PJ Swift

Old Time Selfies

They loved their childhood and had nothing but the fondest memories.   But when they looked back critically, years later, as parents themselves, some things did strike them as just plain wrong.  Their school teacher, Ms. Pines, for instance, was in hindsight a total mess.  She clearly prepared all her lessons with a primitive form of Chat AI, using it as well to write their school play which was a sentimental disaster. She also spent too much time in the teachers lounge, taking quick risque selfies of body parts that she would then crudely touch up and send to potential suitors.  And, she vaped a lot, while taking all sorts of antidepressant medication that was later banned as harmful.  What a funky messed up time their childhood was.  Not that they had all that much time for reminiscing, with all the crap they now had to deal with.

Harry's Hat

People felt uneasy in Harry's presence. This was instinctual. They couldn't quite put their finger on why that was -- though explicitly, just about everyone could single out him wearing that hat, an anachronistic bowler, as an act of pretension, the mark of the poser. 

But Harry's being a poser was just a ruse to protect himself with distraction. Harry didn't mind being derided as poser. What he feared was being despised for who he was. 

Harry disappeared for several years. When he returned, lumbering even taller than before, thanks to his high heels and his expression now relaxed and brushed with heavy doses of make-up, Harry was primped up as never before. But he was no longer a poser. Harry was free, self-glorious and unencumbered. And, he had lost the bowler hat. 

No need to lift a finger

When the regime outlawed dreaming no one took it seriously.  How could dreaming be prevented or monitored?  When the authorities demonstrated the dream machines on television, to prove that they could, the devices looked so ridiculous and inoperative that people found it laughable. But once a few people were singled out to be made an example of, the decree no longer felt so funny.  The dream-monitoring contraptions were ridiculously amateur. But the coercion and torture applied by the authorities was anything but.  It was ruthless and effective. Confessions sprouted forth rapidly, and fear reigned throughout.  People became too terrified to dream.  Many avoided sleeping all together.  Others, when slipping into accidental reverie, immediately turned themselves in.  And then there were the suicides, and family members, and sleeping partners, who informed on each other.  The act of dreaming became not an escape but a torturous activity: having one immediately launched an experience of pure terror.  Once this phenomenon had spread, the authorities no longer had a need to enforce any of their decrees. Their aims were being fully met without having to lift a finger.