The Assistant - A Sci-Fi Short Original

"You never think you'll get old.

Sure, there are people are around you getting old all the time. But deep inside you never really feel old, mostly just tired.

I remember the first Walkmans and thinking HAM radios and walkie-talkies looked like magic, tapped into from another world.

One time I was with my Uncle, he was babysitting me so I got to tag along with him to his friend's house. That friend had a Laser Disc Player and I swear to whatever God exists out there in the Black the large shiny, reflective discs that played on the device looked extra-dimensional.

The colors that rippled and played along its surface seemed like a window or portal into another dimension where everything reflected, forever. It was amazing and I knew it was too expensive a thing for someone like me to ever own.

Two years later no one owned one because they'd fallen out of fashion. Too expensive, you see. There was a lesson in there, though in my young man's heart I could not reconcile that truth with the disappointment of never seeing those wide, round, mirrored saucers again. Luckily, CDs soon followed but their diminutive size didn't capture my imagination quite as thoroughly."

The old man stopped reading and casually glanced over at the kitchenette to watch as it was tidied up and wiped clean. He sighed and put the book down on the table beside him, "I can never get enough of that story".

The hands that worked along the faux marbled surface stopped.

"Why did he not get one?" A bright voice asked from around a turned back.

"uh, ahem. eh... what? Get one what?" the old man stammered, thrown off balance by the question.

"A Laser Disc Player? Why did he not acquire one after they 'fell out of fashion'? Would they not have then been less expensive to acquire? Why did he abandon his fascination with this device, especially once it had become undesirable and, therefore, much cheaper? I do not understand."

The hundred year old man snorted. "Of course you 'do not understand'. Come, get me up. I'd like to take a walk this afternoon."

The young man in the Kitchenette turned, a quizzical look dressed on his face.

"Sir, are you sure you would like to do that right now?"

Arms trembling slightly, the man lifted himself up out of his seat and turned.

"Yes, please. I'd like to walk and, as you can see, I'm not the 8 minute jogger I used to be."

The old man chuckled to himself as he gathered up his cane "Why didn't he get one, indeed," he laughed to himself.

Shrugging, the younger man moved to assist his charge.

---

The couple exited the building, the elder holding lightly to the younger as they assumed space on the sidewalk.

Above their heads lights emanated from the dozen advertisements that floated, slowly circling to present themselves to the world in 360, continuous degrees. If one kept their eyes down, the light from above cast an almost pleasant hue below, illuminating the sidewalks such that street lights had long ago become a novelty decoration more than a necessity.

The whole world seemed to be illuminated from above these days, mused the old man as he craned his head up and then back down to settle his gaze on the way forward.

The world around him had not changed so drastically as to make him feel as though he were on an alien world. But it had changed, a lot. These things were to be expected.

"Over countless cycles and cataclysms, humans have built and rebuilt societies. We've huddled in small groups in caves, and on coasts in cities while each hiccup of our parent Planet cut us down time and time again.

But a little survived each time, and eventually, enough survived to keep a string of knowledge that stretched between epochs. Those first tenuous strings were nearly snapped like who knows how many others. But it didn't snap. The string of knowledge held between the epochs so that while many died in the former, the latter experienced a technological explosion akin to finding "magic".

By the time that epoch would end, the string of knowledge became a raging torrent of information. Almost all of humanity survived the cataclysms that bookended Planetary epochs from then on. Often, they'd simply leave the Planet and take up residence in one of the dozens of platforms orbiting the Earth. Also, they could just leave for another inhabited Globe, if they wanted a land-based existence.

Who knows what will constitute an 'epoch' for humanity, now that our ocean of information has divorced us from the planet for survival?

But likewise, who knows when the Planet's current Epoch will end?"

The old man continued to speak and the young man continued to listen.

"But here I stay. I guess humans don't really change. I'm not interested in life-extension, extra-dimensional travel, space-based existence or generational spaceships where my consciousness melds into a single super-intelligent consciousness."

He stumbled on a crack in the side walk but the younger man's sturdy frame held and kept him from falling down. He coughed and sputtered a bit but soon regained his composure.

"It isn't that I'm not excited about the possibilities of this world and the many ways in which it has expanded in volume, space, time, and realities. It is more that I have enjoyed myself enough.

Not to be nihilistic, but I've enjoyed material existence for what it is. And, despite all of our advancing into these new truths in our reality, death still eludes us. Perhaps yet I am still an explorer, a frontiersman desiring the unknown over the known. I do not know.

You should know, it took a lot of convincing to get me to even accept your help. For a time I saw your kind as an inconvenience, technologically and ethically. But I see you now, companion, and I thank you for agreeing to be with me at the end of this epoch."

The very human-like companion smiled at the old man.

Just then the world exploded in fire, killing everyone exposed on the Earth's surface, taking the old man and his companion onto the next leg of whatever journey may follow.

In Orbit and around the local solar system, spinning rings that housed space-based humanity continued as indifferently as the background universe through which they spun.

---

Image sourced from pixabay
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