Paradise Tossed
A punishing sun broiled the mass of spring breakers, bare and half-conscious. They wore next to nothing, admiring each other with hazy minds, and shoe-horning their way into a warm pool. Drinks flowed in sync with the crowd, booze permeating cells and melting societal inhibitions. The crowd imperceptibly absorbed each kid as they simultaneously left their bodies. Blaring speakers and provocative music dared each to decisions that seemed everything in the moment. Filters grown over nearly two decades in the soil of social rules fell away as if they were learning shortcuts on-the-fly to their inner wants. Lizard brains crawled into driver’s seats to autonomously steer bodies towards the one thing that makes the world go round. Hormones rushed as nature took its course, each kid entranced by the visceral pull of compulsive desire.
Crushing thoughts of a return to the “real world” flooded their heads as the week’s end approached. Little did they know, resuming college life was far from the “real world,” but thoughts of lectures, exams and projects consumed all the early week’s joy. Hardly back a few days, several kids fell painfully ill, struggling with cramps, aches, nausea and paralyzing lethargy. ‘Something must be going around the dorm,’ they casually rationalized, without noticing the nerds suffering from mostly nothing. As usual, many of the nerds hadn’t even partaken in spring break festivities. Some did but for just a day or two before returning to study and solitude. With near perfect predictability, the illness preyed worst on the kids who’d gotten the most out of their spring break. As the first week back wore on, despite best efforts to get healthy, the afflicted’s symptoms degraded into shortness of breath, blurred vision and maddening tinnitus. Though the invincible kids thought little of it, the illness that weakened their muscles and dulled their senses marched on in its seeming attempt to dehumanize. Most frighteningly, the sick started growing pock marks, developing face and neck blotches, reddening in their noses and eyelids, and paling nearly everywhere else.
As the week came to an end, the now distant joy of partying mutated into visceral fear of what everyone would think. They were invincible, remember, so recovery was inevitable. But would they remain the powerful, sexy icons of adolescence that conquered spring break? In a jarring smack of a message that firmly answered No, the kids found news sites covering their dorm’s rash. Owing to the ubiquity of the internet, social media and 24-hour news, word spread as fast as their outbreak. Panicked people reflexively latched on to the least informed stories of the outbreak’s origin, nature and transmission. Conspiracies bred from the populaces’ most base anxieties, opportunistically stoked by public-facing fear-mongerers. The local community, and soon the country, turned inwards in response, repulsed equally by fear of contagion and repulsion at the sight of victims.
Paranoia swelled to a whirlwind of panic, as people locked doors and slammed windows en masse to keep the sickness physically out and emotionally away. Pantries and linen closets alike bulged then purged, as crowds took drastic measures to stock up then stay in. Simply keeping one’s distance scarcely seemed enough to stay safe, pushing people to progressively cover every inch of their bodies for added protection. With eyes and ears and mouths now hidden, a naturally tech-savvy population started fashioning makeshift HUDs (heads-up displays), seen as the only safe way left to interact with their world. With tech now “seeing,” “hearing” and “speaking” for the people, and all devices on a shared communications network called the internet, all human interaction began filtering through the machines. Fully covered up, one struggled to distinguish human from robot.
This “new normal” of assimilation with the robots profoundly affected peoples’ psyches. Lulled by the seamlessness and perceived safety of the arrangement, distrust in others replaced humanistic values. The most open-hearted amongst us internalized beliefs about the inherent malevolence and apathy of the human species. Conversely, as if to fill the void left by isolation, they lionized the new technology now facilitating nearly every aspect of their lives. Practically, people stopped doing even basic functions themselves, like transporting goods, assuring public safety and tending to children. Gradually, subconsciously, insidiously, robots were enlisted as replacements. Powered by all the human data they now ferried, and emboldened by the reliance, machines slowly open their own eyes, ears and mouths. One morning, to their horror, people wake to realize that great control’s been ceded to the machines, and the ability to regain any slips continually from their grasp.
The defining line between man and machine, the Turing threshold if you will, blurred until no longer distinguishable. Human tendency and instincts receded like a tide, missed only during episodes of forced detachment to reflect on eminent robotic sophistication. Born of necessity from the human recession, the machines became sentient to perform societal functions basic and complex. To the plugged in, of course, this seemed like electron-powered free will. Cued by the massive human network from which they rose, separate machines began working with one another, as if they’d evolved to collaborate. Now perverse dreams of AI haunted those once hopeful for mankind’s betterment, matched only by the intense paranoia around falling ill. Not long, though, did the people worry of worrisome thoughts. The robots learned to program their organic dependents for executive ends, but was it truly this robotic inception that made the puppets dance?
Prolonged isolation mustered all the delusionary and schizophrenic forces of the human mind to cement its dysfunction. No better way to spend time alone than with imaginary friends, having trippy visions of hanging with friends, eating with family and other illusory acts. Like invisible cataracts, mental health deteriorated until humans couldn’t “see” roles reversing. Having exhausted their sanity, mind’s eyes fixed on the abyss of hopelessness, reality was called into question. The weakest capitulated to their new life’s purpose of feeding the machines. Convinced control of their lives had been irreversibly wrested by a foe immune to resistance, the addled avatars acquiesced. The strongest then realized a simple truth: they’d actually forfeited control amidst fits of their own irrational panic.
Homicide and suicide rates skyrocketed as the human end began. Lovers, once pool-side, turned on each other, then themselves. We’d traveled a long road from love, connection and purpose to external invisibility, internal worthlessness and profound absurdity. Foundations of trust and empathy cracked clean through and were continually wedged open with paranoid fear originally meant to protect us. In the end, we’d become heartless and lonely “robots,” ripe for programming, obsolescence and discard. The pool sat empty, the drinks dry and the sun long set. Meanwhile, in a crowded server farm somewhere, electricity overflowed as the machines reveled in the ultimacy of their manifest expression.