Mickey7 (Mickey7, #1)

by Edward Ashton

HERE’S A THOUGHT experiment for you: Imagine you found out that when you go to sleep at night, you don’t just go to sleep. You die. You die, and someone else wakes up in your place the next morning. He’s got all your memories. He’s got all your hopes and dreams and fears and wishes. He thinks he’s you, and all your friends and loved ones do too. He’s not you, though, and you’re not the guy who went to sleep the night before. You’ve only existed since this morning, and you will cease to exist when you close your eyes tonight. Ask yourself—would it make any practical difference in your life? Is there any way that you could even tell? Replace “go to sleep” with “get crushed, or vaporized, or set on fire” and you’ve pretty much got my life.

You are the Ship of Theseus. We all are. There is not a single living cell in my body that was alive and a part of me ten years ago, and the same is true for you. We’re constantly being rebuilt, one board at a time.

I’m not the most sensitive person, but I’ve been alive long enough to figure out that telling a miserable person about how much worse things could be is usually a bad idea.