Letter from my-2051-self, a peek into the future.

* Please note that the following piece of literature is pure fiction and is merely a figment of my imagination. Any resemblance with organizations or persons-living or dead- is pure coincidence.

Dear me of 2021,

Dear me who was fond of gazing upon clear azure skies ornamented with snowy, feather-like clouds that would make you want to believe in utopia, all the while knowing that it doesn’t exist.

Dear me who begrudgingly ate innocuous, fresh food not aware that it would be the ambrosia of the future.

Dear me who rarely ever listened to the symphony of nature and only payed attention to the hub-bub of the city.

Dear me who deceived myself into believing everything would be alright, and believed I would grow up well in opulence despite the state of the world.

I am here to contradict all your beliefs and values. Thirty years have passed and an ideal world in which everything is just and fair is nothing but an unachievable dream. One that cannot be attained no matter how much you reach for it.

These days, there isn’t a single person who doesn’t suffer from poor eyesight and joint pain due to their addictions to their phones. Lines in hospitals are endless and VIPs are treated first no matter the triviality of their issue or the severity of someone else’s. In this biased world where only a small fraction of our population (known as the Elite) holds 90 percent of our world’s wealth, we adhere to one rule; “the end justifies the means.”

People are willing to cheat, con, lie, backstab, hurt and even kill for a chance to join the elite. However, only a few make up the top-tier making it more likely to die before the age of fifteen than to claw you way up to the top by the age of ninety-two.

On the bright side, over-population is no longer a problem with less than seventy million people in the world and less strain on natural resources. Even so, every coin has two sides and the successful method of population control has a rather grim downside.

On the fifteenth day of the tenth month, 2024, the world was brought to it’s knees. The Government announced that after consulting the main database (which had run the numbers and provided all possible outcomes), they had decided that it would be for “the best” if citizens were picked-at random- for mass executions.

They had promised that The Selection would be unbiased and fair. After the first few executions, something appeared strange and The Selection didn’t seem to live up to it’s promises.

The victims were mostly poor citizens, individuals with criminal records, the elderly or any one who had offended the Elite.

After a mere year, the population had decreased by almost a billion. We produced less waste and could live comfortably but at this point, even the most dull-witted person could make out that the Selection was anything but random.

The Elite live lavishly, completely untouched while members of the lower classes live in fear and dread. Their minds filled to the brim with the same repeating thought.

“What if I’m next?”

Our world is nowhere near ideal. In the last thirty years, those in power became obsessed with greed for even more power and wealth. Whenever they stood at an important crossroad, they took the road that would be most beneficial to themselves. They became egotistical, devious monsters who pushed the world into pandemonium while we stood by foolishly as they dragged us down with them, all the while still stuck in their folié dé grandeur.

And so, I apologize for standing by idly, for not stepping up, for not taking a stand as apologizing is the only thing I can do, the only thing any of us can do.

Hope you’ve enjoyed reading and see you next week.