A DIFFERENT FUTURE

Tomorrow I finally reach my 90th birthday, ninety long and very wonderful years.

I could, as do many elderly people, sit back and dream about the good old days and how they were supposedly so great and wonderful. However, being the eternal optimist that I am, I much prefer to think about the wonders of our modern age.

My birthday gift from my two children will be a new transplant. They tell me it's much faster and less painful than the old method I underwent back in 2049.

Back then you had to have body transplants done one at a time, an arm here, a leg there, an eye later, but with today's modern medicine I can get the entire new body done all in one short session.

For my new body I have chosen the age of 26. I think that age best suited me, and my clone doctor told me that of all my clones the 26-year-old came out the best. He also advised me they could do a brain scrub and insert new electrolyte fluid into my brain before they attach it to my new body. I hope my husband will like it.

I helped the grandchildren to research a paper last night, something which I do a lot of lately. The computers built into the apartment complex are the very latest and they answer your every question instantly, however, they can't seem to get the right feeling about how it was in the "dark ages" as my grandchildren like to call it.

They call it that because I was born way back when computers were in their infant stage and few people had access to them. Today, computers run our entire society and we don't even have to leave our apartments.

Could you imagine, going out in public and meeting all those nasty germ laden people face to face? Gosh!  I'd be so frightened after all these years.

My oldest son now, he loves his delivery position with the UPS. He says he enjoys delivering all those things to people spread around the city.

Well, I guess someone has to make the deliveries, especially since they outlawed personal ownership of cars and trucks. Even with the new solar powered vehicles, the politicians finally realized there were far too many vehicles on our streets.

That's not to say all vehicles were outlawed. Some of the farmers in the World Food Market growing regions still use trucks, and the International Parks Commission uses buses to give live tours through the few remaining natural parks.

When I told my grandchildren how we once went to school in stuffy classrooms and had to go out after graduation and look for a job or we'd starve, they looked at me with their cute frightful eyes and I know in the back of their little minds they were saying, "Sure grandmother, we believe you. No way could that have truly happened."

Naturally, having not experienced it, they couldn't possibly understand. After all, they start earning Monetary Credits from the day they are born now and by the time they are granted their educational degree and move on to become productive citizens, they already have enough credits to carry them through life, however long they want that life to be.

As I mentioned, I chose to be placed back into a 26-year-old body, a clone of myself naturally, but I must also decide on a new profession. I don't have to work but I am getting tired of art.

Perhaps I'll go into writing. My family tells me I would be good at describing the "dark ages" so I may as well give it a try. We may get as many new bodies as we can grow and our lives may now span hundreds of years, but we've got to do something to keep our minds busy.

Perhaps I'll become real courageous and get one of those jobs taking people on tours to the outback.

Then again, perhaps as my grand children say, "Sure grandmother."

Must go now dear diary, my favorite Universal Vision show is coming on and they're going to interview a specialist who says he's invented a time machine.

Impossible!