New Canterbury Tales

My pillow is turning cold. And if I don’t do anything my duvet will follow soon. I don’t like my bed set waking me up, but it is better than the old-fashioned beeping sounds and far better than my mother reminding me we do have quality time in this family. Although we all believe in following our natural sleeping patterns, there are limits. Speaking of sleeping, my info wall tells me I had another terrible night tonight. Like I need my wall to tell me that. I know I hardly slept at all last night and the night before.

I look at my Health Meter, three overlapping circles on the wall representing my physical, mental and social health. An intricate system based on a variety of input. Sensors in my bed and other stuff in my house, nanobots in my blood, talks with my therapist, the AI and the human version, and I don’t know what all. Whatever! All private off course.

‘Varna,’ my wall starts the conversation.

‘Shut up! I don’t want everybody to hear!’

‘Varna,’ my wall writes, ‘you seem to be falling back in your unhealthy pattern, should I share your data on the family dashboard?’

‘No,’ I write on the wall, ‘I will talk to someone, I’ll sort it out.’

My social health circle is turning a bit greener, shifting the middle colour from almost alarming orange to a shade close to yellow.

‘Make that a promise,’ my wall writes. I confirm.

‘Make it today!’ My wall is not really believing me, and I know it will check if I really do. But I can cheat a bit by telling it tonight I actually spoke to someone in person. But if so, I will have to fill in a report and my mother says that can be therapeutic too, those imaginary reports, like talking to your inner self.

‘Yes... will do, promise.’ I erase the wall conversation and it sets itself back to a picture of a sunset shining through trees. It is supposed to lift my spirit, but I guess my AI is a bit slow in adjusting to my puberty or it is just stubborn, we don’t have the latest version anyhow.

When I walk into the central room in our house, my younger sister hands me over my breakfast, which is really sweet of her but I am not hungry. My father is busy repairing something and my mother is working on her reports, they both have finished breakfast early again.

‘Hi dear,’ my mother greets me, ‘had another sleepless night?’ Despite all the sensors and AI in our house, my mother is the most sensitive sensor of all. I can never hide anything from her. She wouldn’t hack my Health Meter, would she? No, not really, it is just the way she is, which makes her good at her job. She understands and reads people on a subtle level no AI is able to do, yet.

‘No, not really.’ It is no use lying to my mother. ‘But I will talk to someone today, don’t worry.’

Of course, she does worry, I can read her too. She tries to hide it from me because she knows I don’t want her to fuss. She worries a lot, ever since I hit puberty and started having these moods. These moods when despite my loving family, our healthy food, my sheltered life, all energy seems to just flow out of me. And I just want… I don’t know… I just want… nothing… or maybe everything, everything at once. And then nothing again.

‘Ah,’ my mother says, ‘ok. Are you sure?’

I nod yes, I am glad she didn’t make me promise. She is back to her work again. My father glances at me from behind some old fashioned utensil I don’t recognize and smiles at me. I know I can talk to him too if I want to but I remain silent. My sister started school online.

‘Will you come with me to the school building today? It might be nice to work together with some classmates?’ She tries to uplift my spirits.

‘Nah, not today, maybe tomorrow.’

I should start schoolwork myself. With reluctance I finish my bowl of vegetable soup, just spooning it to my mouth and swallowing because I know it is good for me. I used to love this soup. I sit here at the table, staring at my empty bowl. Avoiding to look up to see my mother struggling not to give me the investigating look. Sometimes I feel sorry for her patients. There is no way of hiding anything from her, but she is very subtle and never pushing, helping everybody as good as ever possible to get that centre spot of three overlapping circles of their Health Meter right in the green.

School. Many schools follow the Ikigai system. But my mother insisted we would follow the Dharma system, which is slightly different. Because my mother believes that in a society where everybody gets a basic income, serving society is more important than money. I don’t know which one is better, but I do know life was relatively simple when I was still in basic training like my sister and the whole concept of school was just like a big game playing with your classmates.

But now… so many questions!

To avoid the inquisitive eyes from both my parents I get up and put my empty bowl in the cleaner.

‘I’ll be in the holodeck,’ I mumble. My father opens his mouth to say something and closes it again. I guess he was going to ask if I was going to do my schoolwork, but thought the better of it. When I am almost out of the room, he finds his words.

‘Varna! You could take Cerberus for a walk?’

‘Later…’

Cerberus is our AI pet and he doesn’t need a walk, ever… He is just programmed to look at us with big begging eyes and asking us to walk him because it is healthy for us to walk. He totally fooled me when I was a little kid, but now I know better. Anyhow, it might be a good idea to take Cerberus to the holodeck, our room full of the latest media gadgets, designed to get you anywhere you want to be. In here I can talk to anonymous walls or even rocks if I want to, and they will answer me. Or connect with people from all over the world, finding peer groups to support me. I can play games to train myself, games for fun, games for socializing. I can ‘stretch my senses and experience things beyond anything imaginable’ as the adds say. Or I can just sit in the middle on the soft floor and let Cerberus fold itself in my lap, asking me to stroke his fluffy fur.

And doing so, I start talking. Cerberus is designed not to talk back, but just react with encouraging sounds, yes you can program those sounds to your preference. We had quite a lot of these talks lately. And I write a report later as I promised to the wall connected to my Health Meter.

The thing about school these days is, how do I describe it… it is all about being prepared for your personal future, for who you want to be in life… What are my passions? What am I good at? How can I serve society? What do I care for? …

I really, really don’t know. I can read people, but not like my mum. I do not feel the urge to help people like my sister, nor the need to fix things like my father. They are all so clear in who they are, what they want. Not me.

As I kid I liked to run away, that might be a passion, but not a very useful one. I am good at… saying the wrong things at the wrong time and making people annoyed. I care for wild animals but seldom see them. How can I serve society? I have no idea. I feel so useless, who is waiting for me? I like reading old books, but that seems to be a silly thing to do when you are a teenager.

So Cerberus, I am telling you in great confidence, two days ago at school we were talking about what we want to be, how to make a personal learning path. I knew this day was coming and I dreaded it. I prepared myself, went to school, the actual school in the building because this was an important day. And in front of the whole class, I told them I finally found what I want to be.

‘I want to be an explorer.’

The whole class laughed including our coach.

‘There are no explorers anymore,’ they said. ‘There is nothing left to explore.’

But you know Cerberus, they are wrong! There is still so much to explore, they just haven’t seen it yet. They have no idea. Or maybe I am just an idiot, maybe I am a useless dreamer, just like they said.

Cerberus is looking up at me from my lap with his big eyes. Is his head shaking no? I am not an idiot? He winks. Sometimes it is just like he understands. Of course, he understands, he is an AI. Maybe I should talk to my mother? Cerberus shakes yes.

OK, I will talk to my mother, soon. Yes, I will, but not today.