In 2021, This Is How You Will Spend Your Day At Home
It’s 11 pm and the lights start to dim. Melodious Chopin’s Moonlight Sonata plays gently as Drake’s “Hotline Bling” fades away. My girlfriend gets off the couch and heads towards the bathroom to brush her teeth. My virtual assistant asks me, in my own voice, if he should read to me the tasks I skipped today. I answer “No” with slight frustration and a frowning face. “Your breathing session is scheduled in ten minutes” Alexa announces suddenly without my consent. I tell myself, “It’s for better sleep, don’t skip it!” as I swallow the probiotics with hesitation. I can hear my girlfriend speaking softly to her virtual assistant, “inaudible” says my drained brain as life feels like a movie with subtitles. My legs feel heavy, the gravity pulls me more than ever.
In that moment of robotic boredom, I slide the curtain of our bedroom. I see the streets are half-full. I see people wearing N95.9 masks and carrying thick umbrellas made up of the military-grade polymer. I perceive them like insects, rushing, keeping distance with suspicion, as the yellow acid rain pours. I put a cross on the calendar beside the window as my week of micro-dosing LSD ends. I smile because I feel the trip was still on. Suddenly, my girlfriend screams,
“It’s Monday again tomorrow! Oh, God.”
Her scream feels like a missile, but my mind cannot take it anymore. The sight of people crawling and cars cruising distorts my reality. I feel the LSD slowly wearing off. Drenched in withdrawals, my body numbs. It all hits as if the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima again for the second time. In that moment of shock, I feel deeply dark and insane. While trying to figure out how did the pilot felt while pushing the button, my thoughts stop. The Fat Man explodes on the annihilated land.
I retaliate towards the bed, closing the curtain, unable to fight anymore. Rays of the neon lights now create a halo around the window. The subtitles go corrupt in my mind, the world goes silent as the background music fades away. I start doubting whether it was Chopin or Beethoven, while my girlfriend speaks continuously and I can hardly pay attention anymore. Our breathing session begins, again without my consent, as Alexa loudly orders like a Nazi general “Breathing for Better Sleep starts”. She pauses for three seconds as if she is allowing the silence to do the job of making us comfortable. I adjust my seat, and I follow her like a robot, “Inhale for 4 seconds, one…two…three...”.
The AR experience I had today in the afternoon flashes through my mind. My chest was hurting. I saw guns blazing, and heard soldiers screaming. I was playing Call of Duty Coronawar, or as my neighbors call it, “CDC” - the latest addition by Activision to simulate World War 3 between the US and China. The cold war due to COVID-19 gave birth to new warfare.
Alexa disturbs my gameplay by saying “If you find yourself lost in thoughts, gently shift your focus on the breath….Exhale.” By the time I resume breathing, the session ends. I find myself alone in the darkness. It feels like a dream, or maybe I was still in the simulation and the war was finally over.
Was the war really over? Did the pandemic really end?
P.S- follow the bold texts for a short breathing session.
