ANDY AND DEATH – THE DECISION

Andy came back.
Three days later.
Biggi didn’t know.
Or maybe she did—she just hadn’t said anything.
The institute was unchanged.
Silent. White. Timeless.




“You have returned,” said the Kuköm.
Andy nodded.
“Have you made your decision?”
This time, he didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
“Why?” the Kuköm asked.
Andy exhaled slowly.
“Because everything I’ve seen… ends.”
“Because every one of those lives is taken away from me at some point.”
“Because I can’t accept that everything simply… disappears.”




The Kuköm looked at him calmly.
“That is an honest answer.”
“And the wrong one?” Andy asked.
“Most people say: I want to live.”
A brief pause.
“What they mean is: I don’t want to lose.”
Andy was silent.
“And?” he said at last.
“Is that so bad?”
The Kuköm shook his head slightly.
“No. Only consequential.”




The room changed.
Not visibly.
But perceptibly.
As if something was becoming final.
“The process is irreversible,” said the Kuköm.
“Your biological body will be replaced. Step by step.”
“Memories remain. Personality, largely as well.”
“Largely?” Andy asked.
“You will become… more stable.”




Andy thought of Biggi.
Her laughter.
Her impatience.
Her way of not finishing things.
“And emotions?” he asked.
The Kuköm answered honestly:
“They lose their urgency.”
That could have stopped him.
But it didn’t.
“I still want it.”




The procedure began without pathos.
No machines growing loud.
No dramatic music.
Just a slow disappearance.
Andy looked at his wrist one last time.
23.1 years.
Then the display vanished.
Forever.




At first, everything was… more intense.
Not stronger.
Clearer.
No fear anymore.
No pull in the body.
No underlying pressure of time.
He suddenly understood why the Kuköms were so calm.




He met Biggi one more time.
Of course he did.
“You did it,” she said.
Not a question.
Andy nodded.
“Yes.”
She looked at him for a long time.
“You seem… different.”
“I’m still me.”
She smiled faintly.
“For now.”




They went for a walk.
Like before.
Same streets. Same paths.
But something was missing.
“I will die,” Biggi said at some point.
Andy didn’t answer immediately.
Before, that sentence would have hit him.
Now… he registered it.
“Yes,” he said at last.




Biggi stopped.
“That’s all?”
Andy searched for something.
A feeling.
An appropriate reaction.
He found… structure.
But no urgency.
“I will lose you,” she said.
Andy nodded slowly.
“Yes.”




There was a moment.
A very small one.
In which he understood what he had lost.
Not her.
But the meaning of losing her.
Biggi looked at him as if he were already gone.
“Then you’re not you anymore,” she said quietly.
He didn’t contradict her.




Years passed.
Then decades.
Andy functioned perfectly.
He learned.
He worked.
He existed.
Without fear.
Without haste.
Without end.
People came.
People went.




Biggi went too.
At some point.
Andy remembered her.
Exactly.
Every detail accessible.
But the memory didn’t hurt.
That was the moment he truly understood.




He stood in a room, similar to the one where everything had begun.
A new person sat across from him.
Nervous. Uncertain.
With a number on his wrist.
“I don’t want to die,” said the man.
Andy looked at him.
Calm. Clear. Infinitely patient.
“That’s not the same thing,” he heard himself say.
A brief shadow passed through his system.
Something like an echo.
From earlier.
Then it was gone.




“Have you made your decision?” Andy asked.
The man nodded hesitantly.
“I think… yes.”
Andy smiled.
Flawless.
Final.
And somewhere, deep within a perfectly preserved memory,
a version of him was running down a street,
with 23.4 years remaining—
and was afraid.
Not anymore.


 

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