iWAVE LbNA #46118 (ARCHIVED)
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Add Location| Owner: | Riversol  |
|---|---|
| Plant date: | Mar 16, 2009 |
| Location: | |
| City: | Jupiter Island |
| County: | Martin |
| State: | Florida |
| Boxes: | 1 |
| Found by: | Lost Princess |
|---|---|
| Last found: | Apr 28, 2009 |
| Status: | F |
| Last edited: | Mar 16, 2009 |
This is an homage to transhumanist novels like Cory Doctorow’s “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom,” and Richard K. Morgan’s “Altered Carbon”
Like two patient ancestors, two pieces of coral keep this letterbox safe.
Do not damage the dune ecosystem—your descendants will appreciate it.
North beach access is free for bikers and walkers. For cars there is a parking fee.
About two miles of beach walking. Have fun!
RED-SHIFT STAGE 1. I descend the staircase remains of what used to be public access to Jupiter Island's North Beach. I look around; it's been nine hundred years since my last visit, back when real death was fairly common. My grandfather died early in the Blackjack Century from what was then termed “old age,” basically system failure due to molecular entropy. Instinctively, I access a collage of images of him on my ihud. His white hair and wrinkly skin accentuate his grimace in each. The sound of Biome Florida ocean waves serve as a fine overture to those faded jpegs of yesteryear. I disengage my global tracking subroutine for added tranquility as I start walking northward.
RED-SHIFT STAGE 2. Death. You might have trouble understanding how people conceived of death prior to TransYear 1 (2057 C.E). Back then religion still had a firm hold on much of the population -- understandable given their myths provided the only avenues to immortality for millennia prior. Similar oldtech psychology explains the popularity of vampire tales during the BlackJack Century. What a hypothetical shame to be a vampire and eternally unable to gaze across the sunlit Atlantic Ocean as I am now. Wavelets sparkle, gem-like as the horizon drops to reveal the sun in full.
RED-SHIFT STAGE 3. My grandfather, “Grumpy” as we grandkids called him, never had a choice to rejuve and refresh. It took a real ornery soul to face up to death and all the related ailments involved in dying back in PreTrans. Here I stand perched on the same planet, the same continent, the same island we used to walk on. Back before golf courses were banned in the Biome Century, the cash wealthy would hack their balls at Jupiter Island Country Club a few klicks south of here. My grandfather worked as a caddy there for many years.
RED-SHIFT STAGE 4. On the beach Grumpy and I would walk and talk together. Real, live conversation was the norm back then before SimStream. Occasionally, I could pry a story out of him about the Stetson estate he grew up on. Once he had barnstormed as a passenger with one of the Stetson sons. Other times we would just “be” together, an old man and his daughter’s son, keeping each others shadow company. I can close my eyes and picture him beside me now, walking briskly with me now far up on the North Beach.
RED-SHIFT STAGE 5. Except today I am alone. This feeling that fills me isn’t quite sadness. DocNet assures me my bio-patterns are not indicative of senescent depression. The AI suggests a millennium of deadheading. I ponder the implications of uploading my mind to the primary stack and waking up in a new world. If I hadn’t ported two copies of my mind back in TY700, I might consider it. Duplicate one is slated to awake in a couple centuries, whereas duplicate two I conscripted to NewEarth Mission 3, likely halfway to Andromeda by now.
RED-SHIFT STAGE 6. The wild dune ecosystem to my left thrives with life. I walk, sit, splash and rest along the few kilometers of Biome Florida coast I recall joyfully from my youth. I replay memories post TY1 and ponder my positions on living and life. My life has been quite full--full of happiness and hurt, love and guilt, friends, family and lovers. I even learned to love myself given enough time. I pull up footage of Harold and Maude, and ancient Hollywoodland 2d-stream. Harold asks Maude “Do you pray?” Her reply: “No, I communicate.” “With god?” asks Harold. “With life,” Maude responds. Fully apropos. The time has come.
RED-SHIFT STAGE 7! Walking twenty paces westward, there is no hesitation in me now. I smirk, truly unsure if the gesture is internal or external. Standing at the entry of the path toward the Peck Sub-Biome, I disable the three redundant bio-optimization routines. My body hasn’t been through rejuve in a fiftade, so full biological shutdown will descend quickly as my nanos lose synch over the next hour. Next, with an audible click, I disconnect my prosthetic hand at the wrist. Complete with its uplink transceiver. I toss my five-fingered friend a few meters to my left. It lands behind the second of two desiccated tree trunks for first responders to find later.
Fully disconnected, I walk the short path to the inlet and sit upon the sand. The sky’s luminescence is dimming now. Sitting, I feel a slight chill radiating from throughout my core being; involuntary shivers rise swiftly; however, they are shivers of insight. With a stick at my beckon, the wet sand etches easily.
ocean breakers behind
sigh and sigh again
natural cycles
earthrising
i wave
Like two patient ancestors, two pieces of coral keep this letterbox safe.
Do not damage the dune ecosystem—your descendants will appreciate it.
North beach access is free for bikers and walkers. For cars there is a parking fee.
About two miles of beach walking. Have fun!
RED-SHIFT STAGE 1. I descend the staircase remains of what used to be public access to Jupiter Island's North Beach. I look around; it's been nine hundred years since my last visit, back when real death was fairly common. My grandfather died early in the Blackjack Century from what was then termed “old age,” basically system failure due to molecular entropy. Instinctively, I access a collage of images of him on my ihud. His white hair and wrinkly skin accentuate his grimace in each. The sound of Biome Florida ocean waves serve as a fine overture to those faded jpegs of yesteryear. I disengage my global tracking subroutine for added tranquility as I start walking northward.
RED-SHIFT STAGE 2. Death. You might have trouble understanding how people conceived of death prior to TransYear 1 (2057 C.E). Back then religion still had a firm hold on much of the population -- understandable given their myths provided the only avenues to immortality for millennia prior. Similar oldtech psychology explains the popularity of vampire tales during the BlackJack Century. What a hypothetical shame to be a vampire and eternally unable to gaze across the sunlit Atlantic Ocean as I am now. Wavelets sparkle, gem-like as the horizon drops to reveal the sun in full.
RED-SHIFT STAGE 3. My grandfather, “Grumpy” as we grandkids called him, never had a choice to rejuve and refresh. It took a real ornery soul to face up to death and all the related ailments involved in dying back in PreTrans. Here I stand perched on the same planet, the same continent, the same island we used to walk on. Back before golf courses were banned in the Biome Century, the cash wealthy would hack their balls at Jupiter Island Country Club a few klicks south of here. My grandfather worked as a caddy there for many years.
RED-SHIFT STAGE 4. On the beach Grumpy and I would walk and talk together. Real, live conversation was the norm back then before SimStream. Occasionally, I could pry a story out of him about the Stetson estate he grew up on. Once he had barnstormed as a passenger with one of the Stetson sons. Other times we would just “be” together, an old man and his daughter’s son, keeping each others shadow company. I can close my eyes and picture him beside me now, walking briskly with me now far up on the North Beach.
RED-SHIFT STAGE 5. Except today I am alone. This feeling that fills me isn’t quite sadness. DocNet assures me my bio-patterns are not indicative of senescent depression. The AI suggests a millennium of deadheading. I ponder the implications of uploading my mind to the primary stack and waking up in a new world. If I hadn’t ported two copies of my mind back in TY700, I might consider it. Duplicate one is slated to awake in a couple centuries, whereas duplicate two I conscripted to NewEarth Mission 3, likely halfway to Andromeda by now.
RED-SHIFT STAGE 6. The wild dune ecosystem to my left thrives with life. I walk, sit, splash and rest along the few kilometers of Biome Florida coast I recall joyfully from my youth. I replay memories post TY1 and ponder my positions on living and life. My life has been quite full--full of happiness and hurt, love and guilt, friends, family and lovers. I even learned to love myself given enough time. I pull up footage of Harold and Maude, and ancient Hollywoodland 2d-stream. Harold asks Maude “Do you pray?” Her reply: “No, I communicate.” “With god?” asks Harold. “With life,” Maude responds. Fully apropos. The time has come.
RED-SHIFT STAGE 7! Walking twenty paces westward, there is no hesitation in me now. I smirk, truly unsure if the gesture is internal or external. Standing at the entry of the path toward the Peck Sub-Biome, I disable the three redundant bio-optimization routines. My body hasn’t been through rejuve in a fiftade, so full biological shutdown will descend quickly as my nanos lose synch over the next hour. Next, with an audible click, I disconnect my prosthetic hand at the wrist. Complete with its uplink transceiver. I toss my five-fingered friend a few meters to my left. It lands behind the second of two desiccated tree trunks for first responders to find later.
Fully disconnected, I walk the short path to the inlet and sit upon the sand. The sky’s luminescence is dimming now. Sitting, I feel a slight chill radiating from throughout my core being; involuntary shivers rise swiftly; however, they are shivers of insight. With a stick at my beckon, the wet sand etches easily.
ocean breakers behind
sigh and sigh again
natural cycles
earthrising
i wave