The Unilever Series: Dominique Gonzales Foerster - TH.2058

 

Shit New World

By Martin Hayes

Is this it?

Seriously?

Robot butlers and hover-cars and weekend trips to the moon and as much other pointless bollocks as you care to mention. I mean, it’s 2058 for Christ’s sake. This isn’t what our grandfathers were promised.

Where’s the sex-bots? Where’s the fun? I’m still waiting for the doors of perception to be kicked open. Still here, still working in my shitty little cubicle with its plastic plants and dying goldfish. Nothing changes. Of course, these days the city is so overcrowded that all the new buildings hover two hundred feet above the street but does that really matter. I’m still here typing out my report on the latest disaster to land on my desk from the accounting department. Still here wishing it was time to go home and dying for a nice cool vodka and tonic before I fall asleep in front of the holo-vision set.
Christ, I think I’m just going to end it all, top myself. This is … well, it’s just fucking boring.

I remember when I was a little kid; sometimes I’d go and stay with my Granddad in his house down in Brighton. He used to have all these tattered, dog-eared science-fiction books that his father had left him. I used to stare at the covers for hours, drifting away into the crazy worlds that they showed me. Sometimes, he’d read a couple of chapters to me. They were always filled with shining heroes and vast unexplored empires and alien prostitutes. Do you know what I’d give to get my hands on an alien prostitute?

I mean, Jesus, we’ve been sending probes into space for almost one hundred years, where are the bloody aliens already?

And where’s the “for the good of mankind” ethos? I saw a pretty girl get punched in the face yesterday for skipping in front of a fat guy in the bus queue. The worst thing was that I thought she deserved it.

I feel a little stupid writing all this down, a bit like a child keeping a diary or something, but my therapist assures me it will help with my narcolepsy and compassion fatigue.

My problems stem from the society that surrounds me. Empathy is gone, just like the tobacco that they banned completely thirty years ago.

You can still drink, of course, but only because they know we’d all slit our own fucking throats if we weren’t half pissed all the time.

Well, I guess I’d better finish up now, it’s getting near home time and at least the robot butler’s cooking steaks tonight. I love a nice bit of horse, I remember my granddad used to eat cows, before they all went crazy and ate each other. Still, at least they didn’t explode like in the Great Chicken Debacle of 2047.

Okay, no more reports for today, no more self- therapy. It’s the hover-bus, then home, then horse steaks, then a massive great shit load of vodka, then watch a couple of hours of the Paris Hilton Legacy Channel, they show all her greatest performances back to back.

Actually, you know, I do feel a little better now. When you write it all out like that you realise that it’s not such a bad life after all.

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3 Responses to “Shit New World”
  1. mark a williams Says:

    ha ha ha! thank you so much. that made me laugh. where is my jet pack?

  2. Suzie Says:

    Really enjoyed reading this one!

  3. Katya Says:

    This was a good fun read :) Well done