Brought artificially to consciousness by the Ewers flashing
method when he was a 4-month old foetus, little Frankie had
little time to ponder upon the fact that he was now a human being, not just another
evolved fleshy blob who enjoyed salted
water and uncut glucose. A second series of flashes came in, and imprinted
in his brain was the form that all 4-month old foetuses from
wealthy families had to fill in before they could proceed, or not, for five other months
of blissful piscine life. After all the necessary items
concerning the name, sex, marital status and profession of the
subject, the questionnaire ran like this :
- Are you fully aware that your aerial life will start in
approximately 5 months and end in approximately 960 months ? Answer yes (kick once) or no
(kick twice).
- Are you fully aware that your birth
and death, and some other moments of your aerial life, will be
probably miserable passages ? Answer yes (kick once) or no (kick
twice).
- Are you fully aware that you will be treated as an impotent
imbecile in the first and last years of your aerial life, and possibly in between also ?
Answer yes (kick once) or no (kick twice).
- Are you fully aware that there will be few moments of true
happiness during your aerial life, some of them during less than 10 seconds, and that you
will miss many of those as a consequence of intoxication or
other mind-numbing behaviour ? Answer yes (kick once) or no (kick twice).
- Are you fully aware that your chances of becoming a success
are close to nil, even though you are from a wealthy family that could afford your being
brought to consciousness in order to answer this questionnaire ? Answer yes (kick once) or
no (kick twice).
- Are you fully aware that your aerial life will be full of
troubles, and that a vast majority of people find theirs sweet enough and worth living
anyway ? Answer yes (kick once) or no (kick twice).
- If you answered Yes to all previous questions : Do you really
want to proceed ? Answer yes (kick once) or no (kick twice).
Little Frankie, like most foetuses awakened by the Ewers
method, was experiencing painful, spasmodic, nervous jerks in the legs.
He couldn't help it, even less control it. He answered Yes to all the questions, without
really considering them. Five months later,
