A rattling on the street woke me. I groaned at the pathetic wheels of the Clean-Sweep10 as it passed. Its illuminated smile, empty, as it chimed a robotic
'Good morning, Citizen Adox.' I glared at its proud neon sticker that read now fitted with the next-gen RecallX+. Its pixelated wink mocked me as it sprayed my doorstep bedroom with a disinfectant concoction. ‘Some breakfast companion you are’ I thought as I rooted through my cool box for a ration pack. The newly wet pavement gyrated with panicked dots, some of whom ran up my body, clinging to my rags like a life raft. I flicked, dog-like, at the scuttling behind my ear. My fingers passing over a rigid scar, every bump still bitter. How could Granfa do this to me? My disbelief ritualistic. I looked around at my squalor feeling like a discarded hangnail, dead and useless to the city.
‘Adox, Adox, wake up.’ I remembered him whispering. It was the eve of my twelfth birthday. Then, the back of my ear was still stinging from my newly fitted RecallX. I can handle a poxy scratch I’d insisted before its incision, Granfa was resistant, he despised the new technology. All I could think of was tomorrow, my birthday when it would finally be activated. When I’d finally be linked up and have access to the channel. The only problem now was Granfa.
‘Everyone has one now,’ I explained to him ‘you can't even get hired without one anymore.’ He knew the day was coming, the rollout had begun years ago. In rebellion he used to insist I remember things, recipes, song lyrics, Hollywood legends and their spouses.
‘The recall can tell me all of this,’ I would plead, his response was always,
‘Listen ‘ere. If we forget our history how will we know what to be recalled a?’ I’d groan and continue,
‘The capital city of Tuvalu is Funafuti. The oldest pot plant in the world resides in London. Britain's 24th Prime Minister Margret Thatcher had 2 children, Carol and Mark.’ My compliance did nothing to subdue his evening rants though.
‘They shoot you all up with these bloody techno chips and you watch. It’ll be the end of schooling, end of all true knowledge.’ The dinner table seemed to give a collective sigh.
‘It was the same when I was a boy, gave us all calculators and we stopped trying to count. Now tell me, what’d you think’ll ‘appen if you give a kid a computer in his head?’ since no one volunteered to answer he carried on.
‘Well he’ll never learn to think will he?’ Granfa stabbed at his pork medallion.
'Meat machines! That's what we’re all becoming. And soon we’ll all be too slow to realize it's their pies we’re stuffing.’
‘Psst. Psst, Adox.’ I heard that night as I struggled to push the sleep from my eyes. I remember the sound of his hurried slippers shuffling across my bedroom floor. The shade was down, keeping the bustling night out. The hour made me too lazy to reach for its up-switch. I squinted into the dark, making out Granfa and his lighter. He had the vintage, non-electric kind. You had to flick down a wheel for the gas to spark. He was struggling, light flashing in front of his face. His wide smile was illuminated by the little lightning in his hand. The flashes cast him in and out of shadow so his hunched silhouette appeared on my white walls like an armadillo engulfing the room.
As he got closer it seemed it was a single silver celebration candle he was trying to light. It glowed a dull amber before sinking back into darkness. Silly Granfa I thought, he clung to traditions. This was an old one where the birthday child would blow on a candle topped cake and make a wish. As he scuttled closer I saw how he tried to hang onto the spark longer, his shaking thumb pressing down hard, determined to keep this candle alight. It smelled metallic. I could only catch the scene in flashes but I sensed Granfa’s initial manic enthusiasm had turned into frustration.
With every flick flick his face became more twisted. Flick flick hands more shaky. Flick flick closer still he came. Flick flick the candle grew as Granfa waved it close to my bedside. There I noticed how black its end had become, still refusing to stay lit but deepening in its fiery glow. Soon steel fumes hung inches from my face. Before I could attempt to blow it out I noticed a serrated shape on its side. Just then he grabbed my head, turning my face hard against the pillow. The skin behind my ear screamed as the glowing silver sliced at my incision scar. I thrashed about, heel catching the shade up-switch. Urban light poured in as I lulled over in agony. Clutching my neck I turned to see Granfa laughing maniacally. In one hand a charcoal-tipped blade and the other the object of his desire; my bloody RecallX. He dangled it above me the way he used to tease me with sweets. I remained conscious just long enough to see his Nano-nurse roll into the room and sedate him.
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