Fiction Story – 40 YEARS FROM NOW
Photo credit: pschubert from morguefile.com
HELLO CITIZENS OF EARTH (2014),
The year is 2055. Date doesn’t matter, for living beings now follow a lifestyle that is independent of the day or the month. There hasn’t been a Christmas for 20 years now. There hasn’t been a Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, Onam, Ramadan, either. Thus month has no significance in the life of living beings as well.
I say living beings, but please note that animals are not a party to this discussion. So what about them you ask? The answer would be- nothing. There’s no such thing as ‘animals’ now. There are just Mind images for those who are curious to know what they look like. Oh! Sorry… you might not be familiar with the ‘Mind’. The ‘Mind’ is the latest technology software that people can use to search for anything and everything. The only difference between this and the old search engine- Google (which ceased existing in the early 2030s) – is that ‘Mind’ doesn’t need a computer, tab, or any such device as a host machine to be worked on. You just have to think about using ‘Mind’ and the spectacles that you wear will be laden with information about the subject of your thought. No typing, no voice commands. ‘Mind’ is all in the mind.
Now, the term “living beings” require a bit more explanation. Plants are now objects of scientific interest which are located only in seven of the major laboratories in the world, namely, Greenwich, Paris, Korea, Atlantis( oh by the way this city does exist. In 2031, a group of scientists went past the Bermuda triangle to rediscover this lost city. Oh! Just to satisfy your racing minds…it’s nothing praiseworthy. Just a bunch of stupid statues and a few rooms of gold…It took the scientists 2 years to melt all that gold and pour it into the ocean. What a pathetic waste of time…), New York, Jammu and Kashmir, and Kerala (or rather what’s left of it! I say this because; the scientists were forced to create an artificial tsunami to drown three-fourths of the state owing to the tremendous accumulation of garbage wastes in the area. Now the state is surrounded by water, not on three, but on four sides. I think it’s called an island now. I’ll have to check on that…). Yes these are the only places on the Earth where plants exist… everywhere else-its buildings. How else can 83 billion people live on the earth? Since we started making apartments underwater and in Mars, the pressure of population has considerably decreased. The mission to Mars by India back in 2014 was a major breakthrough, as life on Mars was considered possible. In fact Mars is the most visited tourist destination in the entire world, or rather in the entire two worlds. It only costs three bottles of water.
Oh! My bad! I forgot to tell you the new currency of the worlds. It is water….pure drinking water. Although scientific world had developed so much that the worlds are now full of flying cars, invisible cloaks and robots (I will get back to this later), nothing whatsoever could make potable water. The water in the oceans is contaminated and hence fresh water is brought from Antarctica, Mars and the ice from Uranus. In fact the world’s richest man Mr.Kreekor Meringues is the official transporter of water from other planets. There are of course small scale business men who produce water from sea water or lakes. One thousand Rupees back in the beginning of the century is equivalent to a five hundred milliliter bottle of pure water!
You may wonder what the people drink for survival. They drink something called Plastorium. It is a new compound developed from plastics that does everything that water does with just one teensy weensy side-effect which is a certain death by the age of thirty. Considering the options that spanned ahead, which included drinking this and dying by thirty or dying in three days due to the lack of fluid in the body, people opted for the better choice.
There are no such things as families now. Men can live with any woman that they liked and vice-versa. Actually going by the modern way of addressing, women can live with any man that they liked and vice-versa. Women empowerment had gone up at an alarming rate in the 2020s. The end result was that men remain at home, working in the gardens and doing the chores, while the women work in multinational corporations. Reports say that the insults endured by the men have ignited their lust for freedom and that in many places Men Empowerment groups have started to spring up to stop the atrocities done to men.
To those of you who are bothered with the global warming, two words of advice- just chill. In 2018, people invent a ‘chiller’, a high intensity beam of extreme coldness with a microchip connected to the Mind. They shot the Sun with the chiller. Right now the sun radiates the amount of heat and solar flares as determined by the group of scientists seated around a coffee table in Greenwich. Further, maintenance men keep on patching up the ozone layer every two weeks, so nothing much to worry about nowadays I guess…
If you are wondering about the children of the planet, I say there are none. All the children are sent to Mars for their education. They will only be admitted to Earth if they pass an ‘Earth-Entrance Examination’ at the age of eighteen. The examination is an ‘easy’ one with portions consisting of everything related to Earth and Mars- History, Geography, Physics (Newton’s and Einstein’s laws are no longer valid…another huge story), Chemistry and Biology. The children are abandoned in Mars at the age of three-(three months that is). Around ten million children leave the earth every year and only five hundred make it back eighteen years hence, thus curbing the population explosion of the world. Parents have no role in the growth of the child. The children in Mars are left under their teacher-a creature of artificial intelligence- also called a robot. Under this robot, they learn all that is necessary and prepare for the Earth Entrance Examination. The examination can only be written once, failing which that homosapien is supposed to remain in Mars helping the robot with the toddlers that arrive in Mars every year. Presently the examination focuses on Jupiter mission- to convert Jupiter into yet another planet at Earth’s disposal.
The law enforcement in the world had turned ultra stringent and corruption-free. The surveillance cameras and satellites do the patrolling duty. The 360 degree cameras have been placed every two meter and cover every square inch on the surface of the planets. All possible malpractices that a human being can think of performing have been updated into the database of the ‘all seeing eyes’. Whenever a person so much as leans on someone else’s vehicle, the surveillance cameras shoot a high intensity beam that petrifies the law-breaker. The frozen miscreant is duly arrested and jailed and taken to the hearing in twenty four hours. Presided by three supercomputers that are immune to human emotions, the judgment passed seals the fate of the offender. Nobody gets off free. If you commit a crime in today’s world, you’ve got to pay for it. The system is foolproof and unbiased.
Militants have all been eradicated from the face of the earth. In 2044, the “Cleanse our Worlds” program was successfully employed. The program involved the launching of a super satellite by NASA. The satellite had been programmed to evaluate the thoughts in every individuals mind. All those who had a three is to two ratio of evil to good qualities were duly marked and executed by focused gamma radiation. Thus the worlds had been cleansed of all the militants and thieves ensuring future peaces and safety of the citizens. Although the sudden death of about three million residents had ignited fear and alarm, the people gradually got over it. There aren’t any burglars, terrorists or murderers now. In fact, the very absence of them have resulted in the sudden fall in the economy (when currency where in use). The newspapers and news channels ceased functioning owing to the lack of ‘news’. The military was disbanded as there wasn’t any reason to endure the scorching heat and the freezing winter as there weren’t any enemies. Every now and then people are executed for evil thoughts that sprout in them. I guess the statement ‘there is a guy up there to watch over you’ finally makes sense.
Perhaps, you are wondering how the people on earth fare their daily life. Its very simple- not at all complicated. Every morning-as announced by the arrival of the sun at precisely eight o’ clock, thanks to those Greenwich scientists- the women leave their residents to go for work. Vehicles which operate on solar energy of the sun (who is there every day without fail) fly their owners to their respective offices. There they work until twelve at night, when the sun duly goes to sleep. Then they come home, wherein their husbands would have been waiting longingly for the return of the mistress of the house. There is no such thing as dinner, lunch or breakfast. Plastorium and food are automatically let in to their body through the pipes connecting their bag packs and their back bones. Thus no time is lost for food. The latest survey states that the women and their men would spend years together without once exchanging words. They would be miles apart in the world of social media. Thus there is no emotion. The above mentioned facts account for a statement of mine some time back- “women can live with any man that they liked and vice versa”. There’s no love, no pity, no devotion, no elation, no desperation, no frustration, no joy and no freedom in this world.
Maybe this isn’t the world that you envisaged. Maybe this isn’t the life that you wanted your children to live. It doesn’t matter now, I guess, as all that has happened, has happened. There is no changing it unless the time machine that the scientists are working on where to life. You may call it by any name- fate, destiny, or doom. But as long as it’s our life, we’ve got to love it but we needn’t endure it. Do not anticipate the future; do not get upset by the turn of events. For you alone have the gift to change it. This is not a world; it is a prison without boundaries, a prison that spreads into wilderness, into the empty space. I don’t recognize a face here. I don’t feel wanted here. I don’t exist here. We the humans are just entities with bodies; without souls. There’s nothing to look up to; nothing to look forward to; I seldom dream now; I have forgotten what it is to dream; I have forgotten what it is to wander in the woods on an Autumn evening breathing in the beautiful cool air weighed down with the smell of myriad flowers and as I lay on the moist grass beside a gurgling stream, looking at the pebbles slap against the cool transparent water…
There are no days now; There are no nights now. No rivers, no streams, no wind, no flowers; nothing in this sorrow filled world. Technology is important for growth. But don’t let it slaughter the beauty of the nature, the beauty of relationship, the beauty of life. Grow, but at a pace that allows you to enjoy either side of the world. Grow, but in manner that doesn’t destroy emotion, doesn’t destroy love. Grow, but in a way that amplifies the beauty of life along with the ease of living. Grow, and not wither and die!
Laugh and enjoy the beauty of your life now, for forty years from now, your happiest moment may not seem joyous enough for you. But do not let it put you down. If you created it, you have the aptitude to change it. So change it- live life your way.
This is not a letter from the future. It is a plea from your descendents..!!
__END__
