Christmas Day 2084 AD
Story by Sean O'Reilley
Recently rediscovered amongst my papers was this article by the young Sean O'Reilley (now adult) given to me by his mother.
It was Christmas Day in the year 2084. Gerald had been given a mobile garden by his parents. It was an instant affair on a rotating axle, with a lovely multi-coloured tree in the centre, surrounded by vegetables, flowers and other plants. Gerald's parents were viewing television in one of the rooms in the house, which was built of glass, and dome shaped. Gerald's sister was talking to her boyfriend on the phone visor. They could see each other clearly and were playing Christmas Carols by selecting them from a control panel with a viewer attached.
As the weather was now controlled, it was quite warm in the daytime. Rain was allowed to fall only at night on the hills as snow so that there were people ski-ing all the year round. On a few of the hills the temperature was warm, and grass grew. This was for the bikers and the walkers. The church was on one of these hills -- only one church in each area for all denominations. Today the bells peeled continuously.
Gerald could see his elder sisters and brother on one of the hills. Later he would join them but at the moment he was intent on getting some vegetables from his garden, which his mother would put into the instant cooker with the simulated beef protein steaks. They would eat these from disposable dishes, which, like everything else in the house, would go into the waste dispenser to be ground into fertiliser. The furniture too was made of this material, like papier mache. Hardened and highly polished fittings and clothes too were made of this material.
Gerald's younger brother was flying his miniature flying planes, and shooting them down with his automatic pop gun.
Gerald's eldest brother was admiring the antique Rolls Royce which his father had given him as a Christmas present and wondering where he would get the special gasoline, called petrol, which it used to run on fifty years ago, in 2034.
Copyright The Bentilean 1999
Sean's mother is Tessa O'Reilley who poems appear elsewhere in this archive.Back to: The Contents Page | The Archive | The Bentilean Main Page