The Choir Without Flesh (Original Flash Fiction)

By Connor MacDonald

Oh lonesome me is silent and without friendship. You have no friends! Be quiet, I’m trying to tell a story. I rest upon the barren plains and look up at the sky.  Rest? There is no rest. There is nobody coming to help, no friend or foe I can focus my attention on. Listen. To. THE DRAMATICS! Shhh. You’re spoiling it all! This was my six thousandth eight hundred and sixty second reincarnation. If you can call it that. I was the WITNESS, a grand title for a dull affair. 

Well, as the WITNESS I got to see the destruction of my home. YOU. DESTROYED. US.  The only thing I had left to witness was the end of the human experience itself. I look up to the sky. Will it come? It usually comes soon. Ah, there it is! Our. Saviour. Our. Enemy.

A giant writhing ball of flesh floating towards me. Beautiful. Scary. It was the perfect being! Heads on limbs which stretched as far as one could see…see…see… 

The choir of cacophony was loud and deafening. What beautiful sounds! It shook the mountains nearby. Cries of help, of pleasure, of pain, of love. I want to love it.

They’re trapped in an eternal argument of what they should do. That is us. No, it is not.  How they should feel. This perfect being floated above me. It… isn’t… perfect. All consciousness flowed from it, except my own. I would have pitied it. Would have. Hah. That is the key phrase.

This is what humanity was. What it was turned into. We still exist.  Let me explain. I am sure it is confusing to read. Nobody will understand. We became too big..BIG! Too big…BIG! For our… consciousness. But we are the consciousness, right? Are you the bag of meat reading this, the dialogue within your mind, or something else?

My friends and I figured we were the something else. You only cared for…power…love…appreciation. Beyond the scope of intellect and soul. Hubris! Hubris! Humanity caught up to us eventually…do you miss us?. Our bodies were too small for our thoughts and emotions. Consciousness was so heavy… If you placed human consciousness inside a deer, what would happen? Would it suddenly become civilized? No. It would not. I’d fuck it!

The more complex we became the more we needed. Beings of pure energy trapped in flesh. Naturally, we said, “It is time for us to break out of the confines of our flesh.” FOOLS!

Oh, what a tastefully foolish society we were.

What does it mean to experience everything at once? It means nothing matters. All sensations: Lust FUCK ME, love, DIE! DIE! DIE!, joy, arousal, violence. The feeling of killing your rival, or forgiving them. The perfect being, our fleshy god, experiences it all. We were once together…

For a brief moment I am not being blown about this barren planet. I can actually think, without that choir. Without form I am a ghost, drifting from place to place. Moment to moment. Without flesh I can experience nothing. I am the ultimate observer.

I have all the memories of humanity. The ideas, dialogues, and personhood of humanity. When we separated flesh from consciousness, we never knew what it would mean. That all of our consciousness would be left formless. Our flesh left without a master.

Here it comes again. I think I remember the taste of steak, how it felt to kill an enemy, and the sweet smells of sex…in an…ABSTRACT…way. By God, what have we done? Can you shut up? I’m trying to monologue here. No. No. No. Yes! Yes! Come on, it’s fun! That’s all we can do!

Our inexperience is what gave us character. Naivety is the birth of passion. It gave us everything that drove us Powers, ambitions, thoughts… Without that what were we? A ball of screaming flesh, masters of all…besides our own souls. I have the memories of all of humanity, the thoughts and feelings we once had, but I’m without the flesh to act.

That was our greatest crime. CRIME! To end our inexperience created the worst amalgamation of everything the “rulers” wanted. A pliable, easy to manipulate mass of people. Tricked…we were tricked…stop it…please… It is unfortunate that we did not understand we too would be lost. What a pity. PITY! PITY! PITY!

So, our collective consciousness is blown about what was once Old Earth. Occasionally, such as right now, the ball of flesh screams above me but cannot see me. WE. SEE. YOU! Oh, believe me, dear thinker, we’ve tried everything to reconnect with our flesh. We cannot penetrate it though. Penetrate. Me. Please. We can only go where the wind takes us.

There is beauty in that, though. Those who were the masters of all are now bound to the whims of nature. Like it was in our ancient prehistoric memories. Except now we can’t have sex. That is probably the worst of all. The worst!

What? Of course we still love sex. We’re humanity after all. Sure, we got a collection of asexual spirits inside of us, but they’re drowned out by the majority. The filth which occupies our mind is so vast that nothing can possibly compare. Some of the more pervasive thoughts are best left unsaid, though.

The wind has blown us to a great city. The name is meaningless now, since nobody walks the empty streets. Here comes the ball of screaming flesh. The arms and legs wiggle about in the sky as it rains, and I’m stuck down here. I really wish I could fuck it. ME TOO!