I can remember the days before computers. I must have been about twelve of thirteen when my father brought our first one home. A big clunky thing it was. A typewriter with a television set balanced on the top. Just a blank screen when you started it up. You had to write your own programs to tell it what you wanted it to do. That was the natural order of things back then. People solved problems. We had initiative.
Kids these days wouldn’t even recognise what it was, a computer like that. I haven’t seen a keyboard in a good ten years. Or a screen. All this mind-to-matrix stuff, the retinal implants for augmented reality, it’s all internal. And for what? Looking at things that aren’t really there. Talking to people thousands of miles away. Pulling those faces. Happy face. Sad face. Waving their hands like mime artists. What was so lacking in this world they decided to stop living in it? People spend so much time somewhere else, they’ve lost all touch with reality.
Ghosts. That’s what they call us. Anyone without the implants, although it’s us old timers mainly. We don’t fit in when they’re running their overlays, their filters. We don’t compute. We’re just background noise, grey flickering shapes so they don’t bump into us. Ghosts. Aye, soon enough.
I took my youngest grandson surfing at the week-end. Managed to get him out of the house. Seven he is is now. Good kid. Bright, if there’s such a thing any more. Knows more than I did at that age anyway. Knows more than he should if I’m honest. They all think the same of course now, near as dammit. Sometimes I explain things and he just says “That’s not the way it is Grandpa.” No uncertainty. No room for doubt. And he’ll look at me like I’m the child, like I need to learn how the world works. Maybe it’s always been that way. The world moves on while you stay the same. Maybe it’s just a part of getting old.
We took a drone out to the beach. One of the six seaters, those big white dragonflies. Shared it with a family heading down the same way. I’ll say this for the modern world, they certainly sorted out the logistics. I suppose they had to with so many people. I don’t miss the traffic jams. All that wasted time, waiting around. I miss being a pilot though. I miss it like nothing else. But you look into the sky and you see the streams of vehicles lined up in formation, three abreast, almost nose to tail. No human could fly in that.
It’s efficient. That’s how I’d sum up the world in a word. Everything happens just in time. The drone arrived just as we stepped out the door. Another one peeled off the Lower West Stream just as we filtered in. At the beach there was a handheld for Jake as soon as we got near the sea. Out he went, dangling from the handles, hair blown every which way, legs kicking at the waves. Not an ounce of fear. There was another kid already on his way, maybe ten seconds in front. Another ten seconds behind. You could see them all the way down the beach. Little streams of kids heading out to the rafts by each break. Like planes coming into land in the old days.
He stood up first time of course. Coasted in like a pro. Two more waves, a couple of turns, and that was it. That was surfing. Enjoyed it, he said. Shared the visuals with his group. Lots of “rep". Maybe we’ll come back another time. Maybe. It took me a whole summer to learn how to surf. Out with the sunrise every day. Six weeks of wiping out, being rolled under, water in my lungs, up my nose. I learned to read the waves. I understood the power of the ocean. It was a challenge. A passion. An achievement.
Now everything’s downloaded. Knowledge. Skills. Abilities. Humans are becoming hardware. Running programs rather than learning. Programs we didn’t write ourselves. Moved around by logistics. Efficient.
Everything is white in the town centre. It feels like walking around a hospital. Apparently the overlays and the adverts, it all works best on a plain background. The new buildings are just boxes, stripped of any features that would need editing out. An empty stage all ready for props and backdrops. “Your world, your way” that was the slogan. A different world for everyone. Unless you actually live in it.
Still, the country is calm, the news is quiet. I suppose it’s all you can really ask for in retirement, a little peace. I’ve certainly seen enough excitement for one lifetime. People understand each other more than they used to. Fraternité they call it. Brotherhood. They think together, in groups, as a whole. Humans and their implants, all working for consensus.
They offered me the operation back when I was still flying. It was that or the scrap heap, that much was clear. But it’s not something I could live with. How do you know which thoughts are yours, with something like that in your head. If you all think the same, does anyone really think at all? Consensus. It’s all circular. They give you the knowledge and you just feed it back. One big loop.
No. I’ll live my life in this world and I’ll keep my thoughts my own. Here they are, for what it’s worth, if anyone cares to listen. And as long as I’m alive, at least I’ll know I’m me.
I think, therefore I am.
Recovered excerpts from video log of unknown individual.
Augmentation period, dated 8 June 2040, location unknown.
Museum of Human History
This is an original story, written for the "One Day in 2040" fiction contest run by @pennsif.
You can read the original contest post here:
@pennsif/fiction-contest-one-day-in-2040-20-sbd-to-be-won
