A Day in the Life; Or, Good Morning, Good Morning

[Fake]

I am the Song, not the Singer

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The sun rose, like it did every day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

people lived there lives and they lived in society and they lived and then they stopped

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everybody [lived]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s not entirely true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everybody died eventually.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(This is their story.)

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People all across the United States awoke, their dreams interrupted by reality as the light filled their houses through their glass walls and ceilings. The solar panels began whirring as they activated; the light farms began storing the energy produced from the pitch black glass and metal leaves that powered the world through their artificial photosynthesis. The stars in the sky, along with the great satellites that comprised the System, disappeared from sight as the sun rose and overshadowed their meager lights with its brilliant life granting luminance. Those who had been under the sun previously—the people in other countries, on other continents, or the Nocturnals who populated the night—turned off their houses, and lay under the night sky as they waited for sleep to take them. But the people of the United States slowly started their day, eating breakfast as they accessed their accounts, checking their stock or the news or things related to their jobs, or even updates on the various Sonnets as they prepared for a day of work, or school, or both. A student trying to finish his homework as he panics over school that day. A child watching a Program with a bored expression as his father and mother kiss each other before going to their prospective rooms so they can work without distraction. A Nocturnal finishing up his work and preparing to go to bed.  A businessman eating toast as he idly listens to an email sent by his secretary regarding the latest product. A scientist driving her car to work on the empty roads. The world turns as the people in it go about their meager lives.

 

An hour passed. Three middle aged siblings were talking to their father excitedly, discussing his surprise Retirement party with him, him smiling from ear to ear as he sees how much they’re looking forward to it, as he looks forward to the party himself. They’ve planned everything out, turning an otherwise tedious and formal event into a party none of them intend to forget. A caterer prepares the food for said party with care, his card informing anyone who’d bother to read it that he specializes in said parties. The father of the siblings is nervous about the party, but excited for the event that comes after, looking forward to finally resting. He has volunteered to Retire, and is looking forward to the event immensely, where he’ll join the millions of others who’ve Retired since it was government funded.

 

An hour later, a woman is at work, setting up security files for the System as she struggles to prevent another event like the one that had happened just six days before from ever happening again. She drags her finger across the air in front of her at rapid speeds as she types, editing the computer on a screen that only she can see. Her Visor shows her the keyboard and the code as it flies past her, and fills her ears with powerful, energizing music as she works. Her Visor is plugged in for better effect, improving its energy consumption and decreasing the split second delay time considerably. She works and works, occasionally taking a sip from her cup of coffee as she drives back home, only occasionally looking at the road. Suddenly, she’s alerted of another car being within a kilometer, and she sighs as she turns off her Visor and sets down her coffee to watch the road and avoid an accident. The System tells her to have a nice day, and she tells the cheerful, inhuman voice to fuck off.

 

An hour later, a young couple, no more than eighteen, are fighting playfully over who has to pay the bill for the breakfast they just ate together at the little café they’re eating at. The girl grabs her boyfriends arm and pulls it over the Creditor held by the slightly irritated waiter, and forces him to pay for their meal. The waiter shakes his head sadly as they walk away, laughing and teasing each other, and writes on his blog through subvocalization about how carefree teenagers have gotten these days. But he smiles as he does so.

 

Later, a teenager in Texas was chatting with his friend in Rhode Island, talking excitedly about a Flick he had watched last night. He talks about how stunning the visuals were, how intriguing the plot, how epic the action. His friend laughs at him skeptically as he reads the reviews for the Flick, before asking his friend how much he was paid by the studio to advertise their product. Sheepishly, the first teenager lists a negligible amount of bytes, to be chastised by his friend for being cheap and miserly enough to actually advertise such an awful movie.

 

Later, a man is sitting in a bar, drinking away his loneliness as other people do the same. He drinks a cheap martini as he sits there, staring into his glass as he sits there, asking for another drink as he sits there. He thinks he’s alone, but loneliness is a pretty popular place nowadays. The bartender looks towards the sky absentmindedly as he perfunctorily mixes the man another drink, too lost in his own thoughts to realize how similar everyone in the bar is. The man drinking the cheap martini catches the eyes of a woman who’s just as lonely as he is, and goes to approach her, but she walks away. Meanwhile, a man is executed on the telescreen in the corner, a man who calls himself The Emissary of Freedom, but nobody pauses to watch the man’s death as he’s Retired by the government. It’s all the telescreens had been playing for the prior hour, and few there hadn’t already seen it happen a thousand times, over and over and over again.

Later, a young writer in Mexico is tracing his finger in the air as he writes a sci-fi novel, his friend and editor reading his words contemplatively in Maine, occasionally making helpful comments about a character, or lending a word when the writer became stuck.

 

The afternoon comes and goes, leading into night. As the sun sets, the solar panels slow down as they prepare for their twelve hour stasis, and the Light-Farmers nod approvingly as they see their Bytes for today’s credits. The farms are stationed on trash landfills in the seas, not needing soil or stable land for their crops, unlike the Org-Farmers and Wind-Farmers who hold claim to the natural land created through eons of tectonic movement. The nightshift begins, and the dayshift goes to join the solar panels in sleep.  The student ignores his homework as he stays up late, chatting with his friends on a Sonnet. The child is tucked in by his parents, who program his Visor to show him the pictures of the storybook they read him as a warm feeling engulfs the two, a feeling called love. The Nocturnal stretches as he wakes up, getting out of his bed as he prepares for the night before him. The businessman calls his wife to tell her that he’s going to be late home, unaware that she hacked into his Account and sees that he’s actually at his secretaries house. The scientist drives home from work, and is pleased. She had a good day.

 

And a man’s corpse is buried, along with the truth of what happened a month and twelve days ago.

 

The world turns, and turns, and turns…forever spinning, it houses the small hairless apes on it as they go about their meager lives, unaware of how great they’ve become, how great they’ll be. Forever spinning along its axis, it dances…

 

And life dances with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain.
~Author Unknown

[EndOfTheEarth]

lived there lives

 

You mean "their." Typically I don't complain about spelling or grammar that much, but you have it on an emphasis line.