When the city decided to rid itself of humans, it finally came into its own. Its self-construction algorithms could soar higher and finer into the blue skies. Straight lines and clean, feature-free surfaces could dispense with fussy curves and poxing windows. Highways six storeys tall never saw congestion, and pedestrians need never cross paths with […]
Tag: Diary2020
When Vena awoke, she began her morning ritual: hot shower; clean clothes (freshly ironed); boiled egg; Marmite on toast. She picked up the old tablet lying on the kitchen counter. It beeped to protest that it couldn’t contact the news server. She dismissed the message, just like she did every morning. Vena was an avid […]
The problem we’re getting ourselves into is that too many ‘ordinary’ people are now able to afford these psychodrugs. People not only on normal wages, but minimum too, what with easy access to credit these days. I know you can’t really stop this kind of thing. It’s progress, in a way. People can access technologies […]
A scientist may spend her whole life looking, hoping, waiting, for a significant breakthrough. I rode the rollercoaster of self-questioning, is a Nobel-contending discovery was a matter of destiny, patience or hard work? I worried that I wasn’t working hard enough, then I worried that I was worrying too much. Which in turn amounts to […]
It had been three days now, and the symptoms showed no signs of abating. There were many strange elements to the situation, like seeing the world when no one else was about. But a total lack of sleep could have dire consequences, and she was not sure she’d be able to explore this new life […]
It’s been a long time since politics made any sense, or since we believed a word of what was said to us before or after an election. It became a truism that every group got told what it wanted to hear, and what would happen after the election itself was anyone’s guess. If it matched […]
There’s a problem with being one of the government’s exosurveyors. You’re assigned to monitor a massive range of data collected by every scientist from here to Zeta Reticuli (if they still call it that), and yet no one takes an interest in your work. Some people, upon learning about you and your job, would probably […]
The colonists of this place know so much about their planet. They have worked hard – on pain of starvation, it must be credited – and developed unique techniques for survival. But a mystery surrounds their reasons for coming here. This was, on initial scans, a most inhospitable ball of rock. That much is not […]
You’d think you could get away from them here. We’re in the middle of an icy wasteland, on a planet known particularly for its icy wastelands. I’m in a research station set up specifically to achieve isolation from radiation, light pollution and the everyday tremors caused by the mere presence of life on this off-Earth […]
When we first landed on this planet we knew that we were pioneers, and as such our lives were going to be tough. Some of my colleagues – those who could trace their ancestry back to the United States of America – drew strength from the idea that their Old Country was built on that […]