This is the MOST AWESOME science fiction story to end all science fiction stories. And I can’t tell you otherwise, can I? Does anyone click on an article that doesn’t promise to AMAZE YOU WITH WHAT THIS RANDOM KID did? Would you buy something if it doesn’t produce INSTANT RESULTS? Read a book that isn’t a NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER? See a list of anything but the TOP 5/10/20 THINGS?
Because in the year 4102, that’s what happened. Every single thing that humanity would ever experience had been carefully curated (see, we can’t even use the word scrapbooking – it’s not awesome enough – we have to butcher the English language and call it “curating”) to craft the optimal experience. The best. Nothing less for humanity.
As the song goes, “EVERYTHING IS AWESOME.” People fly and shoot lasers from their eyes. Human defecation is a thing of the past – Sweden discovered a way to teleport it from our bodies the moment it forms, and convert it to electrical power. Work has been eliminated by the robots powered by waste material. Humanity spends every waking moment in pleasure, and since everyone must experience everything all the time, we no longer need sleep, and every moment is maximised pleasure.
Into this world, Kester was born. A boy born of the most exquisite lovemaking, because all lovemaking is perfectly exquisite now. A boy given an amazing childhood, filled with automated toys and engaging games and stimulating education, all designed to make sure that he would never be able to want anything more than this, because it was not possible to want more than this life.
So as Kester scrolled past posters that would give, in a single glance, the entire experience of travelling to Antarctica and riding winter wolf sleds (because we have bred them by now) and standing atop the South Pole (because we have also managed to align the cardinal South Pole with the magnetic South Pole perfectly by now), something not so amazing happened.
He sneezed.
It was impossible to sneeze, for all sickness and weakness had been bred out of humans. Scientists and robots (for the robots would do the boring lab work while the scientists did exciting things in lab coats) had seen to that.
Yet, Kester had sneezed.
It was not a glorious experience – the involuntary rush of air into his lungs, the forced expulsion of mucus and breath from his nose, the inevitable tremors that shook his 15-year-old body. It was the first time that he had lost control, the first time that he had known what being frail meant, the first time that imperfection had entered his life.
Kester paused. Something that had also been eliminated from the world – who has time to wait nowadays?
But the moment after the sneeze felt better than any other moment he had ever felt. How was this possible? Every moment was carefully curated to squeeze maximum pleasure out of it. Each moment was perfect. It was impossible to be better than perfect.
But Kester felt it. He felt the moment after the sneeze. That was better than any perfect moment – creating a paradox, for what could be more than infinity or less than negative infinity? He could not figure out how to recreate the Moment, for all the subsequent moments were now only perfect. Not better than perfect, but just perfect.
He went home, back to a riot of colour and sensation, and lay on his heavenly bed. Nobody had regular homes or normal beds any more.
Kester tried to sneeze again, but couldn’t. He wasn’t designed to. He wasn’t meant to. Sneezes could not exist in this perfect world. It was not part of human understanding any more.
And then he realised that it was not something greater than perfection that made the Moment so special. Neither was it the fact that it had been elevated from a moment, a mere noun, to a Moment, a proper noun.
It was variance.
It was the fact that experiencing something that was less than perfect, would heighten the enjoyment of something that was perfect.
It was how the Moment had been created for him.
And so, in search of creating more Moments, Kester tried to bring imperfection into the perfect universe.
He grabbed a sphere of milk (because cups had been eliminated by virtue of being too mainstream) and spilt it. He cried for but a moment, but thereafter came another Moment.
He kicked a bucket of scarlet hue and polished make (no ordinary buckets exist any more). He mourned for but a moment, and then came another Moment.
He took all the eggs (which are now one giant cholesterol-free yolk, because egg whites aren’t tasty enough to cut it) and placed them in a single beautiful basket – and promptly dropped them. He grieved for the broken eggs for but a moment, and then – you guessed it – there came another Moment.
Kester pondered. Would it be possible for every moment to be Moments? Would he be able to thus exceed perfection?
Was that not the same thinking that led the world from 2014 to 4102?
He stopped, and looked at his watch. 32 minutes had passed since he first encountered the Moment.
Perhaps a time travel machine. Perhaps he could time travel (since all humans have all manner of super powers upon request) to 2014, to where it all began, and lead humanity down the right path, to create Moments instead of perfect moments. To appreciate the beauty of unpredictability and a flawed world, to embrace problems and imperfection, to learn to live with errors and omissions and realise that this was what created Moments.
For the other path was a world where we had perfect moments all the time, but they were only moments, and not Moments.
Kester never got to finish that thought. For the stereotypically evil giant multi-universal corporations (Earth 616 had been completely conquered and entire dimensions now factored into business development) had discovered that someone was about to introduce imperfection into their carefully curated moments, and would not allow that. They could not control Moments. They could only control moments.
And so, in a completely commonplace conclusion that defied no expectations and maximised no pleasure, Kester was murdered, then erased from reality.
An awesome reality full of perfect moments.
Written in 42 minutes while high on medication, yeah.
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