February 22, 2222. Unknown place.
Today is New Year and also my birthday. I turn 22 today, and there will be a big party at my house, just like I planned. It will be a really good day, and I'm really looking forward to it. I can't wait for my girlfriend to come at my house so we can have fun together. She's very accepting of my fart fetish and farts in front of me whenever she needs to. She's an angel, I love her so much. She's the reason I'm so happy, the reason why I want to live my life everyday. She always brings a smile to my face with her hugs whenever I feel sad. Without her, I would be lost. I lost contacts with my biological parents at the age of 6. I really miss them, but I have to get over it, because now I'm surrounded by really kind people. But still, I miss my biological parents. I don't remember much about them, but I would really like to meet them again.
I wait. My girlfriend will come at my house at 7:30 A.M. and it's 4:20 A.M. already.
I want it to snow today.
"Hey Alice, make it snow today, with a temperature of minus 2 degrees Celsius", I say.
"Yes, master", said Alice, who set the outside temperature to -2 degrees Celsius (28 degrees Fahrenheit) and made it snow. So, it started snowing and looked really pretty. I went outside and took a look around. It was dark and snowy, and I walked around the city. No one was walking, and I was feeling lonely. I need to talk with someone, but everyone is sleeping, so I'll patiently wait.
I miss my childhood, everything was easier back then. Now everything feels bland. My heart is as dark as the night sky. This is crazy. Feelings! I keep walking. Everything is silent and dark, the only lighting here is artificial. A pretty good metaphor for how I'm feeling these last years. I wonder how long I will live for. People live, on average, 95 years these days. I have to live like this until the day I die. Nothing exciting happens here.
I think I won't speak with anyone anymore. I'll be hiding myself inside a solitary shell. I don't deserve to be happy anymore, I'm worthless. My life is worthless, too. All the people who try to make me happy are fake. They don't really care. Everyone is happy but me. I wish I lived in the 20th century, I bet people were happier back then living a more natural life. Now everything is fake. There's no tradition anymore. I feel like someone punched my stomach, tears are about to fall but I have to resist, I can't cry, I'm strong enough. I have to accept my miserable life and suffer in silence. No one really cares about me, they're all pretending. I'm the only one who has feelings here. I sigh, and a visible cloud of breath exits my mouth. I look at the sky and let the snowflakes fall on my face, making them melt. This cold water is somehow comforting, until I realize the snow is fake, too. I can decide the weather I want, and it happens. I can decide anything, and it happens. There's no fun like this. People's wishes in the 20th century were rarely granted, that's true, but the satisfaction of having your wish granted is proportional to the difficulty of having it granted. There's no fun in constantly having what you want with no effort.
"Hey, Alice...", I said, trying not to cry.
"Do you need anything, master?", she said, smiling.
"Please, show me people complaining about being sad, year 2022", I said, sighing.
"I like your politeness. Here, master", she said, giving me a book.
"Thank you", I said, starting to read.
People were complaining about being sad two hundred years ago. They posted their emotions on a service called "The Internet", so that the future generations could learn about the past and never forget. I really wanted to live during that period and even earlier. The Internet was good, but it was the start of human failure. They didn't know that life would have changed dramatically. If only they knew.
My soul is being filled with negative feelings, will I ever be free from this mental cage? Humankind is dead already, there's nothing we can do to go back through time and live happily again. It's too late now. Everything is fake now, even food. I can't enjoy life knowing this. Artificial snow is falling around me, what's the point of feeling happy if you immediately have everything you want? Post-scarcity doesn't feel as good as it looked like it would have been.
Stars are all around, but I know there's nothing there, it's unused space that will never be filled. What's the point in having a Universe so large, if most of it is empty? Dark energy and dark matter fill the cosmos, and I'm trapped in this reality as if it were a cage I can't get out from. The overcast sky covers the night lights, which are not natural anymore, unlike a few centuries ago. Light pollution doesn't even matter anymore. I would have liked to live in the wild of nature, running through forests and deserts. I can still do that, but it's not true nature. People nowadays can't feel the deep awe towards nature that people felt in the prehistory. Somehow we lost our connection to nature and we will never get back into it, simply too late to do anything now. Humankind is forever lost.
Should I keep pretending that I enjoy my life? If not, what should I do? Should I stay in bed all day doing nothing, waiting until the day I'll pass away? Perhaps I should accept the fact that I was born in this century and keep living my life. I can go back in time with this century's technology, but it would not be natural. I simply was born two or three centuries too late. The Internet marked the start of humankind's decline in life quality, it was obvious, but people had not noticed back then. Even hugs now are fake, I wonder what a real hug felt like two centuries ago. Not that people hugged much, anyway. We have had our time to create a happy society, but we failed. We only waged wars against each other and didn't care about our fellow human beings' feelings. Now things have gotten artificially perfect, there's no fun in living a perfect life.
"Alice... put on some post-rock from the early 21st century", I said, trying to conceal my feelings.
"Yes, master!", she said, smiling.
A music started playing and I almost cry. Life was beautiful back then. If only people knew how melancholic things would have gotten in just two centuries, they wouldn't have complained of being sad. How could someone have been sad back then? They lived in humankind's most prosperous period. Post-scarcity is truly saddening.
I sigh and try to smile. What if life now is beautiful compared to life in the 25th century? I have to try and think in this frame of mind. I have to enjoy life, no matter what, I can't waste it like this. Even if I get depressed, things won't change. I have to accept things as they are. Today is my birthday, after all, I'm 22 now, and my best friends will come at my house. I have too many good things happening in my life, I feel like I don't deserve all this. It's not natural. Technology has always helped humans, but still, life 200 years ago was okay. I would have loved to be born in the year 2000. My life would have been much simpler: I would have been much happier whenever things went the right way, now everything is alright, that's why I'm bored. Is this heaven, or is this hell?
I'm freezing now, I wonder if I should teleport home or just walk. I'd rather walk, so I start walking home and think about things. I should start smiling more and enjoy the fact that a person born in 2000 would probably be envious of our lives. Probably not. I can always go back through time and do something interesting. Enough information has been gathered to recreate the past conditions. Western countries in the early 21st century were really good. I would like to use the Internet of 2022, but my fingers are slow now due to the cold weather, I need to get back home.
After a bit of walking, I finally reached my home. I entered it and asked Alice to set the temperature at a toasty 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit), which she gladfully did. My home is truly relaxing, perhaps I should always look at the bright side from now on and live a new happy life.
"Alice, could you please give me a laptop from 2022, with Internet from 2022? I need to feel nostalgia of a time I've never lived in", I said, with my heart beating fast.
"Sure, master, anything for you~", she said, smiling and giving me the laptop.
This thing is from 200 years ago! I'm almost crying.
I searched for "Onara RPG", and many videos showed up. Videogames were beautiful back then. They were much more genuine than what they have become now. I searched for fart fetish art and there was a lot of it! Even though it was much simpler than what it is now, people were enjoying it really much, judging by their comments. The question is: would I really have liked to live in that time? Perhaps I would have been one of the first fart fetish artists, but now that I think about it, my life would have felt empty. There was no onara anime back then, but I would have gotten used to it not existing. Probably. Things were much simpler and genuine back then, I would have felt comfortable. I don't know whether I feel comfortable enough to tell my feelings to my girlfriend. We talk a lot together, but we never talked about the past. Since it's my birthday, I'll ask her if she's okay with a trip into the past. Into 2022 we'll go. The location? I'll decide that soon, in the meanwhile I'll enjoy fart fetish drawings and videogames of 2022. It feels so real, it feels like I'm truly living in the past. Everything was better back then. I'm really looking forward to visit 2022 with my girlfriend. The 1980's started videogames, the 2010's started fart fetish art, and the 2040's started a cultural revolution where people got drastically much more open-minded.
I like 2022 because people were struggling to live in a utopia. Now that we live in a utopia, there's nothing we're looking forward to. This is the end of progress. 2022 was a year of dreams about the future of humankind. People were so optimistic. Perhaps far too optimistic. They understood humans were not compassionate enough, but were having troubles behaving gently one to each other. Things have surely changed in two centuries, but now. I doubt things are going to change much more. We have reached the peak of progress.
People don't produce music, movies, videogames or drawings anymore. It's all procedurally generated now. It makes me so sad: I want to feel something human again. Art has no soul nowadays. What's the point in having quintillions of procedurally generated songs if they lack someone who made them with love? Today I'll go back through time to enjoy a simple life again. I'll only listen to songs made before 2025, and generally only enjoy things made before 2025, so that I can really live the life I want to. But I should be glad be glad I live now so that I can choose a year to live in. I should always look at the positive side of everything, even though it might seem there's no way out of the emotions I'm experiencing.
Today is going to be an amazing day, it's my birthday after all, and even though I'm getting seriously old at this point, I can't waste my life with negative thoughts. From now on, I should find the beauty in this artificial environment (but I don't find any beauty in this, how can I do this?). We have been separated from our mother Gaia and we now live in a non-existent alternate reality. One can argue it's the best thing that happened to us, but I feel a sense of melancholy.
It's 7:00 A.M. now.
My girlfriend came to my house and I opened the door. She smiled and hugged me.
"I'm so happy to see you", she said, in a comforting voice. I feel a strange feeling in my heart. Maybe what I thought was true, I should try to enjoy life more, not thinking about a past I've never experienced.
I sigh and look at the ground.
"Hi Rose", I say, blushing. She smiles.
"Is something wrong?", she asks.
"Uhm... no, I'm happy", I say, forcing myself to smile.
"Do you have any idea about what to do on your birthday?", she asks, excited.
"I... what about going to New Delhi on February 2, 2022?", I ask.
"Yeah! That sound really nice!", she says, smiling.
"Alice, bring us to New Delhi, India. February 2, 2022. 07:00 A.M.", I say.
"Yes, master~", says Alice, bringing us to a whole different reality from the one we were living in.
"Here we are", I say, happy.
"Everything looked so simple 200 years ago, it's like... more human", said Rose, emotively, "but I bet there were a lot of problems, too", she continued.
"That's likely, but problems are human", I say, confident.
We walk around the streets and were amazed by how everything was 200 years ago.
"You know, let's not hug each other in public. People 200 years ago were not so open to do these things in public", said Rose.
"I know, but as long as we're in private, we can hug each other as much as we want. It's a bit of a weird rule, but you know, you should follow the past traditions, when in the past", I say, respectful of the past way of life.