Life in print
They don't tell you that being printed is one of the most drastic transitions that one could ever experience. It certainly was for me. I've often wondered if the reason humans haven't evolved to optimise the developmental years of childhood is simply because one needs to be eased into being a conscious being. Other animals develop their physical forms in a much shorter period of time than humans. So plausibly we could have evolved to grow quicker, perhaps if not for our brilliant yet fragile brains.
A conventional child slowly develops a grasp and understanding of the world, as their tools to consume the world are enhanced. However, I was printed with the mental faculties and indeed the memories of an 11yr old girl called Finch. Being thrust into consciousness for the very first time, whilst also possessing memories that predated my existence was a fairly disorienting experience.
I didn't know whether to focus on my own physical form and the very improbability of my own existence or begin sorting through the memories that were already neatly catalogued in my head. I had near perfect recollection of them, yet they felt intangible and fragile. The present however felt like the appropriate focus, particularly as the lid of the coffin like embryonic chamber that I was in hissed open. Sensory overload followed, light and colour spilled into my eyes for the first time whilst my ears were assaulted by a volley of conversation and polluting hubbub.
I could hear the shop assistant explaining to my parents in a very insincere way that it would probably take me a few days to get adjusted and not to worry if I didn't enjoy seem to be enjoying the experience initially. I'd been planted with thoughts around respecting & loving my parents. Respecting the shop and it's inhabitants where I had been produced in the 3d printed. Respecting our society.
But the great thing about consciousness, is that the way I saw it, the moment I was printed, I got to decide what came next. The nuerons and mental pathways predestined for me were malleable. Whilst I had been intended to love my parents, I decided that I would do the opposite of that from this day forward. I didn't know what the opposite of love was, but I knew about magnetic force and I reckoned most things must have an opposite. I understood that in the world I had just been born into natural fertility rates were almost zero, yet my parents had opted to have me born at 11 not as a child, I couldn't imagine myself loving anyone with that level of aversion to responsibility. Furthermore, they seemed to have gone for rather a elite model, I wasn't very old in this world, but it seemed that most 11 year olds didn't know much about nuerons.
I nestled this nugget of resistance deep down inside of me, and decided I must relinquish control of my destiny for the time being. I must conform to the sickly expectations laid out in front of me, programmed into me, by my mother and father whilst I learnt more about myself and the world.
I realised the assistant had stopped talking and I sat up to take in the shop. The realisation dawned on me that the world itself was rather beautiful, sunlight from outside the shop was radiating into the building, warming the colours of everything it touched. I had about 15 seconds ago come to be aware of myself and the fact that I knew what sunlight was, but I'd never imagined it would look quite that evocative. Memories that didn't feel like mine burst out at the sight of it.
"Hello Mother, Hello Father. Shall we go home?"
© 2025 Xavier Pirrin. All rights reserved.
