His eyes closed, wearied from too much Wikipedia, and staring at
a lonely inbox. As they did, the screensaver on the monitor on
the desk kicked in, strobing enough light to alternately
illuminate his inner eyelid with light blue and white.
As his mind drifted along, Mark thought about how technology had
changed his life, how much information was available, how alone
he was in the universe. Mind spinning, approaching darkness, all
his thoughts spun into blissful nothingness.
A muffled slam of the car door brought him back to
consciousness. He heard the telltale sound of keys jingling, as
someone struggled to find just the right one. After 3-4
obviously unsuccessful attempts, Mark ran past the coffee table
to open the door, knocking over a flat can of soda in the
process.
"Just a minute", he yelled, distracted by the quickly spreading
dark liquid, making its way across the carpet. He flicked the
deadbolt open, deftly twisted the knob, and ran to get the first
absorbent piece of cloth that he could find. This happened to be
his one pair of running shorts. Oh, well. Sacrifices must be
made.
"How was your night?", he asked his sister, as she stumbled
through the door, with an unwieldy box. "Good. Check out what I
bought last night. Took me forever to save up for this." Mark
examined the box. The writing was in black and dark blue:
"Brother Thermal Facsimile?...You bought a Fax machine. These
things are obsolete.", Mark half-laughed, half-yelled down the
hall. "It weighs a ton. What are you planning on doing with this
thing? You have some hot-shot legal career I don't know about?"
Sherry emerged from the back room, wearing jeans and a t-shirt
getup that was practically her uniform. "For your information,
that is the very latest model. It transmits at 14.4K, up from
9600 Baud. I thought of all the people in this family, you would
be able to appreciate it."
Mark played along. "Oh, I'm sorry. This is so nice. Wow, it
takes thermal paper and everything. You don't have to use any
ink. This is going to save us so much money. Now we can fax our
order to Pizza Hut."
He waited for her to crack, but she fell on his remarks with
genuine enthusiasm. "Yeah, isn't it great. I hadn't even thought
of faxing in orders. What a great idea. I was just thinking I
could use it to send assignments to my professor, if I happened
to be under the weather."
The fog was beginning to lift from Mark's brain. It might have
had something to do with the cola-soaked running shorts lying at
his feet. "Hey...umm..what's today's date?", he mumbled.
"Tuesday.", she said. "The DATE!", Mark said, slightly irritated
"Not the DAY."
"Oh, April 23rd, 2009".
"What electronics store did you go to? Seriously, have you lost
it. They have fax machines that are half that size now, if you
need to use them at all. That relic looks like it dropped in
from 1991."
Sherry's eyes narrowed. "That was the best model. You can go
down to Best Buy and look at it yourself. It's way more advanced
than that Nintendo you have sitting in your bedroom. I have
laundry to do.
It's just like you to snub your nose at anything that competes
with you, Mr. Pentium. Ever since you bought that overpriced
machine, you've been an insufferable jerk."
"I have an AMD processor, and my computer is an HP,
thankyouverymuch." Sherry laughed. "Yeah? Then why do you have
all those Pentium stickers covering your desk?."
At this point, the weirdness all became too much for Mark. An
uneasiness was pressing on him. It was the tiniest
thought...something about the Nintendo had triggered it, and it
had grown ever since. Mark didn't own a Nintendo. He hadn't
owned one in nearly 12 years.
He ran to the bedroom, and his should barely glanced a picture
frame on the way past. Mark caught himself, long enough to catch
the frame and lay it to the side. He nearly lost it, when he
reached the bedroom.
The LCD next to his headboard had been replaced with a 13.5",
512 color monitor. His sleek Dell, had been swapped for a bland,
beige box, the size of a house. No ethernet cable, no modem, no
phone line.
Last, but not least, was the Nintendo. He wished for a moment
that the orange and grey gun was real, and loaded. He sat down,
and waited. He was waiting to wake up.
He didn't. When his parents returned that evening, he gave no
them no clue that he was depressed beyond words. He cheerfully
took the bag phone that his dad brought in from the car, happy
to see that there was at least some semblance of civilization
that remained.
As he went to bed that night, he thought about how he ended up
here, away from his precious devices, away from his lonely
inbox.
As the CRT shocked him with static, he asked himself why he had
been doomed to wander the earth as a technological Job, who had
everything taken from him, in a single day. He received no
answer.
In the living room, his sister ordered a late-night pizza, with
her new fax machine. "Isn't technology amazing", she asked her
dad. "It sure is, honey." he said, as the 14.4K modem bleeped
its way to life.
"Deeeeeeee.Diiiiiiiiiiiii.De.Duh.De.Duh....Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
About the Author: Kurt Hartman is the head of Web Development
for OTR Tire Supply. They sell heavy equipment, and loader tires
on their website, at http://www.otrtiresupply.com
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