In Scrobs's more irrational - even sombre and thoughtful moods, there occasionally pervades a feeling that when he tips over the edge into infinity, all the electrical impulses that kept him alive, might join up somewhere else, and create some sort of energetic momentum for others to use in their daily toil.
I'm not really sure of my grounds on this, (I'm only a humble builder), but it's a consideration worth keeping alight, as everything needs to be positive these days, even if the runes coming from the politicians, the banks, the insurance companies - in fact every business where they have to exist in enormous buildings in capital cities - are stacked against a peaceful time for all normal ordinary citizens!
So imagine this...
Scrobs has left the planet, and his living forces are being used by someone else. These manifest themselves in some order, clearly to be utilised in some way by the grandchildren first, and even the daughts to a certain extent, although they've done so well for themselves, I'm learning from them even more now!
So these rays are also bouncing around the stratosphere, along with all the others from other citizens, and a good time is being had by all, unless you live in Syria, or Wolverhampton. The sparks are forming and new ideas are being filed for future reference. And it's these files which I want to look at more closely!
I use a computer quite a lot, for all my spreadsheets, the book I still haven't published, blogs like this etc, much the same as most people do these days. A lot of the information is kept in a 'cloud', presumably somewhere like Arizona, and the various gigabytes of information are stored safely - one hopes - for use again whenever they're needed.
Now, if Scrobs is no more, what happens to all the files in Tucson, or Phoenix? Will facilities have to be extended more and more, as the banks of storage chips fill up with photos, spreadsheets, emails etc? Will there be a back-up if the whole lot gets bashed by the Russians? Will they invent even smaller chips? (SIL once gave me a tiny chip which holds four Gb of info, and it's no bigger than JRT's dew claw. That's the equivalent of 2,857 floppy discs)!
Perhaps one day, all Scrobs's information in the cloud will somehow join with his own passed-on electrical persona, and create another cloud, maybe to be inspected by others, and laughed at - especially the pictures, and probably the bank statement, maybe the book...
(Why Number 9 you may ask? Well, The Beatles did a song called 'Revolution 9', during which some bloke came on and kept repeating 'Number 9'. So it became 'Cloud 9' for the purposes of this post, which has been created with the help of a large mug of Tesco's Finest Assam, and not a tincture in sight)!
14 comments:
My living forces are being used by someone else - and I haven't even left the planet yet!
Oh, untimely death!
(... number 9, number 9 ...)
Retirement does strange things it seems,best you get out on the veggies patch.
My Housemaster used to say that death was 'the most embarrassing event anyone could suffer', Nick!
If my waves are being used elsewhere, I hope they remember to put the cat/dog out...
Yeah - Number 9 yeah...
Thud, its been a long time coming, this post, and I feel somewhat cathartic now, as I sit here, riding this bike..;0)
I agree with Mr Thud. You need to get out and feed the ducks more often...
Have you found your misplaced Ouija board yet?
It's no coincidence, Reevers, that most of these dribblings are created in the early morning, so it's dark, and peaceful, and the day's your own!
If I did them with the occasional tincture to hand, or I was in a hurry, then they'd be a right mess for all to laugh at...
And nobody has answered the serious question, which is what happens to all my Cloud stuff when I'm gone?
Historians (if they ever have access to it) will simply marvel over it in about 500 years' time when computers are as antiquated as concrete wheels.
Well, you did ask.
You might also wonder at it if you simply chucked your computer and phone into the Marianas trench and did not replace them. Nobody would ever find them so your life time efforts would remain a small collection of 1's and 0's and take up about one square millimetre of a data/server disc somewhere lost in a huge bank of servers.
Am I depressing you? Not to worry the weekend is upon us...
Off topic: I have just watched the weather man on the telly warn of an impending Grade 5 hurricane (or cyclone, as they call them down there) approaching Fiji. The last time they had one that big was in 1985 - and I just happened to be on the island and got caught up right in the middle of it. Poor folks are going to get bashed again and systems of this magnitude are very dangerous to poorly constructed mud huts. There will undoubtedly be a few lives lost today. As a builder, you will of course be aware that they build their huts of soft branches and leaves so that when such storms approach they allow the roof to just collapse on top of them and so long as there are no floods, they will remain fairly safe underneath until to storm passes. But the next day the place will look like a giant demented winnowing machine has been through.
Over the centuries the language will change until people don't even know what a tincture is unless they look it up. People of the future will have no idea what we were on about.
Perhaps the Machines will know but there is nobody left to ask them.
Reevers, I think you're getting there as far as PCs are concerned! It really will mean bugger all to my lot, but what is it that makes me keep things like drawings the daughts did when they were small, or music I did when I wanted to be famous in their eyes?
Those cyclones you describe must be horrendous, and fearful We couldn't deal with that over here, as 1987 proved magnificently! So what do the occupants actually do?
AKH - if I may shorten your name..., you do seem to have pictured the future correctly. I suspect that as you successfully write good fiction, you can easily describe a future without PCs as we know them.
I'm still of an age when I'd love to see the old concept of 'Virtual reality' become a norm, instead of mindless celebs trash taking up electricity in the Scrobs household!
I could easily take a magic carpet ride over some African country then...
What do the occupants do? In a nutshell, they cower and pray for their safety. When it is all over, they emerge from their hiding places, retrieve and bury any bodies, and then undertake a huge communal clean up in which everybody joins. After a month or two, if their is no subsequent storm, the place will look green and fresh again. These islanders are very resilient.
Bit like Ashford then...
Except nobody cleans up.
Erratum above: "there" not "their" [before the grammar police arrive!]
Can't say I know Ashford. Haven't been there for years - except for a night at the local Holiday Inn last year when all the inns in Canterbury were fully occupied, it being a Bank Holiday weekend - not a good time to visit.
The results of the Fiji cyclone are now becoming apparent, but at least the natives had a few hours' notice to get to safety before the storm hit.
My old business partner developed that particular establishment, Reevers! It was also part of the old Ashford RFC, which was started by an old boy - now well into his nineties, who used to come over and dig his son's allotment, next to mine!
Splendid old boy! Not allowed to drive these days, as he kept getting lost...
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