Elections
are just around the corner, relatively speaking, and things are
pretty crazy. I have taken it upon myself to become an educated
citizen of these great United States as well as a responsible voter.
The
dark side of becoming informed is that I have become increasingly
cynical. Every time I watch the news or turn on the radio, I find
myself wanting to return to the good old days back when I was a
little kid without a care in the world.
Unfortunately,
time travel is not a viable technology, which has forced me to
consider more practical solutions. Thankfully, after careful
consideration, a solution has in fact presented itself. It is very
simple and entails three easy steps:
1)
Locate a small, uninhabited, tropical island on Google Maps.
2)
Canoe out to the island.
3)
Live there for the rest of my life.
Simple,
eh?
It
will be glorious. I will canoe out to that island. I will eat
coconuts and tilapia all day. I will swim with dolphins and play with
the Humboldt Squid. I will fish with spears and dive for abalone, and
I will live like a king.
In
the long hours of the night, I will compose sonatas in my head and I
will rise in the morning to write them in the sand, and then watch
the tide wash them away forever as the sun sets.
I
will carve chess pieces from coconut shells and play against myself
for weeks until Bobby Fischer himself descends from Heaven to say,
“Hey, you did it, kid. You're one of the greats now.”
We'll
sit down and have lunch, Bobby and I, and play a friendly game of
chess. After a nice long chat, he'll wave goodbye, promise to visit
again, and depart as he arrived. He won't return of course, he'll be
too busy practicing for when Boris Spassky kicks the bucket to
remember to visit me. But it's the thought that counts.
I
will tally the passage of days on a rock that I will have named
Sunny. Every year, as close to my birthday as I can guess, I will
build a raft from palm leaves and drift wood and contemplate sailing
back to civilization, before pushing it out into the current. I will
watch it drift away until it disappears across the horizon. Then I
will return to my hut and eat a delicious dinner of tilapia-coconut
stew before lying down on the sand to watch the stars before drifting
off to sleep, without a worry or care in the world.
Of
course there are downsides. Canoes are expensive. And I can only
imagine how quickly I would get sick of eating tilapia and coconut.
Plus chess gets boring really quickly. And truth be told, I don't
think Humboldt squid are particularly playful. Also, who can really
say the French ever really stopped testing nukes in the South
Pacific?
I
guess I just have to admit my idea is probably flawed. But there are
always other options.
Cryogenics
for example. Ol' Disney had the right idea. Who needs time travel
when you can simply wait for the World of Tomorrow to come to you?
After all, a harmless bit of freezer burn never hurt anyone.
Right?
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