![]() ![]() She’s back in real time now, where each tick of the clock takes her into an ever smaller future. She takes her hand off the pin and she’s back in the precinct holding room, the fluorescent lights flickering across the grime, the cheap tile floors, the felons in handcuffs. It’s a metropolis full of wonder, of rocket ships and blue pools, of jet packs and flying cars. She’s in a wheat field with a soaring city beyond, gleaming and bright. When her none-too-pleased pop bails her out, she finds a mysterious pin in her belongings. Every night she tries to sabotage the launch pad dismemberment project … until the security guards get wise and get her arrested. ![]() So Casey’s on her own, trying to salvage the future alone-beginning unwisely with her dad’s. “I get that things are bad,” Casey asks a teacher. ![]() ![]() At school, she’s drummed with a thudding tempo of negativity: melting ice caps in science class, global sociopolitical tension in civics, George Orwell’s 1984 in English. Some governmental muckety-mucks are dismantling NASA’s Cape Canaveral launching pad, and when it’s done, Casey’s father-a NASA engineer-will be out of a job. The high school firebrand has always dreamed big and, frankly, she’s getting a little sick of the future’s diminishing returns. You can’t accuse Casey Newton of thinking small. Were our childhood fantasies too big for the future? Or did we, as we grew up and our dreams grew smaller and more realistic, make our future smaller, too? Did we trade in a horizon as big as the universe for one that fits comfortably in our pocket? But still, when I think back on my childhood imaginings of personal jet packs and warp-speed spaceships, the future now seems a little … disappointing. When I was a kid back in the early ’80s, I never thought I’d have a wallet-sized something that would give me directions and surf the Internet (whatever that was) and play video games and-get this-make calls. Oh sure, our smartphones are cool and all. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |