DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SETS

The televisions in Droid City have minds of their own. Collective consciousness. No, they're not watching you, even when you're asleep. Point is, why are you watching them? You aren't. For centuries now you've been watching your little portable device for any changes in the paradigms. Or messages from other humans.

It is the considered opinion of most sentient beings that 'humans' are a monumental waste of time. Ever since that incident with the mutants in the thunder dome on the White House Lawn. When a shard hit their leader, a repulsive giant orange slug. All hell broke loose. Half the country killed each other. The rest of humanity, because of electronic entertainment, programming errors, and video games, did not reproduce much.
You know what happened.

In many parts of the United States people were unable to walk, and their mobility scooters ran out of juice. So they couldn't flee very far in any case. The feral rednecks got 'em.


Lunch was at a dumpling place where the other customers at that hour were two vacuous twenty-somethings, and a bearded hipster business dude with a laptop and a cellphone, conferencing. So other than the staff and myself, hardly any humans.
Times are desperate, but the food was delicious.

After eating I lit my pipe and headed into the Financial District. Several of the places I used to know there are gone now. The health nostrum store underneath our old office run by those two repulsive slime creatures, the Chinese buffet where Miss C. was behind the counter (a rather charming face, both fierce and softly vulnerable looking), the horrible pizza place, three different bookstores, a salad bar to which I never went, drugstores, etcetera.

Other than a man sleeping with a beercan, street people are gone too.


Office workers on their way home do not look at their devices much.
There will be plenty of time for that when they're on the bus.
Desperately searching for changes in the paradigm.



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