By Joseph Sullivan
I woke up to the easiest day of my life.
The alarm clock woke me up at 8 AM, the perfect time. I had fifteen minutes to adjust to being awake, which was the perfect time, before the mattress was lifted up and I was shunted out of bed. All I had to do for the shower was press one button and the water instantly started running at the perfect temperature. When I was done, I got out, the vents turned on, and I was dry as a bone in seconds.
I walked out into the kitchen and saw that my breakfast had been made for me, with just the right amount of milk in the cereal bowl. When I sat down to eat it, music started playing, and it was just the right sort of music I wanted to listen to while eating breakfast, some light neoclassical.
I went back to my room, and lo and behold, my work clothes had already been taken out of my wardrobe and put on my bed. It was a tough few minutes getting them on, but I fortunately didn’t need to complete the whole process. When I had trouble with the tie, all I had to do was press a button, and thin mechanical arms sprouted from the wall to straighten it up just right.
The ride to work was a breeze. My car drove itself, so all I had to do was sit there, in the lap of luxury. I was glad that everyone had to have one of these, or at least, everyone in the area I lived in, so that there wouldn’t be any risk of crashes. I was given to understand that all the cars were able to coordinate with each other, like some kind of hivemind, and that was fine with me.
After the long and tiring walk to my cubicle, I sat down in front of my computer and watched as the computer did my work. It was interesting, seeing all the code go everywhere on my screen. It made me wonder what I actually did for a living, even though I knew such questions were completely irrelevant to modern life.
When it came time for my lunch break, I went to the cafeteria and sat with some of my coworkers. All our lunches had been chosen before we got there, of course, in accordance with our general tastes and dietary requirements. I had all of their names and information about their personalities in my phone, as they did on theirs, and it came up with the necessary lines to make it through the regular lunchtime small talk, saving me from what would have been an unnecessary distraction in life.
At the end of another long workday, I got in my car and let it drive me home. When I got home, dinner was waiting for me in front of the TV. I sat down to eat, and the TV greeted me.
“Welcome home, sir!” Its voice sounded mostly human, with a slight mechanical tint to it. Human enough to be reassuring, but obviously mechanical enough to remind me that it was a machine. “What would you like to watch this evening?”
“Hmm. I think…how about a crime thriller sort of thing, where the bad guys robbing the bank are actually financed by the bank itself to justify more security, like a false flag thing?”
“Excellent choice, sir! We’ll generate that for you straight away!”
It wasn’t straight away, as it did take a few minutes, but once the process was done, a new show was created, just like I envisioned. None of the actors in the show were real, the dialogue was pretty stilted, and the effects got a bit blurry in more intense action sequences, but none of that mattered to me anymore. I felt like I had gotten to make my own show, as flawed as it was. I even considered making a second episode for tomorrow.
When it was time for me to go to sleep, I drifted off to bed. Sleep music was put on automatically, and I drifted away into a nice, peaceful dream, where, just like while I was awake, nothing bad ever happened.
What a fantastic day, free of the burdens of choice and responsibility.
The next one already promised to be just as perfect.
About the Author
Joseph Sullivan is a writer and support worker living in Melbourne, Australia.
He is an avid writer of speculative fiction, having been an ongoing contributor to AntipodeanSF since 2022. In addition, he is a regular reviewer for Aurealis, and has written nonfiction for them as well.
You can find his work at <https://josephsullivanwriter.blogspot.com>.
Ed lives with his wife plus a magical assortment of native animals in tropical North Queensland.
Sarah Jane Justice is an Adelaide-based fiction writer, poet, musician and spoken word artist.
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).
Alistair Lloyd is a Melbourne based writer and narrator who has been consuming good quality science fiction and fantasy most of his life.
Emma Louise Gill (she/her) is a British-Australian spec fic writer and consumer of vast amounts of coffee. Brought up on a diet of English lit, she rebelled and now spends her time writing explosive space opera and other fantastical things in
Geraldine Borella writes fiction for children, young adults and adults. Her work has been published by Deadset Press, IFWG Publishing, Wombat Books/Rhiza Edge, AHWA/Midnight Echo, Antipodean SF, Shacklebound Books, Black Ink Fiction, Paramour Ink Fiction, House of Loki and Raven & Drake
My time at Nambucca Valley Community Radio began back in 2016 after moving into the area from Sydney.
Tim Borella is an Australian author, mainly of short speculative fiction published in anthologies, online and in podcasts.
Barry Yedvobnick is a recently retired Biology Professor. He performed molecular biology and genetic research, and taught, at Emory University in Atlanta for 34 years. He is new to fiction writing, and enjoys taking real science a step or two beyond its known boundaries in his
Merri Andrew writes poetry and short fiction, some of which has appeared in Cordite, Be:longing, Baby Teeth and Islet, among other places.
Brian Biswas lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
Tara Campbell is an award-winning writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University's MFA in Creative Writing.
Tom Wrosch is a retired policy analyst with the State of Oregon, and resides with his wife in Salem.