It is the year of the Lord 3000. Sunrise comes about much slower and sunset much quicker now than a thousand years ago. Or so my mother tells me constantly. In a world where gasoline operated cars, tangible television sets, and an upbringing filled with the rich smell of flowers and earth are foreign, I find myself wondering whether or not I truly belong in this standoffish steel and glass everything, near collectivist-society. I figured that I would never realize the answer to that inquiry unless I found a way to travel back in time - an impossibility even with the highly evolved technology of the 31st century - to compare my world with a different time.

Proving my distaste at my impersonal surroundings, my mother and friends would find me dreaming about places I've only read about in history databases, imagining myself standing next to an actual pyramid at Giza or living at a ground level residence. How nice it must have been for people to have been able to visit those sites in reality. Nowadays, there are only virtual reality vacation spots - simulated water, breeze, and sound. Nothing in this world appeals to me because no matter how realistic the scenery seems, it does not change the fact that everything that is perceived is a creation of lasers - a mere simulation of a reality that's long forgotten...

I live on one of the residential bases up in the air. I inhabit a rectangular one story house within - if it can even be called a house; a better name for it would be prison - that is suspended three hundred thirty feet above ground, propped up by a sturdy tripod made of a new metal found just two hundred years ago. Earthquakes are not a threat to these soaring skyscrapers because the tripod foundation is remarkably sturdy despite its frail appearance. The walls of the house are made of an acrylic-like glass, which appears transparent and a poor protection against the sun's rays; however, it is neither transparent nor vulnerable. The glass protects its inhabitants from ultraviolet rays by serving as a filter for wavelengths beyond that of a radio's and it can be programmed to have a darker or lighter tint depending on its owner's preference.

Everywhere I turn I see technology. I have never seen "nature" save for pictures. I have never set foot on real ground...I have always had three hundred feet of space between me and the earth. And this was how I was brought up. I inhabit an artificial world...and I despise it. Or perhaps it is natural to want something other than one's current reality...

Learn more about this author, Rechelle Anonuevo.
Click here to send author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Novel excerpts: Science fiction?
We want to hear your view. Write now!