Reflections

Tap,tap,tap.

She is restless on this frigid cold night in January. The year is new, with new expectations, new challenges and new dreams. The year is 2025 as Ciara tosses and turns in her bed, the hot flashes are new as the sheets fall to the floor.

Tap, tap, tap. She can hear something in the distance, she becomes more restless. Ciara opens her eyes and can hear a muffled voice and a tapping sound. She is confused, as she is alone in her apartment. Now sitting up cold, she reaches for the blankets and the tapping gets louder. Just as she lifts the blankets up to the bed to cover herself she catches a reflection.

In the mirror she sees a familiar face staring at her. She stops pulling on the blankets to look closer. She sees herself tapping on the other side of the glass. Horrified her breathing begins to quicken, her eyes widen, the hair on her neck stand up, she becomes aware that what she is seeing in front of her is not a mirrored image.

Ciara looking in the mirror stands up, reaches for her blue robe and walks toward the mirror. The tapping stops but the muffled sounds do not. Behind the glass is an older woman, much older. She reaches out as if to touch the person on the other side. She reaches out toward her pointing her finger.

Ciara notices that the fingers of the other person are wrinkled and two fingers look fake, like bionic. She looks deeper in the mirror and notices that the right shoulder and knee are bionic. Silver metal. She focuses in on the face and she sees her eyes looking back at her.

Ciara looses balance and falls backwards into the bed. She feels intrigued but scared. Why is this woman looking at her bionic, but looks exactly like her, more like her mother.

Ciara sits up again, then stands to take a closer look. The woman in the other side writes something on a piece of paper, then a second later she faces it towards her so she can read it.

The message said. It’s me, you in 25 years. I’m not supposed to be here but I need to show you something. Ciara frozen in time looks at herself in the mirror and nods her head.

A arm reaches through the glass and grabs her. At first Ciara tries to struggle, but soon realizes that it is pointless as the body in front of her is so strong and fit.

The woman tells her again, “it’s me, you in 25 years. I know your scared but I won’t hurt you. You need to know the future. It is forbidden to contact the past but you need to know the truth.

Ciara staring at this women nods her head and tries to breath normally. The woman lets go and tells Ciara to follow. She told her to be quiet and follow.

Ciara nods her head again, afraid to talk. After ducking through many lane ways, crossing a few streets the woman stops looks both ways standing in the shadows, she whispers “look up!”

Ciara looks up and what she sees is nothing she could ever imagine. There were thousands of drones in the skies. As she looked closer she could see that they were communicating.

Puzzled she looked at the woman and said, “why are they communicating? Why do they not use their phones. What’s going on?

The woman looked at her and said, “ after the big black out of 50 days and fifty nights the world stopped. Only gas powered vehicles could run, electric cars no longer. The grid snapped with all the power being used. People had to heat their homes with wood, electricity was only powered by gas generators or handmade wind devises, solar panels. Now after years of living like the olden days that the planet is thriving again. But all the telephone's and computers were knocked out. The only way to communicate is by drones ran by solar panels. The world became innovative and became less stressful.”

Ciara looked around her and the skies were buzzing. It was beautiful. Ciara looked at the woman and said, “why are you bionic?”

The woman looked at her and replied, before the world went black, everyone wanted to live longer. But their bodies failed them so they got bionic parts. To live as long as their brains would allow them. That is why I came to you. Don’t let them do it. Our lives are worse because of it. We are only built to last so long don’t mess with it. Bionic parts people can only be out and about for a couple of hours each day as it takes most of the day light to charge up the batteries by solar. We are bed rest the rest of the time. Please don’t let yourself suffer in the future. Here is my ring that I can no longer wear because of my bionic fingers, I thought you may like it, I bought it one year when I went on a vacation before my accident. When it’s your time let it be. Trust me the world is a better place. During the day it is law that drone use is not allowed to communicate as the animals must survive. The world is so beautiful now, the people are happier and the natural disasters rarely come any more. Please try to stop all the computer technology before the world crashes.

Ciara felt dizzy, sick like, as she watched the drones fly all over. She closed her eyes for a second and she was back in her bed.

She had her robe on when she woke up. She felt like she was hit by a bus. Exhausted almost like she ran a marathon the night before. Then she remembered her night. She got out of bed and walked up to the mirror. She tried looking into it, as if she could see another world. Or search for something beyond the glass. All she could see was her reflection. Disappointed she sat on the bed looking in the mirror.

She thought to herself, how could that be a dream. It felt so real. The woman looked just like her. The story of the world going dark for 50 days and 50 nights made sense. It seemed to her like the world was getting worse by the day with natural disasters and black outs.

She scratched her head while thinking how nice it would be to go back to the way it was many years ago, back to when she was a child with no cell phones, and only gas cars, with only a few computers. She thought how simplair things were. Less hatred, less litter, less homelessness. She was deep in thought when she saw something shiny on the floor.

She instinctively got up to see what it was. Ciara bent over to pick it up to take a look. It was the ring. Just like the ring the woman gave her the night before.