A Day in the Life of the 21st Century

“When I wake up, an automatic breakfast machine will cook breakfast. I take my own linear motor car (the roads are studded with magnets and the cars use magnetic power, which can run fast but eco-friendly) to work. Once I return home, I play with my pet (I want a wolf for a pet). Probably the pets would have artificial intelligence and become tamed so they won’t be dangerous. I eat dinner and watch television, which is high-tech with a 3-D screen and looks real. Then I go to sleep.”

Hideyuki Otsuki, Japan

“I would be awakened by the sound of my children playing laser tag. (When you play laser tag it can burn a hole though you if you press the kill button.) So I run downstairs and try to stop them but it was too late. Jake already had a hole through his right hand. So I say, ‘Jake and Angel, what have I told you about playing with Daddy’s toys?’

“Then Angel looks at me and says, ‘Jake made me do it!’

“ ‘Never mind, Jake, your hole will heal soon. Anyway, Jake, Angel, go into the school machine, and here are today’s subjects.’ I hand them a computer chip with their subjects.

“ ‘You’re probably wondering what a school machine is. Well, a school machine is a machine where a person goes in it and all this information goes into your brain. The machine knows what information to give you by the computer chip you put in it.”

Sarah Hudson, United States

“The alarm will spring me up and here will come my robot to take me to my pill concocter. I will eat these pills as my only breakfast. Rushing in the street with all the cars, I have to hurry to the rocket . . . for Mars. There will be my school, where I will take one microchip. It will take a little time, as little as a soft drink sip. I will go to the time machine to study history and I will take a flight to learn geography. Then I will come to my good old Earth; it will look as beautiful as a child looks after its birth. I will play with my friends, hide and seek. I will take the power of invisibility and sneak under their noses. At last is my homework, which I will do on the Internet, and after that I will sleep. . . .”

Abhimanyo Krishna, India

“It’s 9:30 a.m. on June 18, 2036. I got up and sat in the armchair that smoothly carried me into the bathroom. I pushed a button. A toothpaste tube and toothbrush popped out of the drawer. I cleaned my teeth, washed and went into the kitchen. I opened the menu and pushed a button across from the selection ‘pudding made of other-planetary products.’ I didn’t manage to touch the pudding before a ringing began from the device that allows you to speak as on a telephone but also to see the person you’re speaking with. As I went to the device I thought: ‘My work is very hard. First I travel, and travel is dangerous. Then I study planets and return home.’

‘Reaching the device, I pushed a button, turned on the screen and then picked up the receiver. It was my boss. He said: ‘At 12 you need to be on Mars.’ The screen went blank, and the receiver starting beeping.

“I shot out of my house only at 11. I sat in the electric car and got to the cosmoport in 10 minutes. I sat in the first spaceship to appear and was on Mars at 12. I wasn’t home all day. When I returned, my pudding was still sitting all by itself on the table.”

Pavel Zemsky, Russia