novelty item

i am now dreaming though awake
(wouldbe poets woulddo well to perfect this skill)
and in this dream there is sudden nearinstant cold
owing to a disastrous attempt to reverse global warming

much of the earth’s population including me is popsicled

and now there’s a dream-typical jumpcut
and i’m thawed a few hundred years hence
sitting at a table where they’ve set antique food & drink to comfort me
(they got the idea from the movie 2001: a space odyssey by stanley kubrick & arthur c. clarke)

skipping the technical details of cell rupture repair and such
(read the book 3001: final odyssey by arthur c. clarke about the resurrection of frank poole if interested)
i’m now watching in my dream the conversation between my future self and a disembodied voice
which having brought me up to speed now invites me to go out and about

but warns me about future shock
(read future shock by alvin toffler if interested and reflect on its prescience given the last 44 years)
but i damn the torpedoes and step outside
and it’s all eschery and zoomy and gravweird

and they put me in the equivalent of a walker
and it has the equivalent of headphones
and i listen to the history i missed while iced
and learn that i was one of the first to be thawed and will likely be one of the last

and now in that dream-typical protracted lapdissolve
my surroundings start to fade a little and an image builds up of a latterday “school”
with as yet unborn kids already being uploaded with knowledge and power
and i learn that i and my contemporaries are irretrievably stupid and will never fit in

we are novelty items
wastes of protoplasm valuable only for quaintness and hilarity
for though the people who thawed us can no longer be called human
they still laugh still compete still condescend