Sunny with a Chance of Rain: The World in 3009
It was a bright, chilly morning in the year 3009. Dalziel awoke with a start to the annoying buzzing of his solar powered alarm clock. He rolled over in his 100% recyclable fleece sheets hoping that he could snatch a few more minutes of his precious beauty sleep. But alas, the sun kept on shining and as it rose higher into the sky and the rays became stronger, the buzzing got progressively louder and more obnoxious until Dalziel had no choice but to flip out of bed and turn off the annoying alarm.
After finally having gotten out of his bed Dalziel stood dazed and half-asleep in front of his alarm taking in the beauty of his surroundings. It had been three years since he moved into one of the new Super Efficient Cube Communities (SECC), but every morning he was still astonished at the sleek, pleasing, and most importantly energy producing living arrangements. Every movement that he generated was not gone to waste. The sheer fact that he jumped out of bed each morning was a source of powering his living space. The cube in which he was enveloped converted every small motion, from walking to dancing, into an energy source. How exactly the whole system worked was beyond his comprehension, but all he could do was just stare in wonder and thank the great minds that had composed such a system.
The SECC that Dalziel was a part of was one of the first that had sprung up in the
Finally Dalziel got all of his morning chores done and headed out the door. As he took his first step outside of his cube he was hit in the face with a slightly pungent odor.
‘The backlashes of poor living from one thousand years ago,’ Dalziel thought to himself as he walked to the shuttle stop. Even after the government had started slowly cleaning the air with giant airships, the process was a slow one. Five hundred years later the air was only neutralized, no longer damaging to the ozone layer. But much of the ozone had been destroyed by the centuries of massive pollution and only in the year 2953 had a group of scientists finally devised a way to repair and replace the damaged and destroyed ozone layer. To Dalziel the future looked bright and optimistic. With so many minds working together and the world no longer in a deteriorating condition he was sure that the mistakes from a thousand of years ago could be fixed. The one thing that had yet to be dealt with was the acres of land that had been used to dump trash, the landfills.
Dalziel’s thoughts were abruptly interrupted as the crowd around him started moving into the shuttle that had arrived silently to carry them all off to work. The shuttle was completely electric powered and was almost perfect in efficiency. Running at 98% efficiency they were the only type of transportation around. Private transportation had been outlawed two hundred years ago and an elaborate system of automated shuttles had been put into place. There was no need to have drivers and if you needed to go somewhere from your house at a specific time all you had to do was call in ten minutes beforehand and there was sure to be a shuttle ready and waiting at the nearest stop.
Dalziel’s ride was short as the SECC he was living in was especially designed for the workers of the recyclable materials plant where he worked. What they did at this particular factory was they compiled a wide array of different materials that had been worn down, used or were a ‘waste’ product from some other line of production. Here they reprocessed all of the initially useless goods and remanufactured everything into something useful. They took old worn down cloth cushions and boiled and bleached everything back into thread that could be dyed and used again and melted scrap metals down back into usable sheets and wires just to name a few processes. Essentially Dalziel’s plant turned society’s trash and made it into a valued good. His job gave him a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that was unparalleled. Seeing the fruits of his labor was something that would never grow old for him.
Time flew by as Dalziel worked methodically until finally it was time for lunch. Dalziel had made two very close friends, Bedelia and Quilliam, in his three years working at the plant. Oftentimes over lunch they would have deep philosophical discussions about whatever was on anybody’s mind. Their topics of discussion ranged from what they had for dinner last night to what they thought the meaning of life was. Today was a day like any other, they spent the first three minutes brainstorming ideas and wolfing down their food.
Bedelia was first to speak saying, ‘I was in the library the other day reading up on some history, and I would just like to say, screw the people who lived a thousand years ago. Thanks to them developing such a wasteful system of production and overly excessive lifestyle we have to deal with the way things are now. The air is terribly polluted and brown. The pictures of those blue skies and white clouds a thousand years ago were so pretty! Now all we have are these drab grayish black clouds embedded in a brown sky.’
‘Yeah! Screw those wasteful slobs!’ agreed Quilliam, ‘They produced things that would not decompose and also couldn’t be reprocessed! They threw all their trash in the “extra” land that they had with no thought of the future. All those hundreds of acres of land taken up by those ridiculous landfills just screwed me over! My wife and I wanted to have more than one child but they government paid $25,000 to get a vasectomy. When they make an offer so high it’s hard to deny it. And to think if those landfills weren’t around we could be producing enough food and energy to support at least two million more people if not more by the time our food production becomes even more efficient than it is today! Stupid industrial revolution screwing up the world so the population has to be controlled…’
‘C’mon now guys, they weren’t ALL bad. I mean at least they wizened up after a few hundred years of living and started reforming,’ Dalziel retorted.
‘Pffft. A few hundred years too late if you ask me!’ shouted an aggravated Quilliam.
‘I’m not too sure where I stand on this issue…’ said an optimistic Bedelia, ‘I mean it was so long ago that I really don’t think it matters what they did. The point is that we’re here now and the world is getting better. I mean there is almost no waste in all of our productions. All of our energy is “clean” compared to the industrial revolution. Even the pollution from a thousand years ago is starting to disappear thanks to all of our new technology! Just give it some time and I’m sure the damage from those few hundred years will be healed. We’ll have blue skies, white puffy clouds, and clean rain in no time!’
‘Yeah, c’mon Quilliam, there’s no use in being bitter about something you can’t change. Let’s just look forward to the future and try to do what we can. I mean we’re all working in this field so you must have some type of hope for the future. But let’s continue this discussion later because our lunch break is over,’ agreed Dalziel.
‘Fine…’ grumbled Quilliam in response.
‘Okay! See you guys later!’
Dalziel walked back over to his station mulling over all that had been discussed over his lunch. He certainly had thought about that topic quite a bit with all the technological advancements being driven by the issue of past pollution. Despite all the negative consequences of the past, the future was looking bright. He smiled as he imagined one day when he would be able to stand out in the rain dancing and look up to see the blue skies and white puffy clouds. For now he was content living his day to day life in the extremely energy efficient way that had become the norm. As all these thoughts were passing through his head an air purifier flew overhead stretching the smile even further across Dalziel’s face.
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