Shadows

Posted on 2. May 2025fiction, short story

There are those who watch, those who act, and those who think they are in charge. Greetings from 2043.

I’m sitting here reading s-mails, even though it’s more than old-fashioned, but at 83, one is allowed to be nostalgic, and it is apparently expected from the highest places. There is a kind request from the authorities for me to watch what I eat. They have apparently received a message from my bank that my ice cream purchases have increased compared to the authorised standard, even though they should also have seen in the travel registry that my great-grandchild is visiting, so I can use her ice cream quota. Something has clearly gone wrong. When this is compared to the fact that my weight and urine are still normal — measured and forwarded by my toilet — someone will probably come to check why I am eating so much ice cream without it having any effect. Imagine anyone they don’t know about living at my address. Imagine me having a partner without it being registered. Chaos with the electricity ration and all. Oh dear.

Another advantage of old age is that one is automatically considered geographically stable, so I haven’t had a chip implanted in my shoulder to track my location. My great-grandchild has, and that’s why I don’t quite understand the issue with the ice cream. I’ve learned to refrain from travelling on trackable devices. Every time I travel, it adds kilometres to the bill, and if I become too mobile, then—chip, chip. Maybe she has a cheat program. I dare not ask. There’s always someone listening.

At least I have my garden to myself. I live far enough out in the country that no one bothers to count my cabbages. Out here, we’ve gone back to a barter economy since cash was banned. The cabbages can’t be controlled. At least not well enough. So, back to the Stone Age here too, and not just on the menu. Not strictly necessary — it’s more about mental hygiene. If you don’t secure yourself a corner of freedom somewhere, you die. You mind will wither until you end up like a robot. Thankfully, my old cronies include a group of encryption experts who can extract the most innocent texts from anything. I wonder if the state knows what can be hidden in a baking recipe? Still not strictly necessary, but I’ll be damned if the contents of my mind concern anyone but me or the person I’m talking to. So, it’s incredible how much I bake. In fact, I have to bake because information is checked against my purchases, so if I keep writing about muffins, I get a notice—or an unannounced visit if I don’t buy the amount of flour that matches. On top of that, a note from the health authorities, of course—all that baking isn’t good, and who is eating them anyway? Moreover, I’m not selling cakes illegally, am I? Okay — some are knitting patterns and a bit about the weather and the colour of my roses and how much they have or haven’t bloomed. It’s strange that I haven’t received a letter about being a bit too flower-obsessed, but old ladies can still be forgiven a lot, and there are quite a few of us taking advantage of that. On behalf of… I wouldn’t even write that on paper in a diary, hidden under my floorboards.

I have checked my house for hidden microphones and had someone measure that there is nothing close enough for real surveillance from the outside. Thankfully, I don’t live in a city or a new building where the floor reports how much you walk and where. ‘Hello Yrsa, you haven’t walked your 700 steps today. That’s not good for your health.’ And ‘Hey, we’re just from the state cleaning service—can we take a look at that corner you’ve suddenly become so fond of? It definitely needs extra cleaning with all that traffic.’

It’s strange how history repeats itself in peculiar ways. In the Middle Ages, one had to go to confession and tell all one’s sins. Now one doesn’t have to confess anything at all—the state knows automatically. At least it still requires electrodes on the head to see what someone is thinking, but they are probably getting a handle on that too. Then one won’t even have the inside of one’s head to oneself. But of course — why should it be any different with the brain? The rest of the body is checked; data is sent every single time one goes to the toilet, uses the fridge, or wears sports shoes, and it is already impossible to see or read anything without it being registered down to the slightest eye movement by the electronic device one is reading on.

The world became a mirror image but without reality, and ended up behind the mirror in a universe where it wasn’t a Cheshire cat but the financial world that had grinned, hanging freely in the air with something invisible and insubstantial behind it. Values became fictitious, and the pelt was sold on the idea of a possible future bear. ‘The good guys’ allowed themselves anything because they had personally defined themselves as ‘the good guys,’ and then everything is allowed, and the end justifies the means — even if it turns out that the stated goals never existed in the first place. And quietly, there was surveillance on even the smallest thought, even though half of what was being monitored was pure fiction. In the end, there was almost only pseudo left—a grin with neither cat nor laughter, only the very few who held the remote control and the real money.

Of course, there are things that go wrong. Like when you get a hearing aid (I refused an implant) where it’s not just you who hears everything. And you can’t just stuff it in a lead box and forget about it because then it won’t move. So, you have a friend who writes an ‘old lady’ program that sends some plausible data while the device otherwise lets me hear what I need. Still, on principle.

I can’t help but wonder where all that data ends up. At least half of it is fictitious. Like mine or because people no longer live their own lives, and there is so much of it, no one can check anything. There is probably a programmer laughing somewhere because she wrote a reality program that posts plausible data while the real data is deleted. Some people must have a suspicion but say nothing because it’s so much easier to keep schtum. So, everyone has the reality they want, and there are only the flickering reflections of what could have been left. Pure Maya. Pure illusion without substance. Quantum reality as macro reality. It’s been a long time since it was discovered that there are no particles—only states. I hadn’t expected that it could be transferred to what we normally call reality, but it seems so. There are only states—nothing that has them. There is nothing inside. Facades without houses. One walks around a bit and waits for it to say ‘poof,’ and everything dissolves into a rainbow of flickering light.

It’s strange to experience a one-party system here. Not that anyone is being persecuted—at least not visibly. It’s more like ‘Berufsverbot,’ as in Germany once. Back then, it was called West Germany, and there was also an East with the Stasi, who used surveillance and informants. If they had known. Not the most power-hungry despot in world history has come close to the level of control the ‘defence of democracy and human rights’ has reached. Pure farce. ‘They bind our hands and mouths’ was sung over 100 years ago while the Nazis occupied Denmark, and they didn’t even get it. Now the world is more sophisticated—people are encouraged to bind themselves. No one says what they mean — you never know whom you’re really talking to or if they have an implant transmitting everything. So, you keep quiet. I wonder if anyone has considered why courses in sign language had a renaissance long after deafness could be cured? Nostalgia? Ha! But, as a historian, I can research extinct languages and read paper books totally legit. History has strangely become popular again. And art. Dan Brown’s Langdon suddenly became popular for entirely different reasons than expected.

As usual, it all started with ‘reason.’ ‘You can see that,’ and ‘it will be good for the economy,’ and ‘anyone can see for themselves,’ and ‘it is necessary for the good of the country,’ and ‘it is only to protect the citizens,’ and ‘it is for your own safety,’ etc. And, at the same time, everyone was lulled to sleep by television filled with ‘living by proxy,’ where instead of living one’s own life, one could be content to pry into others’ artificial ones, or create one’s own entirely authentic surrogate life in a ready-made alternative cyber universe, on a gaming console. Or make up an entirely authentic and real-time pretend-I’m-who-I-want-to-be sexy bitch/dude—just as fake and staged, whether one was a participant in a reality show, a fake blogger, or created extra profiles to like oneself on social media. You can’t do the latter anymore—now login only works with retina scans. But, you can still lie.

It wasn’t even clear 30 years ago when it all started what set off the strange collective paranoia. Everything had to be monitored. There was some terror as an excuse, but it wasn’t worse than in the 1970s. Quite the opposite, actually. But the USA used it as an excuse to introduce a law where they gave themselves the right to monitor, imprison, and eliminate anyone, anywhere—including foreign citizens in other countries—including in their own homes and entirely without a trial. So, they did. Not that they caught anyone. Those who really have something to hide also know how to do it. It’s the stupid, the gullible, and the indifferent who get caught. Not the professionals. ‘The enemy,’ whoever that may be, is long gone, if it ever existed. Some politicians wore mirrors in their glasses—only seeing their own illusions until they gained the power to force them onto the rest of the world and repeated McCarthyism beyond their own borders. Underneath, the alternatives existed anyway. A world in several layers. Those who watch, those who act, and those who think they are in charge. All power to the illusions.

You might wonder why I am writing in my ‘diary’ at all. Maybe because I am a historian and imagine a future where someone — hopefully freed from all this control (there is a chance — after all, all previous ‘civilisations’ have died out tries to figure out how the world once was. I would like to tell that not everything in the history books is true. Not all data is true. Even if you have everything that has been collected, listened to, monitored, watched… it is only part of the truth. Apart from the fabricated truth of course, and you probably won’t be able to see the difference. Once, it was believed that many would flee into fictional digital universes. That didn’t happen. Instead, ‘reality’ was turned into fiction. So, back to the Stone Age again. I trust the wind and the rain and the light. The grass and the cabbage and the seasons, which no one has yet been able to change. The rest — no. My fridge says good morning and tells me my health status. The data I have fed into the system, that is. Maybe I am the last one who’ll dare to die without anyone knowing. For me, it is a kind of freedom. My life is mine. Still mine. For a little bit longer, at least.

The world moves in circles. A revolution is a full turn. I got to live a real life out in reality, when it was still real. It is still there somewhere, and if I can, I will smash the mirror before it is too late. One must use one’s old age for something. I, who grew up in a quiet suburb, have now ended up as a revolutionary. I keep being told to get a hobby because it’s so healthy. If they only knew…