Romance on the Run!

Imagine the future is now, some when. Once upon a love story sat a romantic dreamer, an undercover Renegade. Her real time name was Rianna.

For starters, all our heritage properties and 21st Century ticky tacky town houses had been swept away by progress. The future consisted of towering apartment blocks, with one bedroom each. These towers were interspersed with high-rise hydroponic farms. Here only certain foods were grown, pest-free, cultivated by clever robotic devices. These were the food sources of the future. All the present farming communities had been long since depleted, blown away by blasts of winds, and eroded by droughts.

This was also to be a future world of very little oil, no longer to drive the machinery and transport which our current world maintains. Thus there zoomed little vehicles, solar powered by a blazing sun, driven by robots, traveling between the vertical farms and clothing depots, to the high-rise apartment blocks.

In the future, each individual was dwelling in their one-bedroom unit, with adjoining walls and ceilings. All hermetically controlled, with a constant internal atmosphere and temperature, in contrast to the harsh world of the exterior. People were kept away from each other, with fertility and reproduction strictly controlled by the benevolent powers-that-be running the teeming populace of the world.

In the future, each resident expected to be awoken at, say, 6:30 am to 7 am. "Wake up!". The digital alarm then dictated, "Breakfast!" Each citizen, like everyone else, was expected to eat the foods he or she had been permitted to select from the neighborhood vertical multi-story farm. Beverages and multivitamins were also to be allowed, consisting of some mystical ingredients. "Exercise!' A light, well-designed aerobic physical activity program was always scheduled. Obesity was not to be permitted, too unhealthy.

Then, "Ablutions!" Sewerage in the future, to dispose of the products of each individual's digestive system, was thoughtfully taking away effluents and recycling them. This was to a be 'waste not, want not' kind of world in which to live.

8 am. "Log on!' Future residents (along with everyone else on Planet Earth) switched on a digital implant in their brains, to receive the world and local news in an immediate format, translated into a global language, easily understood by all. Nothing much happening, way off when. This language was to be ever evolving, an advanced form of the current texting. 8:30 am. "Social contacts!' The future of planet Earth did touch base with any distant relatives or friends online, finishing with now universal farewell, "C.U. M.8!"

9 a,. "Work!" This is how citizens in the future were to be employed. Still in their little abodes, they were conditioned to trigger part of their digital implants, and engage in their designated occupations, administering their little corner of the world. Their salary was being paid in credits for online shopping.

There was the routine break at noon, for more nutrition and beverages, all calorie controlled, with more vitamin capsules. Or were they? Relaxation, listening to music until 1 pm, then back to the workstation. By 4:30 pm, this hard work had been completed for the day. The citizens were then permitted to change their synthetic clothing, eat a light meal, and view movies telecast by their digital implants.

By 5pm, routine unit cleaning and clothes washing had been performed by helpful, ultrasonic robots, and each individual here settled in to refresh their neurons. On Saturdays, there was a real treat. Citizens were rostered to visit the basements of their unit towers. Here, people of the vast human race, many derived from artificial surrogate wombs, were able to sit and gaze at holograms of trees that once existed. They could view our olden days brought to life with plastic once-were-birds, and they could touch a toy kangaroo. All gone by then, the habitats and creatures, even an insect would be hard to find one day.

Once upon a romantic gesture, by chance Rianna was allocated her 'tree' time at the same time as a quite fetching male specimen. He did the unthinkable. Smiling, he sat next to her in the tree museum, and introduced himself. Naughty Ronnie and Renegade Rianna found good old human wicks of desire, which sparked and blazed like a fire. More than that soon flew, and they somehow found themselves running from the thought police.

Everyone else was having solitary fun times. Saturday nights, after the movies on the digital implants, there was always some digital pornography. But this too, did grow a bit tiresome, So instead, Rianna and Ronnie found the bliss of naughty Cupid, and did some dancing in the dark, but only back at her apartment.

Alarm bells should have sounded in their digital implants, but there was a glitch in the systems of life control. No robot inspectors could ever determine which apartment contained such an extreme sport of romance. Ronnie crept back to his own unit. Shh, the walls had secrets, was this a throwback? Had Rianna the Renegade led him astray? No, it was mutual, reciprocal, and thoroughly satisfying, satiating, quite fun. Rianna had often wondered about the good old days. She was left under the blanket, holding a plastic bird they had swiped from the tree museum. Priceless.

The biggest surprise was that Ronnie only lived on the same level as Rianna. They had been neighbors all that time, neurons passing in a romantic dream. It was romance on the run from the robotic controllers, but not traveling anywhere in particular. Rianna's door was always open, but led nowhere, except for fun. The robotic thought police of this future world never factored in the good old human inventive approach. True love did find its way.

Love bloomed, it was always an early night for Rianna and Ronnie, their underworld of under the blanket. Ronnie was Rianna's romantic ideal, full of notions, and sweet nothings. Her plastic bird stayed under the renegade coverlet, seeing nothing at all with its advanced polymer eyes. It was such a token of Ronnie's admiration and esteem. None of the other inhabitants in this tower of quiet sinning ever suspected. None of their beeswax, people they never met. They had never had such renegade thoughts, too conditioned by routine. Love was the missing ingredient.

The future was now. Renegade Rianna and Ronnie kept up their romance, never getting too far away, never making life changing decisions, very secretive. By 9 pm each night, as darkness made gloomy, mysterious shadows in the corridors, Ronnie returned to his own unit. But he was never far away. This was sedition, but undetected. One last triumph for true love, or was it the start of a rebellion globally? Cupid, their guardian angel of romance of fun, made sure no one ever got to them. No, Ronnie's wick never tired. Cupid had shot the lovers with timeless desire, with a tale for the telling, of real time pornography.

9:30 pm. "Bedtime." Each individual of the future logged off for the night, before tomorrow's efforts. Yes, overall it was a peaceful world at last. Thx. Sleep tight, our grandchildren's grandkids, and all shall be well. C.U. M.8's!