A Burrito at Midnight World: 01

BURRITO AT MIDNIGHT WORLD

It’s a society on the brink of despair. Things have gone way wrong, but in a believable way. They are trying to come back AFTER the rebellion.

SCENARIO: She feels guilt because she uses real paper. Because she writes in a journal with a pen. All of her thoughts and her feelings kept to herself. Crawling into her own head.

It’s a society where energy is important because the grid was insecure.

Any actions taken in a home translated into the energy used to power their machines. Walking steps on the Sensitive Flooring. Sitting in chairs that used compression technology to create a connection. Enough to strike a spark in some process.

EVERYTHING in her home gathered some form of (kinetic? by the motions and the gestures) energy.

Everything she did from the moment she woke up until the moment she went to bed was in some way weighed and measured and turned into —-kilowatt?—- hours. To charge her phone. To power her microwave. To run her TV. Everything in her home was a MegaBrand appliance.

((MegaBrand — a property belonging to Professor Eduard Zeebman. The —-eponymous?—- "Dr. Zee."

She’d watched his cartoon once. The length of time, not the number (countless) of episodes she’d watched. Desperate to learn anything he had to teach. The man was brilliant.

He’d taught science to children, explaining things in a wholly understandable way. He’d been given the job to help children learn, and he exceeded expectations. He’d done the job.

For years he’d been on her screen, showing her a glimpse of a life she would never live.

Because she wasn’t a scientist.

Hadn’t been allowed to be a scientist.

She didn’t know if she would have been a successful scientist, because she had never been given a chance to try.

All she had were memories of watching a show that made science look fun. Exciting. A hopeful thing rather than a concept thrown into the world.

It wasn’t some idea people threw around. Telling themselves and their neighbors "This show is amazing for children" but never watching a single episode. Dr. Zee’s show was an amazing show, but a lot of other shows programmed onto her padd as a kid were not.

There had been so many "children’s" shows that were nothing but fluff. Content thrown together by influencers, rather than anything trying to meet a set of standards.

As an adult, she looked back and thought there should have been changes. The rating systems of the time had been terrible.

Someone would start a buzz about their project, and parents would let their children watch a show they didn’t pre-watch first. As a result, there had been a big scandal. A lot of parents had been left shaken by what they had let happen.

By the end of it all, only a handful of children’s shows had been verified as being actual children’s shows and not "children’s shows." Propaganda, threats of violence, anti-social behavior, and parental negligence became Big Issues in the news.

The investigation had also shown that Dr. Zee’s show was exactly what she’d always thought it was: amazing. Excellent children’s programming that promoted healthy mental growth.

Some people had made jokes that Dr. Zee wasn’t a real person. That he was some kind of highly advanced robot. An android. Or a Cylon. Which had caused a huge kerfluffle on the Internet as his defenders completely crushed anyone trying to spread false hate against Dr. Zee. No one dared to compare him to a villain ever again. Most especially as he advanced through the future.

When his series ended, Dr. Zee had revealed the opening of his brand: MegaBrand.

The shock felt by many had been real. It wasn’t performative responses to some kind of world news.

Dr. Zee was a beloved and trustworthy figure and he had started his own company. Everyone wanted to support his endeavors.

But to name it "MegaBrand," the name that had been used to lambast him in a mean-spirited skit? To take that name in a way that was just *dripping" with irony and anger? Nobody had been expecting it.

He’d turned the name into a beacon of hope.

Affordable household technology that served a purpose. Synthetic fabric that could be DIY’d into serving a multitude of functions. Kitchen appliances that practically cooked the food for you. He’d recognized the needs of the people, and he’d stepped in to help.

They’d talked about bringing his show back to national television. Setting it free on the open waves for anyone to watch and enjoy.

She’d heard that things hadn’t gone well on the negotiating table.

It had been four years since she’d first heard there were discussions of adding his show to the national network. Including it in The Library, making it part of the content that was provided free of charge to every citizen of the empire.

There had been a few new stories. A couple of rumors. Then radio silence. For whatever reason, Dr. Zee’s show was frozen in place. Could not be contracted to other streaming services until the national consensus released his show from holding.

The black market was the only way to watch his show. And sometimes she was tempted to watch it. But she had a forward facing job. The purity of her reputation was paramount.

She had to keep her reputation free from anything that could cause a scandal. Having access to pirated materials would be an open door for an investigation.

And if she had any hidden enemies amongst her coworkers, she could end up being booked for a ReConditioning Treatment. Which was something she did not want to experience as all the things she’d heard about it had made it sound unpleasant.

So she was disappointed she couldn’t rewatch episodes of Dr. Zee’s show. More than anything she wanted the national consensus to assign Dr. Zee’s show preservation status by adding it to The Library.

She showed her support by buying nearly every product he put out. Mostly because they were all excellent. Like his show.))

She had brand loyalty. He’d earned it by making her feel excited as a child. By putting the idea of possibility into her head.

So she walked on Sensitive Flooring. She drank from MegaBrand Nox thermos cups while eating a salad using a MegaBrand Intelligent Silverware fork that translated being lifted up and down into stored energy. She used a MegaBrand Friendly Toilet that composted her waste into small sterile beads that could be mixed into the garden soil.

She liked feeling that her everyday actions were having a positive effect on her life and the lives of her family. She could visually see the results with her own eyes rather than as regurgitated ideas of what other people thought. ("Buy SpideDinguS stock now! It’s a no-fail deal. I swear on my mother’s life." Before losing half of her savings to the scammiest of scams when she thought of it in retrospect.)

Dr. Zee’s products had never made her feel cheated.

She hated the feeling of wasting money. It was a remnant from her childhood life in a family that never had a lot of money.

Her adult life was the fairy tale her child self had dreamed of. A soap opera-level of drama had brought her to where she was now. And she was glad to be here.

But sometimes… She wanted to feel something real.

Not that her life wasn’t real. It was just a lot of responsibility and sometimes she wanted to take a break from all that. Didn’t want to be The Boss for a little while.

So she wrote in paper journals with real ink pens.

She created something that couldn’t be disappeared with the click of a button. And she made it without using her sensor pens or her Desktop, so no energy was gathered from her actions.

She wrote in her journal and she was completely unfettered and free.

She made her words and sentences and no spelling error prompts popped up.

She could write and she could draw and she could choose to share her thoughts and her feelings only with herself.

She spent time writing in her journal, and so to offset the wasted kinetic energy, she would walk an extra mile while wearing her MegaBrand brand shoes. She counted that energy as being part of an Entertainment Fund budget line item.

Because journaling was entertaining to her. It was something she did solely for herself and there was always a sense of accomplishment when she flipped through the book and saw how good a job she’d done.

Journaling gave her a sense of fondness toward herself, and that was a benefit toward her mental wellbeing. It wasn’t something she was willing to give up.

So she would walk an extra mile or two. And it was a fair deal in her mind.

Though sometimes she couldn’t help feeling a sense of guilt for using real paper and real pens. Every bit of energy they produced themselves was less they had to purchase.

It was something she had to always keep in mind due to her job. And it hurt her when her spirit was low and she felt a sense of guilt over wasting valuable resources. It was a familiar blade that always got her in the metaphorical back. A guilt that targeted her so well it could have been made to hurt her.

Not because of wasting resources. But because of the implication that "wasting resources" meant. That she wasn’t worth the resources she used. That she wasn’t worth being taken care of. Of being a burden yet never being derided for it. Of never being told that she was costing more than she was worth.

She hated that her journaling was seen as a waste of resources. Hated that her joy that harmed no one was seen as a useless past time.

Because if it was called worthless, they were calling her worthless for enjoying it.

The sole existence of her journal was for herself. Because it made her happy. Because it steadied her will and soothed her spirit. Because it let her get to know herself in a way nobody else ever would.

As she wrote, she would think things. Go off on mental tangents but always find her way back home again. The journal was the map of her journey, and only she would be able to understand it fully. Only she would remember the thoughts that shaped the sentences, a few words that to her would encompass a whole story unfolding in her mind.

She believed that journaling was a benefit to her overall health and she refused to give it up. Even if it was just something she did for herself.

(Sensitive Flooring is one of several products developed by Dr. Zee before the advent of MegaBrand. He’s done quite a few projects with the partnership of other people.)

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

https://patreon.com/harperkingsley.

https://ko-fi.com/harperwck.
https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0.
https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog.
https://kimichee.com.

https://www.youtube.com/c/HarperKingsley.

https://harperkingsley.bsky.social.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HarperKingsley. <- This here. Smashwords changed companies or something. I cannot understand what is going on with all these tech updates and I don’t think enough conversation is happening about it. Draft2Digital is the new Smashwords? Idk.