Illustration by Susanne Gold, Text by Steffi Maasland

Why do we collect visions of the future? You can find out here!

I sit on the edge of our time and look down through the lens. What I see there is indeed always amazing. People are sitting together, drinking tea and talking about kindness and how they can support each other. There is chatter about new ways of working, and talk shop about the importance of communication and mutual appreciation.

When people come home from work after a 2-hour day full of questions of meaning and self-realization, the first thing they do is reprimand their neighbor because his dog still doesn’t get vegan canned food and the animal doesn’t have its own room.

For dinner, there is an organic vegetable pan, for which the ingredients are picked up at the discount store. Later, the blades are devotionally sharpened, which slide the next day behind the veil of humanity between the ribs of the unpleasant competitors for the title of “Most Precious Human of the Year”.

„Do you have to watch that over and over again?” asks Luzi.

Although…the good old days. Oh, I’m getting melancholy again….”.Luzi has snuck up behind me, as she likes to do. “Just don’t let her provoke you,” I think. “Even if she keeps trying.” I put on my best fake smile and turn around. “Can I help you, madame?”

Her hot breath hits my face.

“I wanted to borrow your Retrometer for my vintage party on Saturday. Then I can use it to run some sequences from the old days over the lithium beamer. That would be a blast!” she says.
“In return, I’ll tell you what Mondi did yesterday,” she tries to entice me. I think about whether that’s a good deal and decide to ask a counter question. “Was it full again?” I venture. “Nah, only half.” she replies.

“Okay, fire away then,” I say. Luzi grins at my corny joke and says, “Well, Mondi, together with the eternally radiant Sonja, had the idea to finally put humanity to the test again.” she begins.

“Oha, that doesn’t sound good!”, I think to myself. Then I find out what happened. Sonja had been hiding all day and Mondi took her place.

Needless to say, this has massively confused people.

I see that Luzi is deliciously amused by the thought of this. She slaps herself laughing on the bare thighs and scratches herself behind ‘m left horn. I wince inwardly.

I have a presentiment of evil.

What if the people have folded? At that time, it was indeed very exhausting to get people back on track in their disorientation.

Sweat, tears, many deaths.

Especially the age of buzzword bingo was tough. Mindset preachers roamed the country like pied pipers through fairy tales. Fruit baskets were considered the hottest shit for social hygiene.
And after you sent most influencers out the revolving doors of leadership malls into the desert, you couldn’t see them coming back in disguised as corporate influencers. The world was a bunch of self-absorbed fleas, all trying to get a spot in the front row of the circus by constantly pointing bare fingers at clothed people. Those were bad times.

“Hello?!” – Luzi stomps her horse’s foot loudly on the ground.

“Are you off in distant galaxies again? Have you been listening to me at all?” she asks. Oh, crap. I had actually not listened to her a bit. “Or are you not at all proud of yourself that your many lessons from the last 100 years seem to be bearing sweet, ripe fruit?” she continues to ask. I stand up. I have to take a few steps.

“Really now, or are you trying to make fun of me?” I ask sheepishly. “If you hadn’t mentally digressed, you would have overheard what I just said and heard that your humans are really great,” Luzi scolds.”Can you say it again ?”, I ask meekly. “In my boundless goodness, I don’t want to be like that for once,” Luzi grumbles.

She tells me that it has become quiet among the people after Mondi appeared for all incomprehensible during the day on the scene and Sonja disappeared completely.
But no one cried or whined, instead everyone immediately sat down and drew a huge poster.

“Look there!” says Luzi, pointing down. I sit back down at the edge of our time and this time look down past the retrometer. I have to put on my glasses, because hundreds of years have left clear traces on me, too. And then I see the poster:

“Don’t worry, love! It won’t kill us, we have you!” I read.

I can hardly breathe. All the weight falls off me at once. I turn to Luzi and look at her with my mouth open. “Let it go, sweetheart! Everything’s fine the way it went,” she says with a wink and continues: “Since we stopped arguing all the time, I finally have time to concentrate on important things, like my vintage party.” Luzi gives me a quick peck on the side and packs up the retrometer.

Then she walks off in the direction of the party tent and, after a few steps, looks back over her shoulder at me: “You’re coming on Saturday, too, aren’t you?”