The following story of mine was first published in a literary magazine in 2003. I have published it on Gather since January, 2006.
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Sitting at her desk, today the Quill peers into the future and wonders about those who will live one-hundred and ten years from now. She fears a new, and as yet, unseen world where people speak to each other via glowing boxes globally connected through electronic signals.
She wonders: "Will this new life be better than life known in her century--where families spend time, dine at festive social occasions, and life is easy because servants provide?"
Into the Quill's world is breathed raw, savage instinct, the wild outdoors and the ache for human contact.
She worries about future generations and the world of easily eroded interpersonal relationships in a day of instant, trans-world communication.
The Quill, known as Miss Victoria Quill, wants her 19th-century world preserved in perpetuity - even if only in museums and historical societies, where actors try to recreate the essence of her world but who ultimately fail, because they never lived the reality.
And so, she laments with sadness, she knows soon that her world will disappear and that the new world will have given up its soul, live only on gadgets and a quiet, unstated despair relayed via chatty wireless toys, all in imitation of real life.
"Tomorrow's children will never reach full maturity, as low expectation and little consequence are taught to them. Self-reliance is not in their working vocabulary and instant gratification will replace the give-and-take of human experience. We shall see callow youths who live in a world of personas, false identities and simulated life, instead of honesty and the healing power of the human soul."
"We are the lucky ones. We are at a new century, poised on the precipice to act. Though we live in the present, we can preserve the future. To act is to save our past, our present and our future. To sit back and relax is to forget our past, let go of our present and deny the future."
And with this last thought, the Quill set down her parchment and - in one stretch, reached for her cellphone and notebook computer, and began to type.
"Maybe we can or maybe not. I know I should try but maybe the task is just too enormous. Maybe I'd rather choose something less onerous --something easy and fun like Croquet, or riding in a fast car with my hair loose and free. I'm just too tired to try anymore.
"I don't understand the past, the present is just too complicated and I don't care that much about the future."
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Copyright © 2007, Kathryn Esplin-Oleski
This was originally published in 2003, in Pieceworks, a literary magazine.
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Comments: 56
This was a delight and you fooled us until the very end.
Your story telling is most engaging and I'd love to look up more of your work now.
They say that yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift...value it.
Well done.
I had had a skull fracture in 1993 and had not written anything between 1993 and 2003.
My feelings shown here are one of the reasons I was so inspired and delighted by Samara O'Shea's book
For the Love of Letters: A 21st-Century Guide to the Art of Letter Writing by Samara O'Shea
How sad and true, that so many of us are afraid to expect our children to succeed and demand that they become self-reliant. When cold reality hits, we haven't done them any favors and may have stifled much of their potential by doing for them, giving to them and stereo-typing successes and abilities (if everyone is a winner, then what's special about me?). And with instant gratification life goals don't feel imperative.
Kathryn, there are some deep philosophies expressed in this fun, concise story.
Very Enjoyable.
Laree
From time to time I see others worrying about the future - a recent Newsweek story and, of course, Samara's book on letters and letter writing.
We need to preserve what is real and valuable, at all costs.
Thank you, Clifford
Thank you, Clifford
I was reminded in your words of the awards that little kids get merely for participation. What about effort and earning rewards? Or is it all instant rewards now?
Thank you, dear Cousin.
She fears a new, and as yet, unseen world where people speak to each other via glowing boxes globally connected through electronic signals.
She wonders: "Will this new life be better than life known in her century--where families spend time, dine at festive social occasions, and life is easy because servants provide?"
I was also struck immediately by the clear representation of pro and con in both her world AND the world she fears. Global connection isn't all bad. Keeping servants isn't everyone's cup of tea. There is positive and negative in every world by definition. It is up to us to find our way in the world we have.
Really enjoyable and thought provoking.
Funny isn't it, how we are all caught in our own time warp.
A universal internal struggle for humankind, which knows no time or place. Nice, just plain nice!
Thank you, Bundy and Lora.
Denise-Marie, thank you.
Cindy T - you Nailed it
Tom, a most excellent comment - thank you. She might be naive, or she might be worried; certainly, you have picked the points to ponder.
For the Love of Letters: A 21st-Century Guide to the Art of Letter Writing by Samara O'Shea
She describes the world you love.
Thank you, lynn a. for enjoying this as much as you did.
It is a mixed world, both past and present. We must always be careful to live in the real.
And with that, I have to go.
Elsie, ah yes, the Palmer method - I, too, was taught that. They used that until the 60s. I remember, too, working in a library and seeing the very old catalogue cards that had been written in the 1920s - and also knowing women who would be 100 now and how they were schooled.
My mother's side of the family all had very similar handwriting to each other. My husband and his siblings (also taught the Palmer method) had similar handwriting to each other.
When i was careful, I wrote with a fine hand. But, of course, I was rarely that careful with my hand.
Calligraphy is an art that keeps coming back.