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2007 |
- 2007 -
Where do I begin – by saying that I am the worst criminal ever – that I have caused more deaths and pain and suffering than any other man or even war in history? You would laugh and call me a lunatic, but I know what I have done, and the world will never be the same.
You have never heard of me. I’m the anonymous guy who may have sat behind you in school, but you can’t quite remember his name – an oblique silhouette from the corner of your eye that gave no cause for a second glance. Yet your life has been irreparably damaged by me. You are, in fact, far worse off as a direct result of my existence; and for that, I apologize.
If it were widely known what I have done, I would surely be put to death in the most lauded execution in the history of the world. But how could the world ever know… no one would ever believe me.
This letter is my final confession – a confession that I’m sure will go largely unheeded. I write it only to explain my suicide, and in the hope that someone, somewhere, might come to believe in what is possible… what was possible in another world – the world I came from – the world I destroyed….
I miss Douglas. He was my childhood sweetheart. To you, ours would seem an odd marriage – a marriage between science and religion – but our marriage was my reason for living. Without it… without him, I cannot bring myself to smile again.
Douglas Sanchez is… was a Catholic Archbishop in the Archdiocese of Chicago. We had such a life together with two beautiful, smart daughters and more than our share of contentment. I worked at the Bell-Tone Subatomic Propulsion Development Lab, also in Chicago, on the project that killed him and countless millions of other innocents, and forever changed the face of the planet.
You will of course be less interested in my loss than in your own, so I will try outline a brief history of what, one short week ago, was the world in which you… all of you lived.
One week ago, the President of the United States was a black woman, Anita Thornbury. A quick internet search produces a presidential history that is largely unknown to me, so I can tell you that the presidential succession over the past hundred years, with the exceptions of Woodrow Wilson and Bill Clinton, is vastly different. Even Clinton’s history is different, however. I knew nothing about a sex scandal, for example. Lost to history is the great congressional corruption cleansing of 1957, and I am unfamiliar with all the wars since the Great War, which you call WWI. There was no WWII, Korea, Vietnam, no Gulf War and no Iraq.
Just one week ago, in March of 2007, the World Trade Center stood as a shining symbol of the free market. One week ago, I had never heard of Middle Eastern terrorists or Walmart. One week ago, I drove a hydrogen-powered car and most Americans lived in smart homes and condos. Even your architecture is bleak compared to the Chicago skyline I left behind, though I have only myself to blame for the current lack of vision.
The world I left behind was largely bereft of the prejudice and disease that now seem to govern your fear and hatred. I cannot understand how hatred dominates the global attitudes and mores. If you must hate, then hate me – before I intervened last week, you were less hateful anyway.
A week ago, AIDS never happened – the terrible disease that in your history killed my husband shortly after he graduated high school in 1982. Our life together never even happened. I guess it’s only fitting that the joke’s on me – I am left alone, an apparent anomaly. In your world, I was never born.
In 1961, a gay man by the name of Axel Steinbrenner won the Nobel Peace Prize for his groundbreaking work on human rights, forever changing the prejudicial attitudes of much of the world’s population. His “Nation of Nations” speech in 1949 was a landmark in the history of human development, leading to the most comprehensive international cooperative effort on record, virtually ending world hunger. One short week ago, his famous quote, “We are one people of many peoples” graced the marble cornerstones of many of the world’s governmental buildings. Similarly, a Jewish doctor by the name of Jergen Strauss earned the world’s homage in 1970 when he discovered the process by which disease mutates, leading, by 1978, to the eradication of most incurable diseases including all forms of cancer and even herpes. Of course, you have never heard of either of these men. Both of them died in concentration camps during WWII.
I mentioned earlier that there have been no major wars since the First World War, but you may never comprehend the full reality of that statement. Without expending such huge investments in war, the nations of the world grew wealthy. Poverty had been all-but eradicated. Thanks to the Global Health Initiative and Shared Health Resources Act, all of humanity enjoyed the guarantee of healthcare.
I’m not sure where in your history America became a global “superpower,” though it seems to be largely a result of your military buildup during the Second World War. In my world, Americans were gentler in spirit. We gained some prestige through our remarkable ingenuity in the global marketplace, but did not make a habit out of throwing our weight around… militarily or otherwise. Our military strength was bolstered mainly by warm and cooperative relationships with our allies around the world.
The American congressional corruption scandal of 1957 was a turning point in American politics that brought our democracy to its knees. Some 120 members of congress were indicted for making policies based on campaign contributions and gifts from lobbyists. Of those, 92 were convicted and 58 served time in prison. As terrible a blow as it was to our national pride, what emerged was a nation much stronger. Never again would Americans place such blind faith in our elected officials. It was a wakeup call that made Americans realize the danger of unchecked power in Washington. We began by instituting procedures that encouraged transparency in the political process, valuing truth and disclosure over efficiency. This process was greatly enhanced when, in 1968, the first personal computers were made available. By 1975, 60% of the American public had access to near real-time monitors and opinion surveys of congressional activity in key areas such as education, trade issues, health, security/civil liberties, and a new website called “the Corporate Watchdog” that guarded against monopolistic practices by the largest businesses.
One week ago, Israel didn’t exist, though the moderate Islamic people had allowed the reconstruction of King Solomon’s Temple, making Jerusalem a huge tourist draw. Still, the nation of Palestine had a vast Jewish population and even a Jewish Secretary of State, among other key positions in that government. Moreover, Christians, Jews and Islamic people had come to believe they worship the same god, bringing all three religions into close alignment. American televangelists, like those around the world, preached about love and peace, embracing differences in all people.
Communism gradually fizzled out in the 20th century, replaced in each case by budding democratic republics. The last country to make the transition was China, in 1972. While there were many theories, it was widely believed their decision was encouraged as a prerequisite to their inclusion in the Global Health Initiative.
A colossal amount of global resources had been employed to develop extraterrestrial technologies, and already we had a colony of 120 living in a facility in lunar orbit. Several private vehicles mined rare minerals from asteroid dust, and a dedicated satellite orbited the sun inside Mercury’s orbit, gathering valuable information on solar processes – a direct precursor to the technology I shall discuss in a moment. |
Troy Carlyle |
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There’s a quality of exultation in our differences. We just have it and it’s part of our nature. There’s a kind of flagrant joy that goes very deep and is not available to most people. Something about our capacity to live and let live are uniquely foreign. -- Paul Monette |
Introduction:Past tense, future perfect
The child dreams of growing up. The adult dreams of childhood. Why is it that children dream of living in the future, but adults dream of living in the past? At what age do we make the temporal shift, reorienting our attention from hope to yearning?
Part of the reason our yearning changes is obvious. Children, weary of their lack of freedom, long for a future when they can stay up as late as they want, eat as many cookies as they want, drive as fast as they want, and basically enjoy all the fruits promised by emancipation. And of course it makes sense that an elder might long for a carefree childhood, before the weight of the world rested on his shoulders, and before the ravages of time robbed him of his youthful exuberance.
But the dynamic is more profound than the simple wishing to live in the other end of one’s own life. When I was a child, for example, my voracious hunger for science fiction didn’t exist because I wanted to grow up quicker, or even because I was interested in the social commentary that came with each new novel by Asimov or Bradbury. I enjoyed these stories because I dreamed of living in them, in some distant future when everything imaginable had been made possible. Most importantly, my interest rose out of an innate optimism and faith that whatever may come, it would be wondrous.
At some point in my life, however (and I think this happens to many of us), my interest shifted from the future to the past. My shelves were no longer lined with science fiction, but rather with history books. Once again, this interest was more profound than a simple wish to be younger – it arose as a genuine hunger for history. And like the rest of us, I imagine my fascination with the past arises both out of a longing for “the good old days,” especially a desire for vicariously exploring the distant past, and for a want to understand those parts of history I prefer not to be doomed to repeat.
My question, then (the one that prompted this essay) is whether the shift from future to past might come from a failure of hope itself. Does our history become predominant for us only when we have lost faith in our future?
Fortunately for us, our answers are rarely as simple as our questions might promise. In this case, maybe the answer is yes and no, for while I may have lost some of my own boundless optimism for an idyllic future, I have also grown within myself a genuine interest in historical detail.
I took this interest and used it to write a short story about a time traveler who finds himself facing Lincoln and inadvertently creating our current (damaged) world. The exercise of writing this story, entitled “2007,” helped me understand how the past and future can work together to revive something as ethereal as “hope.”
In writing this story, I realized the fact that my hero changed his world became far less important than the reminder that his world was changeable.
This is a synthesis of interests that transcends a simple study of the past so it won’t be repeated. It is a study ultimately of people and our ability to transform ourselves into whatever we choose. At some point, considerations of time become meaningless. The past, present and future blend into a study of humanity and of life itself. Most significantly, it reminds us that we can choose. We are reminded that we are grownups now. We can stay up as late as we want. We can eat as many cookies as we choose. We can drive fast, we can change the world. We can reclaim abandoned hope, and discover that it never left us. Suddenly, the future becomes once again wondrous. — December, 2008 |
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“We know what we are, but know not what we will be.” — William Shakespeare |