Trance

Written for https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2023/03/16/reenas-xploration-challenge-272/

A new way to watch television, going on brain wavelength, and companies like Sky, and Virgin taken over. Entertrainment they called it. Training your brain to be immersed in a world so perfect, what was going on outside mattered little.

In a trance like state, you could stream all your favourite shows, even walk with extinct creatures if you wanted to. Wildlife programs were always popular. A trip to Africa. Certainly sir, madam. All you need is three hundred credits and the world is yours.

Strobscopic, the company you could also work for, making components for the machines, readily used in homes across the world. Nobody knew who invented this new device, but being part of your own entertainment, enlightening.

Chelsea could remember a time, when she was in her thirties, going to the supermarket, buying her shopping. Driving her car into the country – of course any type of travel was banned. Electric cars, left on the drive, because there was nothing to sustain them.

‘Mum, you don’t have to download all those programs, we have Strobscopic in the front room.’

‘I prefer this, besides, what is happening in my programs is real. Nobody is afraid to speak out against the United League of Countries. All the kids watch is animals, which don’t exist any more, and the news praising our government. I miss the old days, so I’m watching what I want to watch.’

‘But downloading is illegal, you could go to prison.

‘Does it matter, at least I’m not in a trance. We are all in some sort of prison, aren’t we. There is no job available, unless you work for them. I’m sixty five, too old for prison anyway. Let me watch what I want to. Leave me be.’

‘Mum?’

‘It’s like your are all under hypnosis, just repeating what the rest of them are saying. Do you not worry about their education, the fact schools are not open, even all our food comes pre-wrapped.’