I consider this ‘my favorite’ of stories I’ve written. This is a repost. The dates have been changed. Time marches on. And the story has been broken into chapters for easier reading. I hope you enjoy reading New Earth as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Posted: 10-9-2022
Revised: 9-10-2023
Reposted: 11-16-2023
Finally! Outside! Sunshine, birds, grass, I couldn’t wait. I was amazed this suit fit better than I imagined it would. I could breathe, see, smell. Wait – smell. It just dawned on me that I really hadn’t smelt anything since I woke to this newness. Nothing good nor bad. Not even the food they gave me had an aroma.
‘Smells unless produced by nature are forbidden.’ The soft voice filled my head.
The walk outside was such a letdown. No birds were singing. The sun was shining but I couldn’t feel it through the suit. I saw no flowers, no animals. Outside seemed to me just as sterile as the inside. There were no cars. No form of transportation at all. I saw only a handful of other forms outside.
‘Where is everyone?’
The soft voice answered. ‘The others are in different places, home, work, learning centers.’
‘So are you two doctors?’
‘No, we are caretakers. We are unaware of what a doctor is.’
Question time was fun. These beings seemed to know everything and nothing. They took me to a small house. The inside of it looked just like my small Kentucky home, except my dog was missing. I really missed my dog.
‘You may take your suit off now.’ They put a finger on top of their head and the suit fell down. Following their example, I did the same.
To me, my caretakers looked like a man and a woman. They were the same height, same weight, same hair color, same eye color. ‘Twins.’ I thought.
‘No, we are not twins. Everyone looks the same. This way no one can proclaim bigotry.’
‘Where is individuality, uniqueness, cultural difference? How can we learn from each other if you are all the same? And why the suits if everyone looks the same?’
That roar was back in my head. I remembered getting very dizzy. Another movie played in my mind. I saw images of babies being drowned because of their gender. People’s eyes were being removed because of their eye color. Horrid skin dissolving viruses were being developed so people could have their skin removed in an attempt to have it replaced. Others with certain hair colors were being lined up and shot as if they were part of an old timey firing squad.
What happened to humanity? How did we get to this point? Now, in this new time. On this new Earth, everyone looked the same. And thanks to these computer chips, everyone’s thoughts are the same. There was nothing.
The story continued. It would appear that in the year 2,060 a killing spree occurred. Someone hacked into the IRS’ data base and started killing people that got back great amounts of money. If you got back more in taxes than you paid in, you became a target. It just didn’t happen in one state. It happened nationwide. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed. From this point on, no one worked for a company anymore. All interstate commerce ceased and everyone worked for the government. You lived in a house provided by the government. You got a food allowance. Your clothing was issued. All forms of transportation stopped. Only a handful of high ranking officials got to travel. Wherever you lived when all transportation ended, is where you stayed. It didn’t matter if you were in walking distance from your family or around the world from them.
My movie did end with a happy thought. I guess in this new world, happiness was still a big deal. I saw dated news articles of Ground Y’s headquarters. They were true to their word. My Chico did become the official mascot. They treated him like a king. There was still my cute, adorable Chihuahua. One story was sad to me. Staff would get to missing him only to find him on the roof of the building where he watched the BFS take off. It was sad yet comforting to know that he had missed me too.
On what I assumed was the next day, my caretakers brought me food. The same green mess that I had eaten every day. I just stared at it. ‘Not hungry?’ The lower voice asked.
‘What is this?’
‘Food.’ The soft voice answered. ‘Not food the way you are used to seeing it. It is a plant based protein that we have been consuming for generations. Meat products were outlawed.’
‘What does a normal day for you look like?’ I thought.
Here came another in-mind movie. They got up, went to work, came home, the chip in our heads filled us with correct knowledge. They have the sense of being entertained, rested, at peace, the good emotions. Everything came from the chip.
I started thinking about just everyday things: children it seemed were ordered. And that was all you needed to know. When your body’s hormone levels were right and you felt like you wanted a child, a baby was delivered to you. Marriage happened when those pesky hormones reached a certain level, a mate was selected for you. To me, it was like arranged marriages that I had read about. Identity in this world wasn’t an issue, so you got a mate.
It also occurred to me that there were no names. A name was something else that could be construed as an injustice. If your name was Prince and you weren’t a Prince then you were mis-identifying yourself to the general public.
Poetry & More 
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