14 DAY TRIAL // It happened to me more than once to watch on TV some people who presented all sorts of educated and more or less fantastical theories regarding the way our world might look like if some sort of disaster struck. I have to admit that some of the theories presented by those people were quite interesting, but others (most of them, actually), were rather ridiculous. This experience has been, to some extent, this article's source of inspiration. I've tried to imagine just how an ordinary day from the life of person X might look like, if...
He lived in an ultra - technological world
It's 5.45 in the morning, on the 7'th of April, 2050. The body's necessary recovery period has ended, so the tiny RFID chip implanted under X's skin broadcasts a signal that activates the vibration-based wake-up system embedded in the mattress. Perfectly fresh after the few hours of sedatives-induced sleep, X gets up and goes in the bathroom, where he takes a quick ultrasonic shower, and then heads for the kitchen, where the robots had already prepared a healthy breakfast, containing exactly the number of calories X's body requires for the next part of the day. Afterwards, X puts on his antibacterial suit and his multi-functional shoes (auto-adjustable to the feet's dimensions and to the walking conditions, and also fitted with a 1 TB music player), and leaves his living quarters in order to go to work.
He gets on the Maglev elevator, and goes down about 200 stories that separate the living quarters from the office area, in his pyramid-shaped home city. He works for 4 hours (the average work time of the day, since the development of robotics made possible a very serious decrease in the amount of time dedicated to work-related activities), then he goes to his company's cafeteria, where his lunch, prepared according to the body status data transmitted by the above mentioned RFID chip, awaits him.
After eating his lunch, X goes back to his living quarters, where he contacts his friends by means of the holographic communications system. It's the birthday of one of the members of the discussion forum X is a part of, so all his friends connect to the same entertainment server, in order to celebrate the event. There, X meets a person of the opposite sex, Y. Who knows, says to himself an excited X, perhaps tomorrow night I'll be able to use my new long-distance interaction suit...
He lived in a world with no technology
It's 5.45 in the morning, on the 7'th of April, 2050. The wind is blowing through the cracks in the wooden shack X calls home, and is cold enough to wake X from his deep sleep. After saying some very "nice" things about the planks the walls are made of, the weather, but also about the ancestors who had caused the Great Cataclysm, which had driven all technology into oblivion and made him, X, live in this harsh conditions, he gets up from his straw bed, almost hitting the very low ceiling in the process, and goes out.
He trows a bucket of water on himself, and then runs back into the house, where he dresses in his sheepskin coat. He "feasts" on what's left from last night's dinner, then starts his daily chores. Feeding the domestic animals, going through the woods in order to chop wood/gather berries/mushrooms, going back home in oder to cut the wood.
When he finishes all of these things, it's already evening. Seeing this, X prepares for the "party", actually some sort of meeting, during which he has some drinks (very strong drinks) with his neighbors. He says to himself that who knows, perhaps one of them will bring his family along, and X will be able to spot some "hottie" there. So, thinking about mankind's survival and sexual behavior, X picks up his tiger skin (the fancy suit) and the bottle of homebrew moonshine and heads for the meeting place.
He lived in a world destroyed by the avian flu
It's 5.45 in the morning, on the 7'th of April, 2050. Several years have passed since the great Pandemics, and most of the planet's population has been killed by a mutant virus, derived from that of the avian flu.
The rooster from the backyard voices quite a loud "Cock-a-doodle-doo". Quite frightened (he was just dreaming that he was being chased by a huge virus, shaped like a chicken with 3 heads), X wakes up. Following his daily morning routine, he goes outside, in order to check on the control chickens. Fortunately, all of them are alive. He feeds them, and then tours the yard. No dead birds. He's off the hook for today.
Fed up with all that chicken meat (nobody really knows why, but the mutant virus has also killed most of the domestic animals), X picks up his bow and goes hunting. Who knows, perhaps he'll get lucky today, and find some squirrel or fox. They're very rare, but do turn up occasionally. And in any case, he could use a new pair of mittens. Or a new cap.
In the evening, X returns home, quite obviously empty handed. He checks on the birds once again (fortunately, none of them is dead), and heads back into the house, thinking about that cute farmer's daughter from across the pond. However, she's got ducks on the farm, and it's a well known fact that domestic ducks tend to mix with wild ducks, who still carry the virus, and X doesn't want to take any chances. Abstinence will save him for sure, says X, as he falls asleep.
He lived in a world where drugs were legal
It's 5.45 in the morning, on the 7'th of April, 2050. X wakes up in terrible pain and realizes that he forgot to get his fix of hiper-cocaine, the only thing that allows him to survive in that terribly depressing world. Frightened, he tries to take anything he can get his hands on, in order to get over the pain, at least until he manages to visit the local pharmacist (read drug-dealer), who lives two block away. But nothing seems to be working (although that mixture of peeper and chilly had some very interesting effects, and X decides to try to remember the recipe), and the only thing he can do is throw his rags on, open the secret money cache (which he saved for his birthday, when he wanted to treat his friends with some of that Colombian cocaine, a real treat), and then roll down the stairs.
Fortunately, X manages to get to the "pharmacist" quite in time, and to take his dose, which he uses right there, in the street. He doesn't care that there are several children with their mothers walking in the street, and why should he? Everyone's an addict, one way or the other.
He comes back a lot happier. All he can do right now is go pick up the money from the unemployment office, then go to the drugstore (some sort of narco-cafeteria, quite far from the classical meaning of the word), from where he's going to pick up some meta-amphetamines and some marijuana, the good stuff, from India). And who knows, perhaps tonight he'll share a bong with the girl of the next-door neighbor...
To be continued...
