Posts
Challenges
Portals
Authors
Books
beta
Sign Up
Challenge
Prose Challenge of the Month #2: Write a story where you wake up as the most intelligent person on Earth. Fifteen entries will be featured in a 500-coin Prose Original Book, whereby each winner will take 5% lifetime royalties. You must purchase the book to discover its authors, who will be determined by objective data (reads, likes, reposts, comments) and by team vote to ensure reader satisfaction. When sharing to social media, please use the hashtags “itslit,” “getlit,” and “ProseChallenge.”

The future, dumbed down.

When you think about waking up one day, the smartest person on earth, you would think you'd be way smarter than before, but no, it happened the other way around.  About 150 years ago, NASA, my employers, invented a cryostasis chamber to preserve a human being for future use.  Obviously I just had to do it.  About a month ago, they woke me up somehow, and it was... disappointing.  Apparently, about 50 years after I went into stasis, people had invented everything necessary for everyone to live peaceful, happy lives with no work.  Sadly, this also means that school isn't necessary and no one has any education past speaking a language invented so that everyone spoke the same language.  By default, and because I was a senior NASA scientist, I was the smartest living being on earth.  I made first page on the audio news for about a day, then it was flooded with paid sponsorships as per usual.  The level of stupidity and bliss everyone is in is frightening, most people barely even know their multiplication tables.  I feel like an outsider because I'm just too smart.  I wish I'd never gone on that damn cryostasis thing so that I'd never have to experience the hell of living with idiots for the rest of my life.  

During the first week, I was still in shock from the sudden freeze of the chamber.  About halfway through the second week, I had to cope with the fact that I'm a genius among idiots and I was stuck like this for the rest of my time.  I almost wanted to get back in the chamber and hope there's a surge of learning in the near future.  I quickly decided against that idea, as there was also a chance that people would just get dumber and dumber until no one was even in a conscious state.  It's disgusting, the conditions that they live in, everything run by robots.  It's like terminator, but instead of a devastated future ruled by robots, it's a future ruled by robots that babysit humans.  I've scoured the news for anything even showing signs of intellect.  So far, all I've come up with is that robots are the only things worth conversing with.  

After the second week, I'd made a friend.  Or I think I did.  Maybe Robert was just programmed to hold a smart friendly conversation.  Anyways, I've talked to pretty much only Robert ever since I met him.  He was my only connection to the state of which people used to be.  I'm sad to say that he was my only friend because recently, like most robots, had a glitch, and since no one is smart enough to fix it, they just scrap it and order a new one.  When I found the news about him, I cried and cried.  Funny how you can get so attached to something that doesn't even have a soul.  Since then, I've been silent and in mourning, which went unnoticed by the observation new breed of humans.  Up until now, I've had no idea how to fix my life, but I've got a plan.  This may be the future, but there are still tall buildings with accessible roofs.  As I leap, I hope that Robert, even without a soul, made it to the afterlife because he deserves it more than anyone else I know in this dumbed down future.

2
0
0