Leap in the Dark

Hannah Scott

He picked his preservation: cost,
two hundred thousand dollars.
Dreamed of chilling out in an ice-box
for a couple centuries, hoped some labcoats
would read his contract
and understand that they were
bound to resurrect him, make him homo deus,
bring the world to him again.
He'd be stiff at first, shivering in this alien future,
and his lips would be blue, frozen
in a grin as his bet paid off.
“Where are all you fuckers now?”
he'd mutter as the labcoats moved off
and the suits ticked a box.
But if he stepped outside,
the ground might shiver in longing beneath him,
the earth taste his tender foot.
“Come to me,” it would whisper.
“Let me have you.”

The Science

I recently read ‘Homo Deus’ by Yuval Noah Harari. Among some of its fascinating predictions of future society was the proliferation of cryonics. This controversial concept is like science half-done: the freezing of a human body with liquid nitrogen immediately after death is possible, as most of the body's tissues remain intact at a cellular level even after the heart stops beating. The goal of cryonics is to halt that process as quickly as possible after legal death, giving future physicians the best possible chance of reviving the patient. However, this reanimating process is currently considered highly improbable.

The Poet

Hannah Scott is a British poet living in Oxford, so she has no excuse not to write poetry. Coming from predominantly writing short stories (she was a runner-up in the international Climaginaries ‘Anthropo-Scenes’ short story competition), her attention-span for longer narratives is waning, and she has recently begun the voyage into the pithy world of poetry. Outside of writing, she works for an environmental sustainability charity, tackling the climate crisis, inspiring behavioural change, and finding systemic solutions that benefit both planet and people. Her poetry is often her medium for climate anxiety.

Next poem: Our legacy, a test by Lisa Watkins