Memories of the Future

[fire settles; a clock ticks]

I’m by the fire with the dogs. Just reading and letting my mind wander to the rhythm of the clock.

It’s either louder tonight or the rest of the world has gone quiet.

[phone rings]

—just reading.

—Utopian Studies.

—

—yes, Fred, I belong to the Society for Utopian Studies.

—for years.

—it’s not a secret. Not really.

—no, there is no hand signal.

Ladies and gentlemen, I belong to the Society for Utopian Studies.

There. Everybody knows.

—mostly reading and sharing. I try to attend the conference.

—they meet in a hotel, Fred, not the future.

Another dispatch from Scott Evers. Read for you by Geezer III.

—

—utopia is not everybody wearing the same white garment and eating melon. Most people who study utopia are suspicious of perfection. You should be suspicious of anybody who knows exactly how everybody else ought to live.

For me, you imagine another way of living clearly enough that this one quits pretending it’s the only way.

—

[laughs]

—yes. I made that up.

—the article calls it “prospective memories of the future.”

—means remembering someplace before you’ve been there.

—I know what direction time goes.

Children ought to study that. Other possible worlds. We make them memorize every war we ever started and hardly ever ask them what peace would require.

—well, yes. It’s a luxury.

People are tired. They have supper to find and children to collect and tires that won’t remain inflated. But that may be exactly why somebody ought to keep imagining.

There are actual places trying things. There’s a project in Durban, South Africa, in an old derelict house in an industrial district. They grow food. Make art. Try to live without measuring every useful thing by whether it grows the economy.

—no, not a nudist colony.

—I don’t know. There may be nudity. That wasn’t the point of the article.

—

—I’m not asking you to join.

—because now I don’t want you.

[call disconnects]

Oh boy.

...

Princess hasn’t moved. Rocky opened one eye during the nudity and has returned to his evening.

[phone rings]

My goodness. It’s going to be one of those nights.

—Oscar.

—yes, I know.

—I was just on the phone with my brother. News travels—well, it travels directly from Fred to you.

—thank you. I didn’t expect that.

—

—and what’s the catch, Oscar?

—tell me.

—

—am I willing to conduct myself according to a program, or am I capable of forming myself in an unplanned manner.

—

—similar to a wild dog.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at the wild-dog portion of the evening.

—forget about the dog.

—no, I understand. There are few entirely unprogrammed human beings. Not if they expect company.

I have a part that knows how to make an appointment, answer a door, and say good morning when there is no evidence for it. Then there is another part that is more—collected. Knowing.

Lisa identified several additional compartments I did not know were under construction. That’s one benefit of marriage. Somebody inventories the property.

—I can move between them, Oscar.

—

—no, I have never chased a vehicle.

Competition makes the programmed part difficult to put down. You’re always propping yourself up to be what somebody expects. Even alone, sometimes. A world with less of that would nourish us more completely.

—wholesome. That’s the word I was looking for.

—

—hold on.

Princess is running in her sleep.

Her feet are going against the hearthstone. Just barely. Like she has quite some distance ahead of her.

—no, I’m not changing the subject.

Maybe she remembers being wild. Or maybe she’s headed someplace no dog has ever been.

—

—no. I don’t suppose she knows where she’s going.

—

—that may not be a requirement.

[call disconnects]

[fire settles; the clock continues]