Saving the World From Tech Addiction

Chapter 1

Hey there! I am Perseus Annora Jackson. But, you can call me Percy. Are you wondering why you are having a healthier lifestyle compared to your ancestors? Well, I am the reason of course. I am sure that your history textbook has information about people playing video games, chatting with each other, and doing so many fun things then after that in few generations away people just lived a sedentary life with robots to do everything for them! So have you ever wondered why there is lesser technology now? Well, only I know all about it. If you can keep what I will say as a secret I will tell you.

Chapter 2

Well what happened is all because of me, but of course, it was for a good cause. You are in the year 4058 with good health, active and a good social life. But whereas 1000 years before, when I was there, the whole world was a complete disaster with everything malfunctioning because the robots were all working and the humans were sitting in armchairs cuddling cute little plushies. There were many problems everywhere. Robots would feed us food, make us lazier and do so many easy go things. They could have poison us if they clean the dishes or if they don’t prepare the food properly. We were all very fat and many of us were very obese. We all were like little balls, the robots were playing with. I never really liked living a useless life, I wanted to live a life of hard work. Only the thought of hard work like my ancestors, made me happy. So I decided that I would get rid of those lousy robots some way or the other, even if it was when I become an old man with a long snowy white beard growing to my legs. That was when, I started my long and hectic journey.

Chapter 3

My great-great-grandfather had told me the secret story of the great and ancient Time Machine built by his grandfather. To find the majestic time machine, I would have to find the Spanish phrase hidden in his favourite book. My great-great-grandfather knew it was my destiny to find the time machine, so he let me into the secret. He told me, which book was his grandfather’s favourite book. His favourite book was….One second, pause the story! I want a drumroll here, please. Thank you! It is… dum dum dum the Dictionary! But he did not know which word to check. He had asked me to remember that his grandfather was Spanish.

Chapter 4

I was determined to find the word. I quickly ran to my library , dodging all the lunatic robots and snatched the oldest Spanish dictionary in the shelf and flipped through the pages. I noticed something funny. Few Spanish words were underlined with a HB pencil. It had faded a bit but I could see it. I joined those words together and it formed “ La puerta de fachada.” Which means the front door in Spanish. That was when I pieced it together. I was supposed to find the time machine some where in the front door. I ran to the front door as fast as lightning, excited. The front door looked normal but the numberplate was different from other’s number plate. We could keep changing the number written on the number plate. Now I understand why we used to get other’s Amazon parcels! Those notorious robots! They probably malfunctioned and did that! They used to write other’s number plate numbers and steal other’s Amazon packages! We are so sorry incase one of them was yours! “GULP”. See what technology can do! After that our neighbours called us thieves.

Chapter 5

Close to the numbers, I saw a small device nailed to it. And there was one queer thing. It asked me for a password. I slowly got it. If I entered the password and changed the number according to the year I want to go to, I would go to that year. But without the password I would not be able to. I racked my brains and thought hard. Then I decided to try the clue that I had gotten from the dictionary. I typed in “ La puerta de fachada.” I typed in the year of when technology was first invented and BOOM! I was surrounded by rainbow coloured UV light. All of a sudden, my surroundings changed and soon I was on a dusty road. I was in the year 1937. I was excited and wanted to know what to do. Nobody spoke DigiEnglish or any other languages that I knew for that matter. I felt lost and alone. What was I supposed to do? The money was different so I couldn’t buy food or water. Then I realised, I could use the old Barter system technique that I had read in encyclopedias.1 I found an old horse walking on the rickety street. I lured the horse to me by tempting it with oatmeal that I found in my big hairy beard. BINGO! The horse slowly came towards me and allowed me to ride it, to a nearby farm. In the distance, I could see the Blissful Acres Farm. I rode the horse all the way, and slid off his hairy back in a hurry because the farmer was leaving the field.

Chapter 6

I yelled out, “ Ay! Farmer!”. The man turned around and tilted his head dumbly. He flicked his moustache and whipped the horse and studied it carefully as though it was some unknown creature. He ran into the farm and came out with some freshly laid eggs and a sack of money. I realised that people in this year had already invented money. But fortunately they still understood the, concept of barter system, since I never had any form of money that was used here. I studied the money carefully and saw the face of the well known Abraham Lincoln, that I had read about in th books famous personalities.

Chapter 7

Happy, that I finally got money to buy food, water and all the things needed to destroy technology and do some good to the world. Little did I know how hard the journey was going to be. I sang a merry tune and trotted along to a nearby shop. I was awe-struck by the amount of stuff, people had back then. First, I bought some juicy apples that were freshly harvested unlike the frozen ones that we got in the period that I had come from. They were brightly red, crunchy and juicy. Now I understand why they used to say an apple a day keeps the doctor away. The frozen apples that I have eaten, have only got my throat sore. Then I found a stationery store filled with a lot of fancy peculiar things like papers in different sizes, inks, pens, pencils of different types, erasers, colour pencils and paints. I have never used a tool to write or paint so there was no need for erasers to make any corrections. I typed everything on the computer and used the pre-set fonts that were available and used the font colours or fill colour options to add colour to a picture. So, I bought some, thick parchment and an ink pen to execute my plan. I had to sketch my plan out first before I bought anything else. I was used to DigiDrawing so it took a while for me to hold a pencil and draw. To hold the parchment in position while trying to draw. Writing was another big task. I was glad that I had taken a summer workshop on medieval language writing course. So I could try to understand some of their writings. DigiEnglish helped me out in one single way. Nobody would be able to understand what I wrote and my sly plans. I grinned and flashed my shiny white teeth with sky blue braces. I only needed a disguise. I am sure you know what I intended to do. My plan was to wear a disguise and enter the house of the person who was going to invent the very first digital device , which is none other than Vivu Boyd. I had to stop him or make him create some policies to treasure some of the good old style of doing everything.

Chapter 8

My disguise is a funky clown outfit. I am going to barge into Vivu Boyd’s house during the Harvest festival in town and yell “ Woo! You won 100 dollars! Come get it now!” and distract him, then I shall search the whole house for the blueprint of the computer and then give him the sack the Farmer gave me. Then, I will burn the blueprint. I will blow Fog My Brain Powder on his face and run out. He won’t suspect a thing because It will fog his brain. No one will have a wondrous idea like that again and digital technology will be unknown throughout the whole world! Everybody just takes pride in their inventions without being mindful about the consequences eventually.

Chapter 9

“Now to activate my plan! I painted my face, put on the costume and took all my stuff and left to Vivu’s house. The town was decorated and buzzling with fun activities for all young and old. I banged open the door and yelled at the top of my voice “Woo! You won 100 dollars! Come get it now!” Vivu was a very weird looking man. He rushed out ,his shaggy beard sweating. He didn’t understand anything but he snatched the bag and stared at it as though hypnotised. Never did I know that people valued money so much that they loose their mind. I looked all around the room and found the blueprint on the floor. I took it and made sure it was the right one and threw it into the fireplace. The fire gobbled it up mercilessly! The wax parchment melted and only residue was left of it. Then I ran and stood in front of the man, blew the powder and ran out. See what the intentions have done to him finally.

Chapter 10

“Muahahaha! I did it! The blueprint is gone. Now I have saved the world! Now nobody will be tech addicted. Yay! But I have one big problem. I had forgotten where to go, to get back to the year 4058! How unfortunate! I searched all around this little town and I just could not find the time machine. I checked all of the front doors, peered at the number plates. But, nope, zip, nada! I could not find it! Saddened, I sat down on a rusty old armchair. That was when I decided to stay back here. It would do me some good. I took up a career in writing and wrote all about my adventures which is what you are reading now! I hope you like it…….Good bye, and I hope you think of me as a hero and not a party pooper. Bye!”

“Life is the best when it is simple,

Until you know that the innovations

Have taken over your life,

And controls you!”