West 38th

For the third time today, Ford picks up the phone and hears nothing but the buzz and click and background hum of a busy call centre. He doesn’t normally answer calls from random numbers, which tend to run the gamut from “financial planners” trying to sell him yet another get rich quick plan he can’t afford to harmless-sounding “market research” surveys he knows will end in a barrage of catalogues of useless junk in the mail urging him to fill that gaping void that only the latest in friendly AI assistants can plug. Today he is desperate. The family is down to their last jar of water. Ford’s wife has been urging him to join the crowds searching the city ruins for hidden wells and streams, but Ford doesn’t want to. Ford is comfortable on the couch.

The Water Wars have been kind to him. Comfortably ensconced in front of his interwall, his every whim is predicted and fulfilled by his virtual assistant almost before he is even conscious of having it. Mostly Ford’s whims consist of getting the latest VR implant upgrade, or subscribing to this week’s must-see reality stream. If he doesn’t know who is on top of the social points table, what will he talk to his mates about on the Friday night hook up? Now this narcotic bliss has been interrupted by Tanya’s growing insistence that he do something.

“Can you please go outside and see if you can find a gallon or two? We’ll be drinking each other’s sweat by the end of the week.”

Ford flips the switch on his implant and rolls back to lose himself in the world of The Biggest Kitchen…

Tanya rolls her eyes and goes back outside to weed their pitiful vegetable patch. She knew from the day they smashed up the concrete and planted a few rows of corn and tomato that a dozen square feet was never going to feed the two of them, let alone all the visitors and beggars who regularly turned up on their doorstep. It has been 30 years since the brutal, horrible truth became impossible to deny, even for the oligarchs whose “salary depends on them not understanding it”. The climate is irreversibly changing, and even in the gentrified technocracy of the West the effects are felt every day.

All the glorious advances in technology, the artificial assistants, the autonomous cars—and the autonomous weapons—have been pointed inward, towards making our lives easier. We have created a hermetic seal between ourselves and … reality. The ubiquitous reality TV, the sound-bite news-as-entertainment, the constant stream of mind-numbing stories of who’s dating who, all obscure the core unmentionable truth: it is exactly this, our relentless consumerism—always needing the latest gadget, a bigger car—that is driving catastrophic changes to the biosphere.

This is nothing new. We started on this trajectory at least 100 years ago. But now that manufacture and distribution of physical goods is effectively free, and the media’s ability to be literally inside our heads 24 hours a day is complete, consumerism is out of control. We are bombarded with empty entertainment that absorbs our attention and numbs our minds. There’s nothing left with which to think about the external world and what is happening outside our doors—and our gated communities.

It’s three hours later and Ford’s legs are numb. He shuts down the VR and slowly, reluctantly peels himself off the sofa.

“Hey Tanya, where did you say Robert found that cracked sewer pipe last week? I might go and see if it’s still dripping. Need to stretch my legs anyway.”

“Fantastic. I think it was off Seventh Ave, somewhere in the 30s. An alley running down behind an old warehouse. Rob said he was able to fill a couple of jars.”

Grabbing a couple of the empty glass containers from the endless pile near their back door, Ford heads outside. As always, the streets appear deserted, but Ford knows he needs to keep his wits about him. Anyone he runs into out here has got one thing on their mind, same as him: finding that improbable running stream that will keep them going a little bit longer. And when they find it, there’s not much that will stop them.

As he rounds the corner from 38th St, Ford stops mid-stride. Half way down the short block he can see the alley Tanya sent him to find. But he’s not alone. A brown bear, looking every bit as determined and fixated on his purpose as Ford, is making his way to the same alley. It also stops dead, and they size each other up. If anything, the bear might give up a few inches to Ford but Ford knows full well he’s no match for its strength and speed and … claws. The bear would quite literally do anything to get to that water, and while Ford is desperate he’s not that desperate. Yet. After a few moments the stand-off ends and Ford backs down.

As he trudges away, jugs as dry as when he left the apartment, the reality of his situation sinks in: we’re no better than the so-called lower animals now. Like every other creature on this planet, all we can do is drag ourselves from one dwindling water hole to the next, scraping for survival, and hoping that we can stay at least one step ahead of the next miserable sucker who has just woken up.