Pel Age (Pixel Age)

• Grace Goodman, Grade 11
• Poetry
• 2015

click.. click, click … click.
The tap of the nose-picking instrument against the eye-ball squaring pixels.
‘Sunshine: a threat to health, only exists outside the yellow walls, utilised in the 2020s.’
Word of the day scrolls across the bottom of the memory saver, few notice the banner.
There is not a sound to be heard… besides the impact of phalanges against creation keys.
Citizens sit in class-defining furniture in the monotonous hall;
Plastic, leather, wood or feather,
All positioned to create an image from above of a snake, an ‘S’.
S for Solitude.
Wake, work, type, text, eat, earn — without words, without movement, without thought.
Void of interaction, there is no longer a purpose for speech.
The millions of muscles are kept in jars of oil, preserved in the Museum for the Futile.
Mental Capacity Interpretation (MCI) technology responds to thoughts
And activates other pieces of machinery accordingly.
This progression was the catalyst to the Pel Age…
‘Screen addiction is science fiction’: the ideological regime by which society functions.
Whose government would allow this?
Glued to one position, Glued to the luminous box before them, Glued to false satisfaction.
A forgetful butterfly that chooses to destroy its beauty by squirming back into its cocoon.
That’s not what my Grandchildren want.