Deadnauts

Enjoyable science-fiction short story with a really claustrophobic atmosphere by Ted Kosmatka. From the story itself:

The next step is a difficult thing to do if you are thinking about it. So I don’t. I recline to 45 degrees. I pull the lid down, and the screens come to life, lighting the darkness. I take a deep breath. And here it catches me, the weight of what I’m doing. It is always the same, each time. We are all dead in cryo, and only waking makes it not so. And doing this, putting my hand on the pad, is the same as killing myself. Again and again. I have done it so many times now. I am a mass murderer of myself

Though I have to admit I nearly enjoy this line from the author at the end as much as the story itself;

The seed of this story formed near the end of a sleep-deprived 88-hour workweek at US Steel. After the third midnights-to-days double shift, I couldn’t do math anymore. I couldn’t remember my computer passwords. There is a peculiar kind of terror in knowing that your job is stripping your mind away one little piece at a time

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