PART TWO: HIRAETH
Hiraeth - (noun) grief for the lost places of the past
Dillinger really missed the trees.
He missed the grass, and the birds, and the natural light of the sun. He missed the grace and beauty that sprouted in buds that reached for the heavens. The towering, reflective buildings with the flashy billboards didn’t fascinate him the way the cerulean sea in the sky always did.
Plastic flowers dotted the false grass. Forged trees stuck out of the ground like alien stalks, the small gray vents on the sides of their trunks like mold on bread.
A world where the last tree’s location must be hidden says a lot about its people.
He struggled to steer past the people on the sidewalk, ignoring their looks of disbelief or disgust in his direction. Far off, in the middle of an empty, green field, he slowed his wheelchair to a stop and pulled out a creased photograph from his pocket.
If he held it up and lined it just right, the ground in the photo lined up with the fake grass. Dillinger felt a bit nostalgic smiling sadly at it. His eyes followed the line of the horizon onto his photograph. A grinning child was on a swing set that was hanging off of a tree, sleek brown hair very different from Dillinger’s own fading gray, and yet they were the same. The top of the image was cut off, so fake, plastic branches stuck out from behind. The grass on both sides of the picture was too bright and shiny to be compared to the dark, real, alive plants in the photo.
Dillinger glared at the artificial, blue screen above, knowing that behind it was a smoke filled sky. The ball of manufactured light up high could be turned off just as easily as a lamp.
They all lived in a snow-globe. What had humans made the world become?
Years of innovation and technological advances coupled with years of pumping smog into the very air they breathed. No matter how intelligent humans were, they were always startlingly talented at manufacturing their own demise. The plants, unable to survive without enough sunlight, died off the same year scientists found a way to create artificial machines powered by carbon dioxide that puffed oxygen into the air. When all of the animals began dying, biologists cultured meat and plants - using cells to grow a meal on a petri dish. And when the water became dirty and muddy, chemists split and fused atoms to make their own. Suffocating, gray smoke finally blocked out the sun when scientists finally spread the screen over the sky and hung a light-bulb above their heads.
Everything was better touched by science. Nature always had to be tampered by humanity, and death was a part of it.
At the beginning of the year 3000, scientists perfected robots. And what was more perfect than a human mind?
The brain is just like a computer - nerves serve as wires that carry electricity, and the brain stores information and memories. All scientists had to do was download someone’s consciousness, put it in a flash drive, and then download the software onto a robot.
Not just madness - but a key to immortality. A robot can’t feel pain; it can’t starve, or die due to trivial accidents. If the body is ever damaged, a new one can be easily made to replace it.
The few amount of people that protested playing God hung onto their mortality. But they all aged and passed away in their Earth-bound prisons while others were unmarked in metal cells.
Dillinger grew up untouched - mind untampered with. And as those around him stayed fixed in time he continued to age, until he was the only real person left. The last to die.
He crumpled the photograph in his hand and stuffed it in his breast-pocket, before furiously wheeling back to his apartment.
⁂
The trip to the heart of the city always trickled trepidation onto his spine - not unlike the feeling of a hologram appearing behind him without warning, or trying to trek up the stairs with a too full cup of water.
Usually, it only took him fifteen minutes to race down the sidewalk in his wheelchair to the Head Center. It wasn’t very crowded - people preferred to work from home and communicate using holograms. Those that traveled used the bullet trains that ran on tracks a couple hundred feet above the ground to buildings. Others drove hovercrafts or simply walked on the ground to close destinations.
Giant, 3D holograms were displayed all over the place, mainly on the tops of buildings where bullet riders would be most likely to see them. Thousands of billboards stood where they used to call “Times Square”.
A particular one caught his eye - some advertisement for RoboGear that allowed women to choose a body like an hourglass. The model dressed in a skimpy outfit on the billboard winked into the distance as words below her flashed: “The only way to look beautiful is to stay young, and the only way to look young is to stay beautiful.”
Dillinger frowned at it. Flowers were beautiful and people cut their stems and let them die. Shooting stars were glamorous but they only lasted a minute. Galaxies grew more divine with each passing century and yet age was looked down upon.
Dozens of other boards flashed and he steered away.
⁂
The receptionist of the Head Center had a full head of strawberry blond hair and big blue eyes that glittered like marbles. Her bright, red lips immediately curled in barely concealed disgust when he rolled up in front of her desk.
He was used to it.
Age is unnatural, age is unnatural, AGE IS UNNATURAL, AGE IS UNNATURAL -
“Hello,” he said, instead. “I’m registering for my next week of rations.” The government could spare money making him food, since everyone else merely guzzled gas and oil.
She stared at him, no doubt taking in the wrinkles on his face that machines didn’t have.
He snapped his fingers in front of her, feeling annoyed. “Food. Water. I’m here for it.”
Her face lit up with recognition. “Oh!” She hurried into the back of the Center.
Waiting was hard. Aggression was easy, but standing there and feeling gazes bore into the back of his head was what made him want to crawl out of his skin.
He wasn’t sure if someone was behind the eyes of those robots, watching, too. Thousands of cameras in the robots up and down the streets just watching, staring at him, recording his every move.
The worst part was that he didn’t know.
It was akin to waking up to the sound of footsteps just outside of the bedroom door, hearing that someone is out there but not knowing who.
The receptionist rushed back, slapping a tablet in front of him. “Choose your meals, sign here, you know the protocol.”
He randomly checked a couple boxes with the stylus, not caring what they were growing in laboratories, only wanting to have food for the next week. His initials were a messy slew of words. The tablet asked for his retina scan and a fingerprint, which he provided. The receptionist handed him a helmet and made him leave it on for five minutes.
“Have a nice day,” the receptionist said, looking at him through her eyes - cameras - plastic orbs.
I doubt I will.
“Sure.”