2,030 marked the first human mission to Mars. Scientists were on this trip; people who were in charge of setting up the first ever base camp.

Ground Y had already launched two BFS’s (Big Florida Spaceships) to Mars, full of cargo for the base camp. Earth held its collective breath as the big crafts landed perfectly.

Something happened to the camera system on the second ship. Using telemetry and lots of computer data, Ground Y was able to ascertain that the ship had landed; intact they hoped.

We watched every minute of the 2,030 launch. Earth’s data field was maxed out. Everyone live streamed the event including the months spent in open space. We worked, slept, and ate MARS. We watched as NASA announced BFS 3’s safe landing. People rioted in the streets, burned cars, buildings, and of course the ceremonial couch,

Ground Y’s founder, Edward Mosque, made the official announcement. Instead of the pompous speech everyone was expecting, we got, “hot damn I made it.” He ranted for a good half hour about all the doctors who had advised him not to make this trip. He said lots of colorful metaphors that I choose not to repeat.

2,032 was when the next BFS was scheduled to lift off. It had a few more people and what seemed like a shopping list from Mr. Mosque.

He wanted a televised lottery for one average person to go on this flight. Can you imagine the heart pounding excitement of getting to go to Mars? I could! So I threw my name in the hat along with 5 billion other people. I knew there wasn’t a prayers chance in hell that I would be chosen. I was going to try anyway.

The day of the big drawing had arrived, 6 months before the lift off date. Everyone was glued to a media source. An asteroid could have hit and no one would have cared. The most important event in this moment was the person’s social security number that was announced. It was mine!

Wait. What? Mine? Yes! Mine! It was immediate. My Kentucky home was surrounded by media crews, helicopters, black SUV’s filled my yard. I got my first death threat three minutes after my name hit the data field. I was offered obscene amounts of money for my SS number. I received 250 marriage proposals from people that wanted to take the chance that my spouse would be allowed to go with me.

The caravan to Boca Chica was stopped 6 times by desperate people wanting to take my place.

After we made it, the following months were filled with training. I was allowed to keep my dog right up until the moment of lift off. I don’t know if it was true but everyone fell in love with Chico. I was told he was going to be the official mascot of Ground Y. It was a sweet parting memory.

The day of our launch had arrived. I was excited. This was to be a new chapter in my life and I was ready to meet it head on.

Lift off was like starting up a wooden roller-coaster. Shaky and rough. I barely noticed. I was too consumed with taking in what might be the last time I got to experience Earth.

The trip was going along as planned. Only after I got so tired I couldn’t stand myself did I fall asleep staring out into the void of space.

When I woke, my eyes were blurry, almost as if caked over by a white blanket and my head was roaring. I could hear what I thought was the sound of beating drums. One a couple decibels lower than the other. Boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom.

Back and forth it went.

The next time I woke up, the white blanket was more like lace and the roaring in my head was now a buzz. The drums; I thought, might have been voices. Voices? That was a pleasant thought.

“Look, look. Our patient is coming around again.”

The softer of the two voices said. “Third time is the charm. Right?”

I woke to see something standing on either side of me. “There you are.”

“Can you speak?” The lower of the two voices asked. I tried to speak. But no sound came out. “Not with your voice, use your mind.”

How was I supposed to speak with just my mind? No one could do that. Maybe with the help of some super advanced technology. Now really?

Talking can be so overrated. Instead, I focused on trying to get up and get the use of my limbs back. Who knows, maybe I will be able to run though the grass and jump in the river. I was having the most pleasant thought about doing just that. I was running, arms wide open into the sun, across a green field then jumping into the refreshing water; when the lower of the two voices said, “that’s not going to happen. Swimming in natural bodies of water was banned a hundred years ago.”

I thought, ‘how did you know what I was thinking?’

‘Because you thought it.’

‘Fine, where am I?’ My mind was filled with the image of a building, white brick. It was long, only two stories tall; on the double doors that I assumed was the front of the building was written Community Healing Center. Nothing flashy, just plain lettering on a plain door. Then one of the doors opened into a very sterile looking corridor. All the walls were a pale clinical green. Nothing special. The bodies, forms, whatever you call them were everywhere.

They were shapeless, non-descript beings.

This is a fluke right? Let’s try this again. ‘How did I get here?’ Again, I saw images, like a movie playing in my mind of the crash site. The ship that I had been riding in was laying on the sand in a massive pile. Bodies were laying all-round the scene in different states of dismemberment; arms here, legs there. A head was on top of this massive pile of scrap. Then I saw me being pulled out of the rubble by these forms and brought here to the community healing center.

‘So where am I?’ My thought was a news story telling about the fourth BFS’s lift off. Then after four months in space, it was never heard from again. I was getting ready to ask what year it was when 2,415 ran across my mind.

‘How is this possible?’ I thought. A company called Inter-face was developing a chip that was to interface with human brains. The original plan for the device was to help people with brain disorders and people who had been in accidents. I remembered that much being true. They rolled out their first one in 2,022. A year behind schedule. As my in-flight movie continued, it showing me wars, famine, devastation. All the things one would expect from a B rated science fiction movie. After this mess, everyone was implanted with a chip when they were born. When society became so corrupt they were on the verge of complete destruction, someone hacked the system and started correcting ever so slightly the imperfections of human behavior. Then I saw that these formless beings were actually a suit that was required to be worn anytime someone was outside. Only in the privacy of your own home were you allowed to show yourself.

‘So what happened to individuality and uniqueness?’ My head started raging and I passed out.

The low voice filled my head as I woke ‘When you ask something that you are not to know the answer, you are corrected back to the proper way of thinking?’

‘And who decides the correct way of thinking?’ The roar it my head was back and I was out.

‘You had some health issues that were corrected. A bulging disk in your lower back, tinnitus in your ears, arthritis in several joints, and allergies; all healed.’

‘Amazing,’ I thought. ‘It’s like being a new person.’

‘We are beings. We are all beings.’ The lower of the two voices commented.

When I woke up, both figures were standing at the foot of the bed holding an empty suit. ‘Time to go outside and see your new world.’ Finally! Outside! Sunshine, birds, grass, I couldn’t wait. I was amazed this suit fit better than I imagined it did. 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.    

‘What of religion? The Bible? God?’ The roar in my head returned and this electronic voice said, ‘forbidden subject matter.’

In my life before the trip to Mars, I didn’t set the world on fire with my religious beliefs. I went to church sometimes. However, I did pray multiple times a day. I read the Bible. I talked to people in my life about God and my beliefs. So if I was to understand correctly, religion in all forms has been forbidden by the CHIP. You are corrected if you think about anything associated with religion. This might account for the headache that I had. But then I guess if you haven’t been taught anything about religion, there’s nothing to think about?

This new Earth was a world with the total absence of God. A world void of belief. My heart sank as my head buzzed. A world void of God. How could this be? I didn’t like this new Earth. I wanted to sink my teeth into a big juicy hamburger. I wanted to smell something. Even if it was bad. A fart. ANYTHING! And most of all, I wanted to pray without this CHIP causing me to pass out.

As I looked around, the room seemed out of focus. My caretakers were not in sight. I clumsily ran to the door. When I opened it, I thought I heard alarms ringing. It could have been only in my head. I blindly ran. The multitude of houses were a blur. There was a few of the forms outside but they paid no attention to me. I ran and I ran. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. My head felt like it was going to explode. I fell into grass. Real grass under my hands. I took a deep breath filling my lungs with the smell. At last a smell. I looked up to see yellow specks. Prayed they were flowers. I tried so hard to make them come into focus. In front of me was a blue blob. Could it be water? I crawled on my hands and knees toward it. “God let it be water.” I think I said it out loud. But at this point I had no concept of what was spoken versus thought.

The closer I got, the weaker I felt. My head was louder now than it had ever been. I was determined to figure out what was in front of me. I felt strange. My nose felt as if it was leaking. It took great effort to lift my green stained hand to my face. Upon lowering it, I saw red. Was that blood? Was my nose bleeding?

I looked to my right to see shapes moving toward me.

I made it! Water! It was water. I can smell it. Heavenly water.

Then I remembered: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. I slid head first into the water. It was cold, refreshing, a gift from God. ‘Thank you God!’ I shouted in my mind. ‘Thank you.’

I don’t want to live in a world void of God. Most everyone thinks of the end time as a dystopia post-apocalyptic world. This to me was the end time. A world in which God no longer existed in any form. According to the CHIP in my head, this world was without crime, suffering, struggle, there was no hatred or injustice. It was utopia. But without God, it was empty, a joke. A game. A great big video game where the computer was in control.

With the last bit of strength I had, I started to recite the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name. I could feel my lungs filling up with water. I didn’t have the strength or desire to roll over. This was calm. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

My world became tranquil and my head stopped hurting.

The End.