CULTURE
The Intergalactic
Space Chronicle
Zombies 2171 - The Walking Formerly-Dead Clones
By M.B. Alexander
The zombies of our time are people we know and often love. Whether it's a great-great-grandma who died and was resurrected as a clone or a creepy old neighbor whose consciousness was abruptly downloaded into a fam-bot (which he can't stop touching) after he drove into an areal fast food joint between the clouds.
Though it is nice to see them again, there are moments where you can't help but notice a few generational gaps . . .
Like when your great-great-android aunt gasps after seeing a human and a robot smooching on a park bench. Or your great-great-great-grandfather, whose consciousness was downloaded into a fresh clone shell, still screaming bloody murder when holographic vampire robot bats fly towards him in a mixed reality movie.
Yes, it's embarrassing when an elder still thinks public restrooms are for peeing. “Take a pee-pill grandma, no one pees every day in 2171. It's too tedious!”
But we must be tolerant and remember that when they were “mentally young” the world was a different place. It was still okay to call a humanoid Ai a machine. Biotech human hybrids were just a budding trend, and humor software for humanoids was still pretty weak. So don't be too offended when they exclaim, “Can you believe how funny that robot is??!!” at your poor waiter.
If they were born a hundred years earlier they would be dead. Without the proper consciousness maintenance software, they wouldn't be here today. But we live in a world where a new invention, like floating ice-cream clouds, can become old-fashioned in the same month they’re released to the public.
The exponential growth of our world has left everything they ever knew in the dust.
So if they walk among us like confused zombies, mumbling about “the good old days, when dogs didn't talk back” maybe let it slide. Remember that one day, we’ll be the zombies that don't get why actual cats are singing in the musical Cats.
