Random Crap that isn't art

Otherworldly

The phone sang its repetitive, ringing song.

Nothing.

The holograph?

Nothing.

The MetaLife?

Nothing.

No matter what I did, they didn't answer. Damian, Mom, and Dad have been visiting Orpiok for about two weeks now and for the past five days none of them had answered me, be it phone calls, holograms, or virtual presence. It made me worried. It didn't help that my MetaWatch, a holographic, virtual watch that was more like a phone than it seemed, had lost all of its power the day they stopped reaching out to me. That was a lithium-ProTec battery that lasted ten whole years. There's no way it died in two years. It used nuclear power to function, like all other electronics for the past fifty-three years since 2185.

It was 2238 now, and Earth looked pretty gloomy. I had always been obsessed with the outdoors for all of my fourteen years of life, but it was nearly impossible to breathe out there nowadays. I missed the green and copious vegetation of nature, the fresh, clean smell and rushing of the wild waters, the golden and bright heat of the sun. I sat in the vertical, pod-like dome of a window, as I was suffering a tedium, thinking about the state of our planet. All I could do was think ever since my watch ran out of battery. A familiar, chirpy, automated voice sounded from behind me,

"Alicia! Time for breakfast!"

I turned my head around, away from the gray, puffy clouds of the atmosphere. There was a robotic parrot flying in the middle of the room, painted in a blue, red, and yellow pattern to simulate a living macaw. It was all electrical, nothing that could replace a live animal.

"I know, I know, RPV. I'm coming right now."

The artificial Ara Macao, the scientific name for a Macaw, then flew off through the doorway into the kitchen. I dragged myself out of the pod and trudged over into the cyan-lit room, letting my feet drag on the cream-colored, shoe-tainted, knotted carpet. I was met with what looked like a television monitor attached to a roomba with a dome of metal sandwiched between. A pixelated smile was simulated on its face as it greeted,

"Good morning and greetings, Alicia! How has your morning been?"

"Same as usual, Nuclabot... wanting to be outside again."

I walked over to the counter and sat down on one of the three stools, eager for a breakfast of waffles and eggs, dripping in syrup with ketchup on the side.

"Oh.. you should know by now that you can't do that without a gas mask E-80."

"I do know that.. I just feel constrained being stuck in here all day. I feel like someone back in 2020 with the coronavirus outbreak."

The robot didn't speak for a moment, but proceeded to follow the morning routine. It played a randomized audio recording of my mother saying,

"Here's some breakfast for my little sunflower!"

The Nuclabot gestured to the floating plate, making it fly over to me. It then glided across the room over to the mounted television, one of the few that was still being used, and flicked it on. It was the first time I had watched the news for a long time, and it made me deeply nostalgic.

"Thank you for listening to this break, next up is some news about the Earth, Orpiok, and Wulari war."

I had a mouthful of waffle and scrambled eggs in my mouth, and that sentence nearly made me spit my food out.

"Nucla, did you know about this?!"

"I have been disconnected from the MetaNet.. I haven't gotten any news about an event like this."