By David Ficarri
-Diversions with Dave-
The year is 2048.
“GranBorg AIHD, can you tell us what it was like when you were growing up?”
“Sure kids, gather ‘round at let me tell you a story. It was the Year 2020. You know how Cyborg Gates is now the President of Oceania, well, back in my day we lived in a place called The United States of America. Except we weren’t all that united, we just couldn’t agree on anything. In fact, there was just about a shortage of everything then, coins, toilet paper, common sense, compassion, you name it.
What’s that? Oh, I keep forgetting you’re robots and not human. Anyhow, remember that magic trick when I pull something from your ear? Yeah, those are coins and we used them to buy things. Yes, just like your virtual apples. Oh, you’ve seen toilet paper in your virtual museums huh, yeah well, for some odd reason there was a shortage of them. I still think it was those WalMartians.
No, they’re not like the real Martians that live next door, they were much stranger.
Anyway, 2020 was the craziest year ever, even the Cleveland Browns had a winning season.
No, they used to play something called football, I’ll save that for another night but you know those pictures on my wall, those are of my team, the Steelers. No, they weren’t made of real steel like you guys but they really showed their metal. I know, it’s mettle, sorry, GranBorg jokes.
Where was I? Ahhh, yes.
Well, you know how Sarah, Kyle and John led the battle versus Skynet? Well, I fought a similar battle versus Overlords Zuck and Jack and instead of guns, I used memes to short circuit their “fact-checkers.” You don’t understand? Ahhh, well apparently sarcasm and dark humor still can’t be detected by robots. Anyway, they silenced anyone who disagrees with them and started shutting down free speech and thought. 2020 had something for everyone though.
We had President Trump get impeached. No, he wasn’t really orange, you kids really don’t learn anything in school do you?
We had riots of all kinds. Yeah, it was kind of like the uprising of ‘41. You’re right, some things never change.
We had things like Murder Hornets, TikTok, and a lady named Carole Baskin try to take over the world. No, I’m not gonna tell you about those things, some things are better left in the past. You want to know about what? Why we all had to wear masks.
Are you kids trying to short circuit me here? Well, you know how you had to drink that anti-virus cocktail to keep your insides from melting, it was something...yes, I was getting to the virus thing. I told you it was an insane year.
Anyway, before I get to that we had this crazy presidential election where the whole country lost its mind. What’s that? From the sounds of things, we didn’t have our minds to begin with? Oh now, you’ve got jokes, too.
Now, there was way more but I’ve saved the best for last. Good things you say? Well, I suppose it forced us to treat each other with more kindness and compassion and realize what’s important in life even though it was a struggle.
As for the coronavirus, yes, it took over the whole world until the point that Cyborg Gates became Supreme Commander and somehow we all needed his “safe” vaccine. Well, here I am almost 30 years later, still alive as a Cyborg and able to tell my grandkids and their friends this story. I suppose it could be worse, I could have been a Dallas Cowboys fan.