by Robert Verdibello for the Autumn 2025 issue
My day begins as they all do. With the soft nudge to the electrodes from my virtual personal assistant. Long ago, they figured out that the way to get up is to “get up”. So I paid extra for the direct connection to the hormone producing center of my brain. Mileage may vary, use only as directed.
The first stop is the bathroom of course. One should always strive for complete and effortless hydration. Plus in order to get into the City I need to pass the physical exam. I relocated out here so I would not have to confront the mandates. The funny part is I have complied with all of the mandates; I agree with the general purposes; I just do not like the method of implementation – but hey, who does not want the chance to live forever? Because of the government’s health initiative, my statistical odds of not dying remain at a constant 50%. I could be dead right now. I could drop dead in 5 minutes, 5 years, or 5 decades from now.
Next is to prepare breakfast. Need to be mindful, cannot let the glucose levels exceed the minimum for re-entry to the City. Those general bio-scanners may not be the most accurate, but they will detect levels clearly in excess of the mandate. Make sure to extra-hydrate for dilution is the best solution. A gentle lick at my ankle reminds me to feed the pets. Not much to do there as meal-time is pretty efficient when you just have to ingest a handful of pellets. The last part of this wake up cycle is to put away last night’s dinner dishes. Not too many dishes this morning. Why? Oh, that’s right we ate out last night. Had a few too many drinks if I remember correctly. The problem with alcohol is that it can cause excess glucose. No problem, just need a few hits of pure oxygen and I will attach the express B-12 IV drip instead of the standard vitamin-C drink, and flush those baddies right out into the toilet.
It was my idea to get a drink after the workday. In typical fashion I thought I could get to the bar earlier than 5 pm, that way I could hydrate after dinner and wake up as fresh as a new person. Work had other plans, and generally being incapable of detaching myself enough to arrive someplace on time, I got to the dining pavilion an hour later than planned. I had an idea in my mind of a strong, savory drink mixed with conversations with the friendly bar-keep, or hard-working locals with fresh sweat and grit on their faces cursing the horrible luck of their favorite sports team. Instead I spotted (and they spotted me) the most dreaded of all barflies – neighbors from your designated subdivision. And worse yet, neighbors whose kids are in the same school and grades as yours. In other words, social competitors. I froze in the doorway in a moment of panic – I was spotted. They froze like deer in the lights of an oncoming tractor-trailer – they were spotted. I walked towards them and the bar at the same time, should I need to make an immediate change in direction. I spotted one in the pack with whom I had recently engaged in polite conversation – I forget about what exactly – and gave her a friendly smile. I nodded and waved at everyone and sidled up to the bar to order a drink. I did not know what to order as my mind had drawn a blank, so I glanced at the menu and ordered the first mixed drink that caught my eye. The drink turned out to be strong but sour. I was able to strike up a brief, friendly small talk conversation with my cohorts. I had another drink or three, but I had trouble hearing over the echoes caused by the high ceilings as the place that I thought would have an interesting, warm, intimate ambiance had the feeling of an industrial club. Probably divulged too much personal information. The rule of the social jungle is to suppress all personal details and force the others to pick an identity to display to you.
I have trouble with all kinds of intimacy. Thankfully it appears to be an affliction for which there is no diagnosis and hence does not show up on any legal registries. That allows me to suffer in total secrecy and only has superficial manifestations, which I have learned to control after a painful conditioning process. I remember standing lined up in the hallway and being inadvertently thrust into a trust experiment that I failed at miserably.Standing straight with my shoulders against the wall, the other person stands in front of you (with me it was always members of the opposite sex, which caused additional anxiety and stress) and you look into each other’s eyes. And then suddenly the other person falls in towards you. If you (the one standing against the wall) trusts the other person then you will stand perfectly still knowing, believing, that the other person will not crash into you. If you are like me, well, you first bang your head against the wall, stop, drop and roll out of harm’s way while wondering if this would have been the right time to have a weapon of some kind. Thankfully my wife arrived. After she masterfully engaged in small talk around the communal drink section, we removed ourselves and sat down at a consumption station for two.
With the children all fulfilling their mandates it was just the two of us. Once our drinks arrived, I reached into my inside jacket pocket and pulled out the formal notice. It was from the City of Jersey City. Apparently the auto that I had left parked in what I thought was a safe and private area came to the attention of the authorities. The auto had been relocated to a municipal garage, and I had ten days from the date of the notice – which expires tomorrow – to retrieve the car and remove it from the City, or else it would be destroyed.
“I love that car.” I said to my wife.
“You always seemed to have a strange relationship with that auto. Will you be able to go into the City tomorrow to get it?” she asked.
“I already put in a PTO request that has been approved.”
“When are you going to leave? You had a few drinks. Do you have enough time to hydrate?”
“I will flush myself out starting tonight and finish the job in the morning. What time are you leaving in the morning for class?”
“I want to get there as early as possible. Why? Where are you going to catch the tube back down to New Jersey?”
“I was thinking you could drop me off at the station near your work cube. It is a little closer and I would not have to pay for day parking. They keep raising the rates. Obviously they do not want people like me travelling independently anymore.”
“I think you are being overdramatic. You can motor all you want around here. The restrictions and mandates on solo travel to, from and within the City are for everyone’s benefit. It is a small thing to ask and comply with, isn’t it?”
“I may take public transit, but I do not travel in a herd.”
“Oh, I see, alone in a crowd, that type of thing? You better suppress all of that when you get to the entry portal. Unsanctioned strong feelings are an easy way to get plugged.”
“I know what I am doing.”
Back to the task at hand. A quick shower and then some comfortable clothes. Make sure to put on comfortable shoes and clean underwear. To be so singularly focused on a task that all other aspects of life are meaningless? To be distracted is at the basis of being human, or maybe it is just the sign of decadence? To be so relieved from day-to-day survival to be able to wallow in dreams and whims. All of our data points – just detritus of information concerning what we purchased; when we purchased it; to get to why was the purchase made / why were we enticed to make the purchase? The constant race to fit the algorithm. Which, of course, is not what we were told as children before bedtime. But humanity must have a good struggle to overcome. It provides focused meaning, a mission to be accomplished. It allows me to be the hero of my own journey. What is my current mission? To have another piece of the independent past removed from the current narrative.
There is no room for my individual idiosyncrasies in the City anymore. Space has to be made for the endless re-arrangement of the bedroom furniture. The City has been reduced to statistical blips on a navigational guide. A place only of arrivals and departures. A place of endless debate whether to knock down and rebuild, or preserve in place; a museum. The problem with dogmatic or persistent preservation is that at some point the attic gets filled, and the junk eventually has to get cleared out by those who in the end do not value the accumulated detritus. As if there is something buried in the mists of time to justify the creation of a place. Place is now the product of a formula. Acknowledge the formula; follow the formula; and ask no questions so you too can live a sufficiently hydrated life.
I reported to management that there was a death in the family, and I needed PTO to go to the City to handle the affairs. By the time the checkers have reviewed the file and realize that I have no relatives left in the City, I will already be back. Or, it could all end in disaster, and all my years on a planned path could be reduced to rubble. Nothing but the psychic detritus that we leave behind with some personal effects catalogued and then incinerated. All personal privilege must yield to the collective rituals. The personal effects that get accumulated; the stuff; how it felt for a set piece that had been constructed and curated – days, weeks, months, years, decades of hard work and everyday living – to abruptly come to an end and to go back to what? Personal accomplishments became nothing more than road markers on the way to the next engagement. Ghostly echoes of missions past. Too easily distracted by the next task, the next hill to take for no apparent reason. 🏁
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