Thea Alexander - 2150 A.D.

I laughed as I replied, "I was afraid I'd be too good for you, but by using your PK you made it the most challenging game of my life. I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to practice not only my tennis but also my PK."

Carol hopped up and said, "I'm going to take a swim, Jon, but why don't you stay here and rest so you'll feel up to running back to our Alpha in time for the Macro dance."

"Thanks," I said. "I'll need the rest. That dance is as tiring as playing PK tennis!"

By the time Carol and the children reached the nearest pool my eyes were closed

I woke up refreshed and discovered that I had slept for almost ten hours. There was a note from Karl saying that he wouldn't be home for lunch, but would be back earlier than usual that afternoon. I decided to get to my journal-writing as soon as possible.

By four that afternoon Karl returned and the first thing he did was ask about my latest dream. I told him he could read it in the journal because I was going out for some fresh air after being inside all day. He agreed that this sounded like a healthy idea and sat down with my journal while I put on my coat, boots, muffler, and fur hat in preparation for my walk in the blustery snow.

As I trudged through eight inches of newly fallen snow and shivered in the near zero temperature, which was intensified by thirty-mile-an-hour winds blowing about me, I realized that no one in 2150 could possibly appreciate their climate control as much as I did. I thought of all the ages that man had struggled against the elements of nature in order to find food, shelter, and security from attack by animals-or his fellow man. I thought how much longer it was going to take before man would learn to cooperate enough to eliminate even this problem. Cooperation had always been the solution, the answer. But it takes the long view-the Macro view-to see the benefits of cooperation. From the short-term view-the micro view-man can only get the things he wants by competing for them and coming out the winner, while his fellow man comes out the loser. This conflict, this competition, this lack of cooperation always results, both individually and internationally, in division into two groups-the "haves" and the "have nots."

Looking up I realized that I had walked further than I intended for the student union and coffee shop was less than a block away. I crossed the street and entered the student union where I warmed myself as I considered the plight of the hundred and some other students gathered there.

While most of them were between the ages of 18 and 22, there were also several about my own age or older. I couldn't help but think how different these students were from those of 2150. The physical differences of sheer size and appearance were the most obvious, but it was the psychological differences that really hit me.

These students of 1976 reflected the fear, suspicion, anxiety, belligerence, prejudice, alienation, and general unawareness of the culture they were raised in. Yet they had almost all evolved to a level where they were a lot more friendly and open than their parents, and their auras were a lot brighter and less muddied, too. "Hey! I'm seeing auras!" I thought triumphantly.

I was almost instantly humbled by the sudden realization that this is about how my aura looked to the people of 2150 with my 20th-century biases and anxieties.

With this thought in mind I grinned and, leaving the warmth of the building, headed for home. I stopped at a supermarket to replenish our supply of bacon and eggs.

In spite of the snowstorm the store was filled with middle-aged women and a few elderly men. The vitality and enthusiasm of the students were absent here. These people had all the fears and uncertainties of the students but none of their compensating joy and friendliness. They seemed to be colorless, worn-out automatons who had found a dull little rut into which they sank a little deeper with each passing year until it became their grave.

The narrow, rigid life patterns of micro man were designed by him to avoid failure. In the long run, though, they merely served to convince him of his inadequacy to deal with the world outside of his little self-constructed prison.

As I walked down between the aisles of groceries thinking these thoughts, a small child of 4 or 5 came running around a corner, tripped, and fell sprawling at my feet.

Without thinking, I automatically picked up the now sobbing child and held her in my arms to comfort her. The cries vanished immediately and I realized that I was holding a heavily booted and snow suited little girl. She had just begun to return my big smile with a shy one of her own when she was rudely jerked out of my arms by an anxious, thin-lipped woman whose eyes were narrowed with anger.

"How dare you put your dirty hands on my little girl!" she screeched. "You nasty beast!"

"But, Madam..." I began, "I was just..."

"I know what you were 'just' doing," she accused loudly, clutching the child to her. "You were attempting to molest my daughter. I saw you, and I want you to know there are laws to take care of people like you!"

By this time her caterwauling had attracted a sizable number of other shoppers who stared suspiciously at me.

The little girl's mother continued to shriek imprecations and threats at me till I felt it was impossible to say anything believable in my own defense. It was impossible for me to do anything except stare at her, transfixed by the ghastly aura surrounding her. It was like an ugly, spitting red fire blotched with sickly yellow-greens.

At that moment the store-manager appeared and, sensing the possibility of violence, grabbed my arm and began pulling me toward the back of the building explaining to the shoppers that he would take care of me and see that I was turned over to the proper authorities.

Back in his office, as I showed him my student identification card and explained for the third time that I was just comforting the child, he was still looking rather uncertainly at me. Finally, obviously deciding that he didn't want the inconvenience of dealing with the police, he let me go out the back of his store with the warning that he never wanted to see me in his store again.

If I had needed an incident to dramatically reveal the differences between 1976 and 2150 I had certainly gotten it. In the micro world of 1976 every stranger was a potential threat of theft, rape, murder, or some other catastrophe. Since micro man was blindly unaware of most of his own motivations, he was also blind to those of others. If only they could have seen my aura or read my mind, I thought it would have been impossible for them to misunderstand my intentions or fear me. But, lacking this greater awareness, they must judge others by surface appearance and through the fog of their own fears, anxieties, and guilts.

What would have happened to me, I wondered, if I had been wearing the long hair, beard, and battered looking garments so popular with some of my fellow students. I'd probably be sitting in jail by now with little hope of convincing a middle-aged judge or jury that I wasn't a sex fiend and either an anarchist or communist to boot.

I walked back toward our apartment as quickly as my artificial leg would carry me, having had enough of micro man and his supermarkets for one day. I preferred the cold bitterness of the elements to the savage paranoia of micro man.

Back at the apartment I found myself closing and automatically locking our door behind me. Oh, lord, I thought, I'm a great one to condemn micro man for being paranoid.

It was true. I didn't feel safe here in 1976, and I desperately missed the clean, lovely countryside and the happy serenity and loving kindness of Delta 927, only 174 years in the future.