I woke up this morning and heard these words like I heard the words of the Polish girl in the murder case. I hope I have got them down.

I can activate a gallery of my ancestors. Wild men, strong women. I am proud of them.

We can laugh at past times too. Those boxy vehicles criss-crossing crazily, sometimes hitting each other.

Other memories drift in and pass across my mind. Terrible ones sometimes. I am sitting with someone near to death, someone I love. She is breathing hard, the mouth half open, the upper teeth jutting from a shrunken head and face.

Daily I hear about discoveries in far distant places, in our galaxy and beyond, solar systems so strange that they are almost unbelievable. I try to follow them to the best of my understanding.

Yes, they have found some other intelligent creatures. Nothing like us as yet. We are rare, it seems. 

We still have physical lives. I get regular organ maintenance.

There are not so many of us now. Shall I tell you what I do with my time?

We have our own culture and entertainments.

I walk and watch the agrobots. I maintain my exercise regime. It is strongly recommended, almost mandatory.

Once in a while I order a home redesign. I choose the style and the colours and talk them over and then they are programmed and executed.

Do I have a partner? Yes I do. And we do have physical relations.

We do things together. We share the same interests.

I have heard some say that we live in a virtual world. It makes no odds to me. I can feel and touch what I see. 

I wish you could hear and read this.

Those aeons of cruelty, pain and sadness. The piles of numberless dead. I feel a tear forming. Yes, we can still cry.

Then another voice, I think it was my voice, in a whisper:

Our bodies were a miracle.  A miracle shared with other lives we knew so little about.

We are gone now. Let them live on.

Our bodies were vectors to an intelligent universe.

That, it seems, was our destiny.