100 Futures: Tales of Possibility

.01

2016

Graduation was great. My whole family was there. They were all looking at me as though I were the golden child that would finally put some success back in the blood line. My uncle let a few words slip that quieted the table, but he'd been drinking so it was dismissed and forgotten. It was a sunny day and I was ready to get on with it. College was the same only on a much nicer campus and I continued to do well. Graduation came and my parents were a bit older and not so enthusiastic. More somber and my uncle laughed. I remember the president was much in the news and there was some sort of recession. They helped me pay for school but I was saddled with a fair amount of debt so I went and got a job. On my twenty ninth birthday things are working out just like they are supposed to.

2029

The truth is that I was trapped in my own very small fish bowl view of the world. The distortions between my experience of life and the truth were like a tangle of steel after a head on collision. My perceptions were totally jacked. There was nothing to salvage and my dear girl friend pressed my foot on the accelerator toward the wall. We crashed hard when I lost my job. Our credit cards burnt to ash. Items we'd trudged around for years were sold for tragic sums. Her job finally dried up and we lost our house. After the shock wore off however something interesting happened. Rather than move back in with my mother we decided to live homeless. Being homeless we found ourselves spending lots of time in the library. Open to close on cold days. The shelters were packed and we staked a tent most nights. In our wonderings we found a semi fixed up apartment building for sale at a highly reduced rate because it was right next to a train track. We did the math and figured we could charge very low rents and still come out. We knew people who would be able to put together the low rent each month. If with the train it was better than living outside in the cold.

2048

That apartment complex was like a seed. We watched the place sit on market slowly dying. There was hardly any investing going on anywhere in the country at the time. We met the owner when he came to show one of the units. The person was real happy until a train roared by. We introduced ourselves and after some suspicious negations we convinced the man to give us a chance. He'd purchased the place using all of a small inheritance. He was headed toward default so with little to lose he reviewed the contract we typed and printed at the library and signed. We rented out 8 of 9 to a handful of homeless friends we'd made. These we men and women similarly affected by the fiscal collapse. People who could use a cheap place to get cleaned up and develop a plan. A base of operations. Many of these people were once well employed. We advanced them the room for one month. If they made good they could live as long as they needed to. We had to do most of this in an under the table way because of the rent control acts. We played like we were legit however with stationary and receipts. We only reported two rents which was the total we actually got from all eight.

2069

I don't know how we made it. The second great depression was ugly but it turned out that a lot of people could live at a lower standard than they thought. Neighborhoods became close nit communities because there was lots of time to be shared. Life reverted to pre-knowledge economy for millions of people. Farming, sewing, and many other husbandry skills reemerged as realistic careers. With gas so expensive suburbia mutated to adapt. Parks became managed community farms. Americans responded with a neo Jeffersonian ideal. We developed a bicycle driven mobile tent and sold them using payment plans. The nano materials we used were so light and durable that they sold themselves. The new migrant class that emerged when the gold standard was put back in place loved the bikes because they could use them to travel to the hottest ore strikes. Many of them actually paid for the bikehouses with gold.

2094

My girl died at 97. I couldn't believe it. We were always so certain it would be me before her. I was supposed to go first so that I could be there waiting for her on the other side. I'm fairly certain I'll be right along. I'm we aware of the joys and sorrows of this world. Its only been a week since my lady went to sleep and I miss her so much. I must wrap up our affairs, say my final goodbyes and meet with my love. She will be rather cross with me if I make her wait.