Confessions from speculative fiction tragic;

A flight of fancy.
Confessions from speculative fiction tragic;
Tuesday July 16th 2017. It had been a good day for Big Al our 55 year old protagonist from Wisconsin, all was well in his home town of Fennimore.  His company ‘The Lawnmower Man”  had just landed a fat contract, his work team were reliable  and he was now well due for that trip to Central Australia’s Red Heart that he’d dreamt about for ages.
He’d ‘done’ the Great barrier reef “Taste” tour but man most of the coral was bleached to monochrome or smashed to pieces by the extraordinary wind and wave battering thrown Northern Australia's’ way now that climate change was picking up speed. Ocean acidification wasn’t helping the coral either.  Climate refugees were also arriving in ever greater throngs to Australia's Northern beaches and he’d heard some rumors of frustrated hungry mobs looting shops in Cairns.

No, he’d stick with the Alice and its unique geographical legacy; it wasn’t overly troubled by whacky coastal weather; tsunamis, cyclones and sea rise situations hardly affected the Alice and a town with only 12 sets of traffic lights was mighty appealing, in a quaint sort of way.

He donned his ‘sense-suit’ settled into his multi-purpose recliner 'modded' for Augmented Reality  simulations and taken his augmentation med 20 mins ago [a weak mix of Rohypnol, Pentothal and Psyilocibin]. He felt relaxed and easy as he prepared to ‘let go’ his real self and transfer his cognitive identity into his Avatar.  Avatar Transitions were becoming easier with every psy-ware trip he’d made,  much as the experience with those  old computer generated “Magic Eye” prints that were around back then. His avatar body came up on his goggles and as objects touched ‘his’ avatar his chair made corresponding contact simulations, in a willing semi-hypnotic consensual transaction Big Al senses quiescently drifted into cyberspace. Once you got the hang of it it became second nature… ‘Wetware’ jacks were emerging but he couldn’t yet reconcile himself having to undergo 3 hours of Neurogenic surgery to interface with the machine 1 on 1. With similar laudable resolve he always ‘traveled’ sans cod-piece preferring the gravitas laden embrace of his wife and soul-mate these last 35 years, Lois.

With his ‘auto-cue’ prepped to jolt him back to reality in 90 mins he set sail, rocketed off actually, for the vistas of the NT’s Red Centre Way.  Morphing the rocket into a late model humvee from an altitude of about 2Km he achieved a leisurely 200KPH touchdown along the larapinta Drive Highway.  He’d set his NT entry time for sunrise and the Western Macs looked brilliant in the soft glow.  A quick jet-pack detour to the summit of Mount Gillen left him geographically orientated with the caterpillar like procession of these ancient ranges heading Westerly.  In a typically unreal time he was at Simsons Gap heritage precinct.  A new ‘scent of spinnifex’ was available from Odourphonics and the chipset in his recliner dutifully mixed the requisite chemicals and flash burned them to give him a pungent yet stimulating  synthetic approximation. A desert art painting took his fancy and he bought this also. Stroking the virtual Bearded Dragon lizard lounging on the rock didn't feel so real, the sense glove wasn't all it was cracked up to be... he should have shelled out that bit extra for the latest 'sense-suit', when he got back maybe.
Some time later as he stood in awe on the Western rim of Gosse’s Bluff he heard the familiar ‘re-entry’ primer-phonics signaling the sessions close, 3 minutes later he emerged into the late evening of Fennimore Wisconsin. The enjoyable ‘Taste’ tour was so impressive he’d even booked the “Full Regular Reality Tour” from the rim of Gosse’s Bluff.  A short drive to Madison airport tomorrow and he and Lois were on their way, really.