I first published this short story at the end of my one-year Substack anniversary post on April 25, 2022.
I consider this something of a companion piece to Do You Remember?, which I wrote in spring 2021, published in September 2021, and released as a video edited by the fantabulous Tonika Todorova of Visceral Adventure on Christmas Eve 2022.
Whereas Do You Remember? looks backward, In Five Years looks forward to the dystopian future charted for us by the cruelites, philanthropaths, and tyrants.
We just observed the five-year anniversary of the EUA and PREP Act declarations that launched that trajectory under the guise of COVID, a military and intelligence operation crafted to terrify the public into compliance with totalitarianism and democidal countermeasures.
We have arrived at 2025, the midpoint between 2020 and 2030, when we are expected to become happy serfs who own nothing.
But that doesn’t make it true. We, the Resistance, are writing a new, rEvolutionary story, and we will triumph—because actuality always prevails over artifice.
Last night, I stumbled across a recording my late beloved Michael and I made on March 22, 2010, just before midnight. We were brainstorming about a story idea in which philanthropaths (we didn’t have that word then, but that’s what we meant) traveled 250 years into the future to rule over humanity.
Only there weren’t very many people because the world had been decimated and depopulated, so they kidnapped people from the past to bring into the future to serve as their vassals. They were specifically seeking out docile, stupid people who wouldn’t challenge their authority. Those disappearances, Michael proposed, would be disguised as UFO abductions.
One person, however, decided to go into the past in an attempt to veer the future away from its destiny of devastation, thus thwarting the philanthropaths’ plans. As Michael described the story arc toward a triumphant ending (which he later countered with a dark alternative), he said:
“The human spirit is always one of resistance to tyranny.”
While I was on the phone with Vera Sharav last week, she was talking about how she loves taking pictures of the stunning, natural clouds from her high-rise apartment. When she looks at those photos later, it reminds her that despite all their attempts to poison the air, the water, the land, the food, and even our bodies:
“They’re not gonna win. Nature is far stronger.”
Any time human beings try to dominate nature—whether Mother or human—they eventually lose. You can only fight the laws of physics for so long before reality comes crashing down with the full force of gravity, pulverizing their pernicious plottings like a game of Tyrant Tinkertoys.
Any time human beings try to dominate nature—whether Mother or human—they eventually lose. You can only fight the laws of physics for so long before reality comes crashing down with the full force of gravity, pulverizing their pernicious plottings like a game of Tyrant Tinkertoys.
That’s why I remain an Apocaloptimist—and why I know, in the end, we win.
In Five Years (a Short Story)
In five years, no one will remember natural immunity existed. They will call you an anti-vaxxer for whispering such a term while they stand in line for their 187th booster.
In five years, no one will remember where one person’s body ends and the body politic begins. They will call you selfish for thinking you have a right to decide how your body is handled and what transgresses the perimeters of your flesh.
In five years, no one will remember there was such a thing as privacy. They will call you a criminal for suggesting people should be permitted a quiet space away from the eyes of Big Mother, Big Tech, and your surveilling cohabitants.
In five years, no one will remember the concept of independence. They will call you antisocial for wishing to carve out your own destiny rather than relying on the beneficence of OneState.
In five years, no one will remember they have the right to say, “No.” They will call you an insurrectionist for questioning the commands spilling out of the telescreen.
In five years, no one will remember natural birth ever occurred. They will call you primitive for thinking embryos were once fertilized and grown inside the body rather than in a laboratory.
In five years, no one will remember parents once cared for their own children. They will call you anti-child if you wish to live with your progeny instead of surrendering your newborns to the State so you can resume your lives of lazy, submissive convenience.
In five years, no one will remember heart attacks, strokes, and blot clots were previously uncommon among children, teens, and young adults. They will call you anti-medicine for saying the young were predominantly healthy with rare exceptions.
In five years, no one will remember diversity of opinion once existed. They will call you a heretic for choosing to think your own thoughts instead of zealously professing the beliefs issued by OneState.
In five years, no one will remember what responsibility was. They will call you ungrateful if you want to unplug from the Metaverse and seize control of your own life and will.
In five years, no one will remember what freedom means. They will call you a conspiracy theorist for claiming people once had the ability to do what they liked, go where they liked, and think what they liked.
In five years, no one will remember what love was. They will call you intolerant for wishing to bond with a single beloved instead of offering your body to whosoever demands it.
In five years, no one will remember death once happened naturally. They will call you a science-denier if you express a longing to remain alive beyond the term allotted by OneState.
What do you think no one will remember in five years?
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