'39 - A John Deacon FanFiction

Chapter 10 - Getting Closer

1 week later

Since we held hands that night, we had been closer than ever before. We would stay up late telling jokes and funny stories to each other. Just loving the presence of the other person near us. Sometimes, when I would be cooking breakfast, John would come up behind me and place a hand on the small of my back. He would help me out if I needed anything and even set the table if the food was taking longer than I thought.

While our mornings before work were spent talking and enjoying conversations with each other, our evenings were becoming a little different. I would take John out to eat more than before. Getting him acquainted with little nuances of the future. Things like screens being everywhere, people having every piece of knowledge at their fingertips, and how multitasking was becoming an increasingly normal thing.

"So, people just listen to music while they do...anything?" He asked. We were sitting in a diner that I had been to a countless number of times before. The reason I hadn't taken him here was because the walls were covered in 1950's music icons and their music was constantly playing over the speakers just low enough that you could talk over it or listen to it to drown out the silence if there was a lull in the conversation. I was worried about him knowing that these artists are still respected and known over 50 years into the future since their start. But, because I was teaching him everything about the future, I figured this was something he was bound to figure out at some point since I had some of these records at home.

"Yup," I answered. "I thought you might have had that in your time, but you don't. It first started with something called a Walkman which I think came out in the late 70's." I was going into another history/future lesson and his eyes and ears were locked on me as he rested his face in his hand. "You see, the music industry found a way to condense a record into a plastic rectangle about...this size." I tried to make a box with my fingers in the shape of a cassette. "Those were called cassettes and you could play them as you walked around. But now, you can put music onto...want to take a guess?" I asked. Placing my hand on my phone next to me on the booth.

"Your phone?" He asked with a smile. I picked up my phone and showed it to him.

"Exactly," I grinned. I placed the phone down on the table. "So, the record and cassette could only hold about 12 songs, but if I really wanted to, I could fit over...I don't know...2,000 songs on here?" I was guessing on that part. I figured it could at least hold 2,000 and John would be impressed by that number anyway.

"2,000?" He almost yelled. Thankfully, the place was pretty empty so no one was bothered by our conversation.

"Yeah. That's normal now. Isn't that crazy?" I was beaming. I loved seeing him experience this world for the first time. Especially because when you live in a world like this, you get used to it. It becomes normal. Teaching him about all this stuff made me appreciate it more and actually realize how far we had come in a society in almost 50 years. There was a small silence between us.

"So...If you have all this technology and live in a time like this, why do you care about the past? I feel like I wouldn't," he admitted. I thought about it for a second. He stumped me. How could I put my love of the past into words? No one had ever asked me that before.

"Well," I stammered, trying to buy some time while thoughts raced in and out of my mind. "Everyone looks back on the past with rose-colored glasses, right? I guess that's very true for me as well. I see the amazing parts of the past. Like the music and the entertainment and the pop culture. The good stuff. And I guess I'm not doing you any favors by only telling you the good stuff about the future either." He knitted his eyebrows together.

"Tell me that too then," he said in a soft voice.

"Well, life expectancy is down for the second year in a row, companies are forcing people to work in low paying jobs and for despicably long hours, global warming is almost at a point where it might be irreversible, everyone in the world is more divided than they ever were before, people have begun to stop vaccinating their kids because of false scientific research, and then there are leaders here and all around that world that refuse to believe that none of this is happening. The people in charge who have the resources to fix most of the bad stuff don't want to because it would get in the way of their own interests to make a bunch of money. That's the bad stuff." I looked at John's eyes. He was staring down at the table, but looking through it. His eyes were in a thousand-yard stare trance. "And that's not even all of it." There was another silence.