Dear Diary: A Tale of an Advance Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia

Dear Diary,

Today I finally found some paper. This is so amazing, it has been so long since I could write anything down. So far, everything has been typing on a computer or saying it out loud, using the microphone or head piece. I know, I know, you are probably thinking, why is she writing on a piece of paper when she has a computer. But you don’t know what it is like today. Everything is on a computer, what you need to do for the day, your schoolwork, your class, even your relationships.

Like, when you start a relationship, your first date in on Facetime, Instagram, or on some other video app. You only really start seeing each other, if you both agree to move in together and marry and then you like only saw each other, maybe three times a day, after your kid was born. Like what is the point of having a relationship, if you don’t spend any time together away from social media and video. But I remember the stories that my mother told me, before she passed away. Such as, how she met my father. It was through video and a dating app, but it was in the year 2020, the year when corona went out of control and that became the only way to stay in contact with anyone. I mean you could meet them face to face and take the risk of a chance of getting sick or to be a carrier but at the time my mother was living with her family, and too many of them had health issues.

So Diary, when my mother and father where able to meet, it was only when they both had gotten vaccinated and when they both knew that they couldn’t get their families sick. So, as soon as they could, they went on their first physical date and I think you know what happened next. They got married, had kids, and then their kids had kids, like me. But, you would not believe how many people have asked me, why did they go on dates? Why bother, when you could just talk via a video app? Why was it so important to meet for the first time? I mean, what do you say to a generation that spends so much time on computers? I mean, I bet I can count on one hand the amount of people that I know that actually went outside to see someone just for the hell of it. So, when they ask, I really don’t know what to tell them, but only what my parents have told me.

This is what they said. It is like falling, and floating at the same time. Your heart skips a beat or two, and if your feeling are true for each other, then that feeling of falling and floating that happens at the same instant, never goes away. It only gets stronger with time. That is what I tell my friends or others that asked these questions, but even then they don’t understand and let’s be honest with each other, I don’t understand either. I used to tell my parents this, and they would look at me and say, “Well, my dear, you just haven’t discover anyone yet, keep looking, and you will find someone special.” But, I don’t think that might happen for a while, if ever. I mean, the few people that I have hooked up aren’t interested in meeting face to face until we both decide that we want to get married and start a family. So depressing.

But still Diary, true to my parent’s words, I will keep looking and hoping that there is someone out there, that wants to get away from it all and to just take the chance and meet.

Hugs and Kisses Diary,

Cambria

The sky darkened, as lightening lit up the sky, followed closely by thunder, as she closed the diary that she had found among her parent’s belongings. She had found it in the chest that they had left her, the only thing that they had saved. A snow storm from last winter had destroyed their house, with them in it. Everything from her childhood home had been wipe clean in an instant, as if it never had been, everything but a chest. And in it, were blank books, diaries, that people from the past called them, her parents always sought to find some, to give to her. She knew what a diary was she had one on her computer but the last time she had seen one, that she could write in, was the last day that she had physically seen her parents. It was what she found today, after she had laid her parents to rest. It was their last gift to her.

When she was little, her parents had taught her to write, something that schools didn’t always focus on. Sure, you where taught to write but more like an afterthought. Why write, when you could type seemed to be the mindset. But when she had written for the first time, it was like she saw the world for the first time. Instead of typing at a desk or trying to balance a tablet in her lap, she could just take out her diary book, put it on her knee, and just write. Nothing to it. But she had stopped doing it when she had moved out. And now, has she looked out her apartment window, at the city, she could not help but wondered why it took so long to go back home, to see it, to take a breath in the crisp winter air, or to play and help in the garden. To listen to her parents talk to each other and not through a video app. But now, all she had of them was a metal chest, full of blank diaries and other things that her parent’s had collected over the years. Her father’s reading glasses, her mother’s favorite books and last, a heart-shaped locket. And in this locket, were the only pictures that she had left of her parents.

They were only little pieces of paper, some people would even question why she just didn’t digitize them, they would last longer and make it so much easier to access. But she loved the antiquity of it. Made it more personal. She gazed at this little piece of the past and wondered, how much people have lost, in their connection to each other, the will to go out, to enjoy the life they had. The earth shook, as yet another thunderous rumbled came from the storm, and as she looked out the window, into the distance, streaks of light danced across the sky. But nobody had to worry, technology now can withstand any storm, no matter how strong. Her parents though would tell her stories, how a single lightening strike could take out a city's power, and make it impossible to access anything for hours.

It had happened to her parents, in their younger years, and when it did, they would curl up together and just talk, read, or go outside and do something, anything. She wondered, what would happen here if the power went out. Would people take to each other, take a walk outside, or to just enjoy the peace. Probably not. She knew this, because her younger sister had it happen to her, but in some small way. She had lost access to an app and had spent hours trying to fix it. It had gotten her so upset, that she did not realize that it was just updating. Yes, people in the here and now would not react well when the power went out. Even now, in the middle of the night, her apartment was the only one whose power was not on. And as she looked out the window, ever window that she could see, there was a light. The rain was falling, the wind howled, lightening lit up the sky, and thunder boomed. She loved it, and as she looked on, into the night, at the city, she wondered, has she has many times, if another soul in this world loved it as much as she did.

A crack of lightening, followed by the biggest boom she had ever heard, so loud, that for a moment in time she could hear nothing, nor see anything but white. And when she came too, she saw no lights on in the city.