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Weekend Assignment #324: America 2062
Next Tuesday is my birthday, I am not quite 50 yet, but when I was a little girl I liked to sit and imagine what the world, more specifically, America, would be like when I reached 50! Having nearly arrived at my goal age, I am now aiming for another 50 years! So, in honor of my 48th birthday, I want you to search your imaginations, and tell what I can expect in the year… 2062!
Extra Credit: Tell me, is the world anything like you imagined it would be when you grew up? What’s different? What’s the same?
Dear Dad,
I hope in some form you can get this letter. It’s been 20 odd years since your passing. With this new wormhole thing Perry(my husband, who your future self didn’t like until he gave you a grandson) is working on, I think this will show up on your computer in time. Here’s hoping. Otherwise, I’ll leave it with your cryo-account, and you might get it when you wake up, if ever.
It’s weird to think of you actually sitting in front of a monitor. I remember playing games on that old clunker, and now my contact implant phone has more power. Yes,d ad,everyone now walks around with computers in thier eyes. You’d say we’ve become cyborgs, and I don’t think you’re far off.
How much the world has changed. Back then, we drove everywhere, and now we don’t unless we absolutely have to. Six dollars a gallon ethanol will do it to you. But the electrics are nice, but they killed the highways. Almost no one drives that far anymore, mainly because it’s too expensive. And with video wireless so cheap, I can see and talk to mom for hours most days. She misses you something awful. Says its so quiet without you running in and spouting some new random factoid. She’s up in Toronto, safe and sound.
What’s she doing in Toronto,you ask? At least she’s safe there. And since global warming, Charlotte is like Rio these days. Plus she says it’s too disheartening to be that close to the Mexico border.
I think that’s the hardest part you’d have to dela with, if you were here, dad. The fact that the US isn’t as big anymore. You and mom both cried the day that Felipe Bush Jr. declared the country bankrupt. But you and mom held on through the riots afterward. We were all so scared, until the recievership deal went through.
You laughed about giving Texas back to Mexico, and the rest of the Gulf states. Since four diffrent presidents hadn’t been able to stop the BP leak, you figured let Mexico’s corrupt narco government try their hand. We were all amazed when they managed it. They say my grandkids wil be able to swim in the gulf someday.
I’m glad you didn’t live to see the rebellion by the foreclosed states. Watching empty tankers full of child soldiers beachead in Miami, to overrun the place, was as bad as the bankruptcy, except a lot more brutal. Mom turned off the TV for three months after that.
I wish I could tell you it was all sunshine and roses after that, but I can’t lie to you, dad. I’m so glad Uncle Andy didn’t live to see LA become a smoking crater. It was bad enough he lived to see it changed to a Chinese protectorate,along with the rest of southern California. But who knew Governor Justin Bieber had joined Falun Gong? Did he really use to sing? He was always a little creepy.
But it’s not been all bad,really. We’re all in better health, mainly due to algae foods. Thank the Goddess it can taste like anything. Though mom’s algae meatloaf still doesn’t taste right. And you lived long enouhg to see the Cubs win the series, three in a row, though it’s been twenty years since then.
You’d like driving now,dad. The cost of fuel, and the collapse of the world’s population in the 2040’s due to the Hanta plague and the China/India war,have made the US population max outr at a hundred million. So there’s less of us, so it’s quieter. Though Nascar is still huge, but it’s electric now.
So we’re still here, dad. battered, bruised and poluted, but still here. It’s a smaller country now, but we have things like real elections now, and they’re hand done. We won’t have another Bush in charge ever, and more freedoms. Still no legal pot, though.
Your daughter, Aubry.
Extra credit:The world is nothing like I thought it woudl be. I figured I’d be living in a nuked wasteland,after WWIII. The reality is a lot nicer in some ways, but at least with a nuclear wasteland, I could shoot people who annoy me, like the Gosselins.
