Second Chances!

 ( Write a story about a TV show called "Second Chances.")

Crisis! 

Yes the world is in crisis! 

Think tanks have been created to explore the ideas of our most learned and knowledgeable scholars and scientists. The whole world seems to be holding it’s breath but every new suggestion, proposal or idea comes  with serious restraints and penalties.  The ones who always resist any restrictions by the government are very vocal.  The battle is raging with words at this stage.  If truth be told, the world is close to a standstill or gridlock.  

It is at this time that the ever creative and inventive entertainment industry decided to enrich the increasingly depressed and  isolated population with a new show called “Second Chances”.  

The premise being, let the population, the general public put forth their ideas of how to solve this deprivation, sometimes brilliance comes from unexpected and humble beginnings.

The gravity of the situation should not be ignored or played down.  Over the eons of time there have been other crisis events that civilization thought would be the end of it all, or the end of life as we knew it then.  Life has always gone on, adapting and adjusting.  Can we do it again?  What will the costs be?  Will they be only emotional or will it also cost us physically?  

The “people” are crying out for a solution.  And so this new creative television show will try to tap into the desires and thoughts of the masses, sifting and sorting thousands of ideas each week to find the one most novel or exciting or inventive to give those in the world “Second Chances” at happiness.

Tonight’s dialog explores one of the obvious ideas complete with possible pitfalls and glitches.  Unpleasant spinoffs or unintended results.  It is early in the program production and the developers expect the ideas to become more and more bizarre as time passes.

~~~~~

Maybe the way to properly think of this is,  it is perhaps a trade off.  The need to  swap nightlife,  stadiums full of fans,  closeness where relationships were based on touching, for a more sterile distant approach.  

How do you escape the virus in a life where everything is so tactile?   Affection and comfort,  even love is shown by touching and suddenly touching may kill what you love the most.

The new norm will require teamwork! Both sides in families, in love affairs, in business transactions, both sides must understand it is the new way, a way that requires distance, remoteness, disconnection from all that we do to show affection, agreement and even appreciation.   

Does it fire your imagination to create new ways to transmit these emotions?  

Basic touch is a magnetic like force!  Gentle or firm, soft or a slap,  touch reinforces words.  Now we are relegated to words on a screen and perhaps your expression as you speak on a screen but there appears to be no other way!

As I imagine it,  there could be a booming industry, a new social experience,  where people could exchange touch through walls or partitions,  fabric sleeves and gloves .  Your hands covered in protective fabric and yet, reaching out to touch the softness of another human being.  To trace the contours of a loved ones face.  The softness of a breast.  The tiny ness of an infant!  

I can only think that there could be no real visual of the person or object you wish to touch as your imagination would be ever so much better or creative.  Fix in your mind the image you expect to touch and your mind will go on to embellish or improve or perhaps enhance.

I don’t see the government sanctioning this,  the regulations, and they would insist on regulations, would be so severe it would eliminate the spontaneity.  

The personal connection will create a hunger in us all.   

These touchy feely places will be an under culture,  a place to go for the forbidden feelings of touch.  An underground of unusual experience…touch,  can you imagine it?

All kinds of artificial objects, so life like, when felt through a screening fabric or partition could create the illusion of touching the genuine article. It would be a mind over matter type of experience but when the mind is hungry for touch, it will be easily lead!  Yes,  a true mind blowing experience.  For some just comfort and for others a full range of reactions from mild to erotic.

This idea is but a small seed!  It could blossom into a well tended garden of pleasure able experiences or a wild jungle like growth contained only by one's needs and imagination.

Would you avail yourself of Second Chances to feel the warm flesh of your sleeping child or the rise and fall of your husband's chest as he sleeps?  To once again wrap your arms around the person most dear to you?  Or stroke the beautiful hair of your beloved?  These are the questions that need answering.  How needy are we?  What will we become if this deprivation continues for a generation?

But how will it all work?  How to organize and regulate and create safe places to allow the common person to enjoy this now forbidden thing, to touch and/or be touched?

~~~~~

And so I put forth my simple idea or explanation of a need and a possible solution.  I am just a common man but if my idea tickles your imagination, or the thought process of others greater than I, so be it. I just want to find a way to a new and pleasurable normal!

~~~~~

The writing staff around the table look at one another waiting for some hint of acceptance of this submission or discarding it as too simple, too obvious and common.   

It is early in the process so a suggestion is made to have more than two piles, the accept and reject.   They may need another showing possibility, one never knows how things will develop or how things can be combined.

They are into uncharted territory.  The norm has always been that television tells the masses what they want, subliminally, now the masses are telling television what it wants.   They will be cautious in the beginning until they can establish the degree of hunger that the need for touch is creating.  

And so this proposal goes into the possibility pile.  It should be interesting to read the myriad suggestions, and then the hardest part, make the viewers believe it is all in good taste, that it is socially acceptable and then even wholesome!  Not that will be a stretch!