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A LUDDITE IN THE MODERN AGE
I’m not REALLY a luddite. (A word coined in the 19th century when people disdained any new technology). I don’t dislike new technology, I just have a hard time comprehending it. When I wake up and find Ricky. my grandson, playing ping-pong with my father, when neither of them have a ping-pong table and they’re 3000 miles away from each other, it just freaks me out.
I’ve plumbed hundreds of miles of pipe in my life and carpentered a forest of wood on many dozens of decks, but wires, plugs and sockets are anathema to me. And yet Ricky seems to figure it all out within a few seconds.
Ricky stopped by to see me on his round the world trip armed with a backpack and his father’s credit card. His overnight trip to my Venice pad has now entered its fourth year and I’m loathe to let him continue his trip, seeing as he has faithfully got me out of many a problem which seem to occur to me on almost a daily basis when I turn on my laptop.
I think I’ve mastered the writing programs, but I don’t know the difference between a bot and a byte, or a meme and an algorithm, and always thought that a default was a negative situation.
I’m aware that the computer evolution has aroused much controversy, with the doomsday theorists predicting future human enslavement, when it finally reaches the organic stratosphere and reproduces itself, then civilization is done for. However near or far that might be, I just struggle on with my petty daily ‘puter peccadillos.
I ventured to the Type here to search box, coz I want to type: “Is there a God?” And fearful of “There is now” as an answer.
I was visiting Danny my son in Houston, I planned to stay for a week for his birthday, especially as I knew my daughter from Maui would also be there, bearing birthday gifts, so of course there was a double reason to go.
Vinny, the new addition to Danny’s family, yapped his welcome at the bottom of the stairs. The English bull terrier Dad had got from the pound, looked like Sir Winston Churchill, as I had previously learned. From pics he had emailed. “Dad, you’ve just got to meet him, he ‘acts more human than most people I know, even to his breakfast cup of tea, with milk and sugar, would you believe.”
As I walked to the breakfast table it looked as though Dad was shadow boxing. ”Morning, how did you sleep?” Dad asked.
As I walked past him, with my cliché answer, “With my eyes closed,” he hit me in the stomach with his left fist, then a sock to my jaw with his other fist.
I fell to the couch more angry than hurt. “My god, what a good morning welcome, I thought you loved me, you always said so.”
“Oh God, I’m so sorry, did I hurt you?” You can’t walk past me when I’m playing.” Then I looked at him wearing what looked like the upper part of a hideous helmet across his eyes. He yanked it off and fell beside me and gave me a giant hug, which hurt more than the punches. “I’m playing ping-pong with Ricky.“ It’s called Virtual reality.”
Alana was now on the stairs. “ Dad’s birthday present.” She said in her perky upbeat voice. “Good morning everyone.”
“Now in my day and age, one needed a table to play that.”
“You gotta step into the 21st century, Pops. Let me get your tea.” Dad said. We walked to the sink, and I noticed the dog bowl had been turned over. “what’s with this mess?”
“Look, I’ve got to go to the market. I ran out of Earl Grey, so I thought I’d give Winny a tea bag, and he wouldn’t know the difference, and the only market that has them is a 20 minute drive, so you have breakfast and I’ll be back in an hour.”
“No bloody way. Wait a mo. You have to give Winny Earl Grey tea every morning?”
“With milk and sugar. Look.” He opened the door to the backyard. “There he is, Schmulling.” (A Yiddish word, meaning to kvetch in grumbling silence). And sure enough, Vinny was laying halfway in his kennel, with his rear protruding onto the grass. “That’s when he’s mad, and listen to his mood.”
And sure enough, a deep growl, punctuated by intermittent yaps permeated the otherwise silent Houston day.
“Houston, you’ve got a problem.” I said. Back in the house Alana was seated at the breakfast table.
“You know Dad is a sucker for dogs, it’s his weakness, he shouldn’t go near a pound.” She handed me a small package. “And here Da is your birthday present but you mustn’t open it until your birthday on Wednesday, when you’ll be home.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
A small package she had tied with blue ribbon with an acronym printed on the label. (Alana had acronimitus).
MY T.U.G.A (The Ultimate Gift, Almost). BIRTHDAY PRESENT
I returned to L.A. and was out of bed early, the following Tuesday,(our birthday just a couple of weeks apart).
I pretty much guessed what the gift was. Doubtless my kids are dragging me into the 21st century. I mean it was pretty obvious. Tom, Alana’s recent husband /inventor had been working on a new V.R. model and his attorneys had been talking to the bigwigs in the industry and as Alana had informed us the figures were in billions, not millions.
O.K. so there it was, the innocent package carefully wrapped and adorned with a bow. The attached card read: “Happy birthday Pops. Here is your present. Read the instructions very carefully, make sure you’re alone and enjoy.”
I gingerly opened the special delivery package, and there were the V.R. goggles, similar to the ones that Danny had been wearing in Houston. The only difference was. on this one there were two small extending arms, like tentacles about eight inches long, one on either side. I placed the apparatus over my head and looked through the screen at a beautiful coastal scene, with azured waters. Then a soft sensuous voice accompanied by a languid flute started to play: “Hello Alan and welcome to my world. I am Maggie. I already know so much about you and you are the man I want to know completely. Take my hand and let us explore our love together.”
And then a man appeared on the sand wearing white swim trunks. He looked familiar to say the least. In fact I knew him well. It was ME. I had stepped from a photograph from a family portrait taken on my last visit to Maui the previous year. How could this be? I was here in my living room looking at this beautiful woman, perhaps in her young thirties, taking my hand on this lovely beach. She had long dark brown hair, full fleshed lips, lovely penetrating eyes and wearing a form fitting shimmering swimsuit. She was leading me into the ocean. When we were waist deep she threw her arms around me in a fierce loving hug. “Let us really get to know each other.” She said. We played in the shallow sea for a few moments, then she took my hand and we walked from the sea to the sandy beach and then to a lawn from the sand. Suddenly the line from the poet Robert Burns appeared on the bottom of the screen “Ah would some power this earth to give us, to see ourselves as others see us.” And there I was looking at me. I felt my arms. They felt the same as always. I touched my face, no difference, except I felt beads of perspiration running from my forehead.
There ahead of us was a house. More than just a house, a mansion, a two story colonial dwelling complete with a colonnade and a wraparound porch.
“You are in a happy state of mind because you have just found your new position in the writer’s room in the Dumont hotel on Hollywood Boulevard and this is your week when you get to write your first episode of the new series, Ashes of Diamonds. It’s a challenge you are eager to take.”
“How did you know?” I asked in a faltering voice.
“ You are in a room once inhabited by the comedy genius of Sid Caesar, Paul Simon, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks ---and The walls of this hallowed room are embedded with the language of laughter, It seems the feint odor of cigars still linger and the ghosts of great gags still lurk in the air conditioning ducts with almost every burst of air, and there is a cork bulletin board still with jokes and notes and odd lines of prose, and even an old yellow framed citation issued to Red Skelton, when he won a bet to run his horse-drawn wagon for a mile on the uncompleted part of the Pasadena freeway, causing a mile long traffic jam.”
“How could you know all this?”
“There’s much more I could tell you but let us save that for another time.
She left me speechless.
“Is this kind of a fantastic dream?” I finally stammered words that seemed to come from a strange mouth.
“I have been implanted with your moments and your memory. I know of you in the time of war and in peace. In turmoil and in temerity, with family and without, and this is the time for you to enjoy and indulge. I am your present and future companion and will fill up your empty arms. After all it begins with the brain and the heart. And remember what the fox told the little Prince.”
“Yes,” I said softly. “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, for what is essential is invisible to the eye. How could I ever forget that line?”
“ Now we are about to communicate on every level of consummation.” She fell with me onto a soft plush couch and explored every part of my body with her hands and her lips.
Not only was I the supplicant of love-making, but I was also an active participant. Without a doubt, all the times of my life it seemed, was but a prelude to this ecstatic moment.
As we lay in each other’s arms in the leisured afterglow as lovely as the treasured foreplay, she looked deep in my eyes and said: “When every one of the five senses are employed, a sixth sense becomes paramount, which is the perfect melding of the triplex of life, the spirit, the mind and the body.”
“Ecstasy doesn’t do it justice,” I said, “I think the word is RAPTURE.”
“And there is a two-year warranty, batteries are not required.” She replied.
***************************************
In my later email to my daughter, Alana: Thank you my lovely daughter, So the A in the title of the gift stands for Almost. Like what comes next?
Her quick reply came the same day. Wait for the P (Perfection). It’s gonna happen soon). And will blow you away.
Abraham Alan Ross
1880 words
alanzip@gmail.com
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