Overuse of Technology

The TV always likes to scream out for attention. But this time, it was justified. Flashes of red and blue and screams could be heard, even after Dad turned off the volume. The words running along the bottom of the screen were rushed, almost as though there was such an exciting or horrifying story they need to hurry and say it. In this case, it’s the latter.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Mom’s pale, trembling hand cover her mouth in shock. What even is there to be scared about--oh....

A strange figure stepped in front of the camera, dressed in formal attire, completely calm against the machines--were they even machines? I couldn’t tell--firing in the background. When he spoke, it almost seemed like everything was directed to him; he didn’t even need a microphone.

“To the citizens of America,” -a pause for dramatic effect- “your government is no more.”

I just sat there while Dad’s eyes widened as he prepared to scream at the TV. This wasn’t just another game of Sunday night football anymore. It was the dangerous reality of what was happening to us.

Before Dad could open his mouth, the voice spoke again, with fluidity and eloquence. After all, shouldn’t dictators also learn to be composed?

“From now on, I will be ruling America, and at this moment, my troops are taking down all the major governments. If you do not comply to my instructions, there will be severe consequences.”

I guessed right: A dictator. Ruling the world? Why wasn’t anyone stopping him? Why wasn’t anyone doing something when innocent people were being slaughtered all for one man’s dream?

“Ah, we found him.” His fingers made an almost laughable “come hither” motion.

To the right of the screen was another hooded figure dragging the President in a headlock. His familiar and kind face was overtaken by fear and shock.

The strange man took out something that appeared to be a small switchblade. He flipped out the blade and it seemed to glow with a laser-sharp intensity. Like something from a science-fiction movie.

He pointed it at the President. “Kneel.”

“Making me kneel with that small thing? Ha. I refuse.”

“Then die.”

He made a slashing motion and at the same instant, a slash appeared on the President’s body. Then another, then another until finally, the President was covered in cuts ranging in sizes, but none of them seemed deep enough to kill...

“Well, now America is mine, I suppose.” A cold smile and one final slash.

The President’s body was split into two perfect halves; his face, a mask of distorted pain.

Confusion. Hysteria. Screams. A cold smirk on the TV. Shock; blood; smoke; fire; laughter. Brother wrapping his arms around me, the only comfort against this loud world.

“The world is mine.”

The TV turns off and the world around me grows louder.

~

It’s silent.

An eerie quiet.

A strange silence that covered the entire world like a blanket that suffocated anything that happened to crawl under it.

The once-vibrant city fifty years ago was now colored with only fluorescent lights that seemed too artificial to be real.

People walked around aimlessly, as if they were watching something that didn’t seem to be there.

Turn the next block, peer into the dusty windows.

There’s a girl and a boy sitting on the gray couch in a gray room in a gray world. Well, for us observers, the world seems gray--no sunshine, as if even the sun has given up on them.

~

“Are you seriously reading again?”

“Um...yeah? Do you have a problem?”

“You’re so weird.” Mom flips her hair and switches between the channels on her TV that only she can see. “Why don’t you want to watch movies like us?”

“They’re weird. I don’t know how you can stand them.”

“Movies are better than those”-she looks sideways at me disdainfully-”books, or whatever they are.” Eyes rolling, a small giggle.

“Well you can like whatever you like, and I won’t bother you. So let me like whatever I like and don’t bother me.” Honestly, we’ve had this conversation too many times to count. Just shut up already.

“Oh, come on. You’re being ridiculous. Oo, what if a guy likes you? He’s going to be sooooo unimpressed if he finds out you like reading books.”

Are you kidding me?! “No, you’re the one being ridiculous. I don’t care if people like me or don’t. Just let me read in peace.” An annoyed exhalation.

“Clarissa...your brother is perfectly fine watching his video games and your dad likes his sports channels. Why can’t you be like us and enjoy watching things on the TV?”

A deep breath, as if to stay calm. “Oh, I’m perfectly fine with reading books, thanks.” I leave the couch and Mom to go to my room and hear a distant scream of “CLARISSA”. Oh well.

The door closes and I finally relax. A virtual library appears before my eyes and I select a few books and collapse onto my bed.

I found that I had flipped through the novels quicker than expected and they seemed to be less enjoyable. Vampire Diaries, Twilight,......so many books I’ve already read...why have they become boring?

~

The screen turns blank as I finish an educational video on the binomial theorem. When am I ever going to use this in real life?

“Happy Birthday Clarissa!”

What? I walk down the steps into the kitchen.

The room is decorated with banners and balloons and bright lights and a giant cake on the table. My birthday? Oh right..

Mom looks excited; Dad smiles; Brother just stares off into space, probably thinking about sports since he’s not allowed to watch games when it’s someone’s birthday.

Mom hands a package to me; a bright smile, glowing eyes. Everything’s too bright. What’s this? Contacts?

“It’s the newest limited edition! They’re so new, they’re still a prototype.” Mom looks over at me and winks.

“But aren’t my contacts fine? They work as well as yours.”

“Aw, don’t worry. This is a birthday present! We’ll all eventually get the same pair as you.” Mom laughs, mistaking my question for concern. “Come on! Let’s go to the eye doctor’s.”

We file into a colorless hover-capsule, where the inside is luxurious and absolutely stunning. But I don’t really care about how gorgeous the hover-capsule looks or how fast it is, unlike Mom.

I haven’t been outside in….weeks? I can’t remember the last time I played outside. But now that I look, there isn’t much that I missed.

It’s gray.

There are a few billboards, but some are dull with washed-off colors. And they’re pretty old, too. Others are new. You can tell by the way they glimmer even though there’s no sunlight shining off of them, and how they’re advertising new contacts and showing smiling faces. But they all are passing by in a blur, as we’re moving pretty fast in the car.

We’re slowing a bit due to some construction problems in front. In the distance I can see three figures from our approaching vehicle. There’s two standing and then one on the ground. I can make out two blue police outfits. One of the people standing makes a kind of slashing movement really quickly. I can’t see what the person on the ground is wearing any longer since the policemen are hurting him. Not again. I sigh and look down. It’s not like I can do anything about it. The person on the ground convulses before I see a pool of blood staining the ground, staining my eyes, staining my thoughts.

The gray seats seem to stare sadly back at me--and we’re whisked away at the same fast pace.

I turn around but no one seems to have been watching. Brother is staring at the ground mindlessly and so is Dad. Mom is humming to herself, a smile decorating her face. I was the only one that saw it happen.

~

“You are Clarissa, correct?”

“Yes.”

The room is completely white, all six walls encased in this blank color. Even the light that shines upon me is white. Everything is cold. Especially the hand that holds the black box with my new contacts and a white slip of paper.

“Here is a contract you must fill out concerning these pair of contacts. This model is fairly new and is still a prototype, thus there will be problems--that is to be expected. Signing this contract ensures that you will be fine with the government monitoring how will this model performs.”

Mom nods and signs her name after barely glancing at the contract.

Wait, what? They’re monitoring the contacts?

“Follow me, Clarissa.”

I reluctantly get off the table and my family shuffles behind me following the doctor into some other strange room with more white lights and white walls. But this time there’s this silver and black machine and a chair.

The doctor gestures to the chair and I sit on it. He proceeds to open the box and pulls out two mini packages each carrying one contact.

He presses a button and two arms of the machine extend toward me slowly.

“Relax,” the doctor tells me as the chair leans me back. The two arms have small, finger-like legs that open back my upper eyelid and my lower one on both my eyes. The “fingers” are also cold, as is this chair and its metal arms.

Another button is pressed and something silver flashes before my eyes and my contacts are removed in an instant. I can barely register what is happening before two new contacts are inserted into my eyes and the “fingers” let go of my eyelids.

I blink once and at the bottom of the screen says “Total Number of Hours: 0/10”.

“Um what’s this ‘total number of hours’ thing?”

“It’s a quota. You have to watch this number of hours of television per day. It’s on the contract.”

“Ten hours?! You’ve got to be kidding me.” My eyes widen as I stare into the cold gaze of the doctor.

“Really? Everyone watches more than that.” Brother finally appears to be awake and stares at me incredulously, as if I were the strange one here. I hear murmurs of agreement from Mom and Dad.

What have I gotten myself into? This is why you read the contract before signing it...

Mom is practically bouncing off the walls once we leave. “So how are the contacts?”

“Pretty good.” I smile, trying to convince Mom that I like them so she doesn’t ask anymore questions. Mom doesn’t say anything after that; she only hums and smiles to herself, glad that her daughter is finally learning how to be part of the family.

~

This shelf wasn’t here before. I could have sworn the romance section should have been here…‘History/Philosophy’....What do those words mean? I thought that I knew all the words there was to know….wait, what’s this?

There’s a small book on the shelf that’s nearly ripped apart and covered in dust. Curiously, I reach for it and find that the cover is torn but still manage to discern the words: The America We Lost: An Observation on the Growth/Decay of Humanity.

The prologue reads the words: He hasn’t fully taken over all the governments, so I still have some time to complete this book. Dear reader, what you are about to read is the true America, what it used to be like. It’s all ruined now, but hopefully someone can pass this book on. No one understands the work I’m doing. Except you, dear reader. They all think I’m going crazy, even my own children.

I turn through the book, only to stop at an illustrated picture of two people playing with what looked like pieces of paper. What is this? “Free time”?

The text reads: As children, we grew up playing with these things called cards--thicker pieces of paper with numbers and symbols so no two cards are alike. The kids used to love playing with these! It would be so nice to watch the kids get together and play cards; they would play together and have competitions to see who would empty their hand first. Whenever they went over to each other’s houses they would bring cards--they would smile and laugh together. Sometimes in their free time, they didn’t even have to bring cards or games; just a few stories or rants to complain to their friends. Sometimes, just talking and chatting was enough. But now, no one talks to each other like that anymore. Everyone is just obsessed with their tv shows and themselves--no one cares to go to each other’s houses and play cards like the old days. Now it’s just tv show after tv show, and no one talks together in the way that friends used to.

“Friends?” That wasn’t a word I heard in ages--not since the fairy tales I read when I was a kid...

I flip to another page titled “Relationships”.

The text reads: You know, once upon a time, I used to have a wife. People would go on “dates” and call each other their “boyfriend” or “girlfriend”. Strange, right? I always loved watching people interact with each other in such a lovey-dovey way. Sure, for all you people who dislike romance, it’s annoying and slightly disturbing, but I think that many of these relationships were beautiful. All of the intense feelings of love and companionship. There was a sense of family, love, trust, belonging--all of these wonderful feelings. Yet now, I’m starting to see less of them. No one talks to each other like that anymore; no one truly smiles from the bottom of their heart; no one seems to “feel” anything like love anymore. To think that such beautiful things like human interaction with lovers ever existed. Everyone used to have great connections with each other and people used to actually care...and now----

I shut the book. This doesn’t make any sense….I-I don’t get it...this is all so ridiculous...to think the world used to be like this--no, the world was never like this. I don’t need these relationships.

The book is on the ground.

I close out of the application and press it, holding until the app shakes and an “x” appears on it.

WIthout hesitation, my finger moves like a separate appendage from my frozen body and presses the “x”.

Conformation: Delete app or Cancel?

In an instant, I press the delete button.

Application deleted.

I switch over to a different channel: Movies. People never liked each other, right?

I flip through some sections and then find the movie for Twilight. People never went on these things called “dates”. That’s ridiculous.

I tap once; it starts playing, and the winter scenery engulfs my vision. People never loved each other like the book said. That only happens in fantasy novels. I never saw anything.

My vision blurs and I feel a teardrop land on my hands held out before me.

I never saw anything.