The beginning, sometime in the future

I wake up, opening my eyes after what appears to have been a deep slumber, to find myself in my bedroom. Must have been the excessive drinking last night or someone might have just spiked my drink, but I am alive. Surprisingly no headache or hangover.

I open the blinds to find the world around me in shambles. Giant machines are digging vast mounds of earth and shipping off the soil in giant sized drones.Seemingly, my apartment and everything around the apartment are intact. In fact, the inside and the outside are a stark contrast. Still dissolusioned about my previous night’s drinking, I fail to recognize if this is a figment of my imagination or indeed stark reality.

The machines are oblivious to my presense, and carrying on their tasks of what looks like emptyhing the planet with precision and ease. The machines make very little or no noise and it is very hard to discern the happenings until you get to see this first hand. I stumble out of my apartment and into the street to get my usual coffee. By looking at the street it is hard to believe that just 500 metres away such huge machines are at work. I get my coffee and gently remark at the Barista Claire ‘Boy, those machines are pretty bad ass” to which she replies “What machines ?”. At first I disregard this as a flippant ignorance and I just collect my change, tip her and sit at the bar sipping the expresso and going through the daily news. I fail to notice not a single mention of the machines in the local section. Media will usually be swarming at such events. I mean, even in this world of advancement I am yet to see an earth emptying equipment hovering over, almost silent. Yet nothing in the media, news or on my social media.

I figure something’s amiss and make a similar remark to another stranger who sits next to me. His response is the same ‘what machines’. I can see them in the distance dammit, can’t you. The dude turns around, walks up to the window, stands there for a few seconds and comes back ‘nothing but the traffic’ to which I remark “what traffic ……. “