who stepped forward to help her. The woman smiled back.
“That was amazing!” Claire gushed. “You must do it all the time.”
The woman chuckled. “Actually, I’ve never been in. I was always afraid that I would get stuck in the simulation.”
“But you just get out of the pod when your time runs out right?” Claire asked.
“Right, but how do you know you actually got out of the pod? It’s a full sensory simulation that feels like real life. What if getting out of the pod was just simulated? You would never know the difference.”
Claire’s smile faltered, and the woman abruptly seemed to remember who she worked for. “But that would never happen,” she assured with a bright smile.
Claire laughed and her friends surrounded her in a giddy mob, carrying her off to dinner and manicures.

But the idea stayed with her, lurking in the back of her mind. As she walked down the aisle to her almost-husband, who looked so handsome she wanted to cry, she wondered if it was real.
Nine months later when her son was born she knew she couldn’t be in a simulation. No computer could come up with something as perfect as the tiny baby she held in her arms. He was real.
The day she started her new job and saw a man riding a unicycle and juggling down the street with the Tuesday morning commuters it occurred to her that he could be a glitch in the simulation. He was so random he might not be real.
On their twentieth anniversary she lay on the beach in Hawaii with Caleb and watched the sun set. The sand was gritty beneath her, the waves crashed, and wind blew strands of hair across her cheeks. It felt so real.
When her son died she was sure she had never left the pod. The world couldn’t be this horribly cruel for no reason. It couldn’t be real.
And in the nursing home as she closed her eyes for the last time, she wondered if it was real.