Children of the Screen - Reality's Price

I trudged slowly down the street. My flamboyantly cut scarlet top fluttered in the breeze. All around me people whisked past, going about their daily errands. Not a single one stopped for even a second. As I slowed and glanced about, an extravagantly dressed man shouldered his way through the crowd; not so much as glancing at the fallen child he had just collided with. This was a rough city with its dirty streets, oppressive buildings, blazing magazine headlines, roaring TV announcers and rushing masses. If there had been any other place to go, I would have been there in an instant. But no, it was not to be.

It hadn’t always been thus. My mind recoiled from the mere effort of thinking that short thought, racing instead upon another track. Now, the entire human civilization was free. There had been no wars since I was a child. We had finally achieved world peace. Not only that, but every single human’s head was jammed so full of information that our ancestors would have scarce been able to comprehend it. We knew of every occurrence, even on the opposite side of the globe, within a minute. Technology had proved a great boon to intercultural communication; there were no longer any lines dividing us. Now we were all merely humans. Equality reigned just as I had always dreamed it would. Our society wanted for nothing and functioned as one perfectly oiled machine. Life was good.

I glanced about again. A shy, little thought nudged against the back of my conscious. Failing to fully gain my attention, it fell back, rallied and whispered faintly in my mental ear: “But are you happy?”

Stunned, I froze. Happy? I could feel my head cocking sideways. Of course I was happy. Wasn’t I?

My mind scanned my recent past looking for memories, laughter, happiness…anything. Only a void met my probing. Or rather, the same monotonous pattern drowned everything else out. Frantically, I dug deeper. I had a past. I had memories. I had joy, and I had pain. I had laughter and tears. Where were they?

There! It was a brief flash of laughter, joy and something oddly unsettling. I tried to brush the dust from my memory. Ah ha! It was surely from my college days because I was typing on a bright orange bed. The unsettled feeling reared its head again. I had been debating the possibilities of time travel. My mind laboriously pieced the puzzle together. And that must have meant that I was…thinking. My brain screamed its protest and dodged away from that realization.

It chose, instead, to progress through the years. Now that I had found a thread of memory, I had no problem doing so. The days flashed by, and before me very eyes, I witnessed a transformation. I had gone from a technologically impaired middle school student to an almost tech savvy college student. My world had changed as I was thrust out into society, and I had altered myself to fit in my new existence. The world continued to change as I grew older. I had continued to adapt until the day that I broke. The pressure of being the perfect person had become too much. When I was finally done fulfilling my requirements each day, I had fled to the world of virtual reality and taken refuge in the media. Yet, even that escape wasn’t enough. The sheer weight of society had crushed me.

People rushed by with fixed expressions, jerky movements, and glazed eyes. I wondered if they were happy or if they too had forgotten. The wind played with my fashionable raiment again. The face we presented to the world was beautiful, but it was only skin deep. We were, all of us, dead. Our cause of death had been the pressure of a society that required more than we could give and yet asked for no individuality. To escape we had committed ourselves to a virtual world. We hadn’t escaped. Instead, we were chained by our necks to the screen, our mouths sealed with duct tape, and our minds barred against thought. We had brought this upon ourselves.

I bowed my head and trudged on. By the time I reached the towering doors of my office, I had forgotten…

Image: Hannah Baylon