Greetings from the 21st Century! Thursday, March 14th 2024 to be precise – a wet and foggy day. My name is Riana and I’m a 43 year old woman from Leeds, a city in the United Kingdom; which is of course that small, rabbit-shaped island just west of, and previously part of, Europe. It may surprise you if I tell you that I was not born a woman. You may wonder, you in your future, less developed world (reundeveloped?), how someone born a male can become a woman. That isn’t the least of it and if you’re recoiling at the thought–ready to set this letter on fire–I implore you to read on, for I feel that you will learn something of great importance by the end of your little foray into the past.
I am sat here next to my boyfriend, Ingemar, who is a Swede. No! Not a vegetable but a person born in the country we call Sweden, though no doubt by the time you read this, Sweden will have either been swallowed by rising sea levels or changed to a better name at the very least. Anyway, I am here in Sweden, which is a heavily forested country with a cold climate and not much to do except walk in forests and take fikas (a sort of coffee meeting with cinnamon buns). I’m here visiting Ingemar who is indeed a biological male and natural-born Swede. We are not married but have been in a relationship for almost one year now.
Five days ago I travelled by aeroplane–a large flying machine powered by jet fuel and capable of carrying upwards of 200 people through the clouds to foreign countries; a sort of mechanical bird we’ll say–to visit my boyfriend here in Sweden. The trip takes no more than two hours and other than the long waits, ridiculously expensive food and drinks, inconsiderate passengers, and tedious shuffle through security and immigration lines, it’s really quite fun and stress free!
At the time of this writing, every person wishing to travel between countries must hold a valid passport, issued by the government of their home country. It may be difficult to understand this concept, considering that civilization has all but disintegrated into anarchy in your time, but think of a passport as a kind of key, emblem, or token that gives you safe passage in foreign lands. You see, the world I live in has been divided up into nations, each with their own language, culture, currency, cuisine, religion, likes and dislikes, et cetera. But more on that later.
I am writing this letter from out little home, which is just big enough for two people – two very patient people – to live in. The house was built by Ingemar around five years ago, and he has been living in it ever since. It’s a mobile home built atop a strong steel frame with two wheels for the purpose of moving it from one place to another. Despite that, we do not plan on moving it anytime soon as Ingemar has found a nice little spot in Dösölycka which itself is located in Åskloster, which itself is located in Varberg, which itself is located in Sweden, which itself is located in Europe, which itself is located on Earth.
Anyway, Dösölycka is basically just a field surrounded by trees on all sides. One can enter this field by a rough dirt road that leads up from the main entry road that leads up from the highway. You won’t see many people here, except the occasional dog walker, jogger, or curious bird watcher as there is also an eagle’s next just north of here surrounded by marsh and scrub land. In short, the place we live in is a place of natural beauty and remotely located, something I’m keen to show off on social media but you don’t know what that is nor ought you to. Don’t let it ruin your life as it has mine.
Anyway, as I said before, I don’t live here but I’m merely visiting. I’ve come here for two weeks of R&R and to spend time doing meaningful things with my boyfriend such as rolling around under the bed sheets, on the table, above the bed sheets and anywhere else that takes our fancy. The truth is, that people thousands of years ago weren’t any less basic than you are so don’t feel too bad about it. To you reading this letter, you may find it inconceivable when I tell you that we are in a “looooong-distaaaaance” relationship, meaning that we only actually spend a couple of months physical time together each year, hence the haste to hop under the bed sheets.
So how do we stay in touch the rest of the time? You may ask. Well, you see, we have these special communication devices called mobile phones, cell phones, smart phones, or simply phones. These handy little devices make it possible to communicate with people anywhere in the world at the click of a button. We can send special letters called text messages that fly across the sky in just a matter of seconds, then land in the phone of the intended recipient–all being well! We can even see the person on the screen, which is hand-sized and easily fits in your pocket, if you have pockets. Almost every man, woman, and child on Earth has one of these devices and current estimates put the world population at over 8 billion; that’s 8 plus a whole lotta zeros.
To not own a phone in 2024 is your equivalent of not having a leaf to hide your hairy little triangle, and anyone who doesn’t own one feels pretty damned left out; as though everyone else is at a fantastic party which you can see and hear but never join. These are mostly the people who make the phones for us, adding a note of irony to it but hey, someone has to do it! It’s true, we live in a very sorry age of human history. A time of overpopulation, pollution, reckless mining for mineral ores and fossil fuels. We’re all fighting wars over liquid dinosaur bones to power our four-wheeled….. horses. I’ll perhaps drip feed that one to you slowly over the course of the rest of this letter.
So here I am, writing with a pen, which is sort of a preloaded quill. I’m writing it in my notebook – one of millions upon billions of notebooks manufactured each year from tree pulp. The humble tree has been cut down by the jungle load to feed our need for writing paper, toilet paper, cardboard, fuel, timber, and all kinds of crap. It’s a miracle there are even any trees left and yet, here they are! The resilient little fuckers. Those poor trees can’t runaway–can’t fight back! They just stand there, growing in the same spot, patiently inching their way towards the sunlight: day after day, year after a year until a lucky few make it 20–30–40–50 feet and more into the air. Hell, I don’t know. I’m not a scientist or whatever but they’re big! And they’re important! And we all know it’s wrong to cut them down on such a mass scale but none of us can stop it. On the one hand we decry the crime of deforestation and on the other we reach for a wad of toilet paper to clean our bum hole (Yes, we clean our bums with paper). We have passed the point of no return. There’s no way of stopping the wagon of capitalism, which thunders downhill, uncontrollably towards its inevitable self-initiated destruction at the bottom. We’re doomed here, back in 2024. You might find it hard, living in a world without shopping malls but please, be careful what you wish for.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. There are a few people left, myself included, who actually give a damn about this beautiful planet we have been so kindly gifted by……. whoever or whatever you believe in; I’m not going there. Anyway, the point is, what I’m really trying to say is that you guys have a chance NOT to make the same mistakes we did. NOT to get caught up in that ambiguous venture called Progress. If you ask my advice, stick to clubbing animals and cooking them on open fires; it might seem pretty crude and a lot of hard work but if you could see the shit we’ve gotten ourselves into back here in the past, you’d pass a law to have intelligent people put to death. Just stay dumb. It works for the animals. Look at the birds, the fish, the insects! Sure, they’re super dumb but at least they live in harmony with nature. Go take a long look in a mirror…. no, I mean a reflective surface; a lake will do. You see that ugly moron staring back at you? Yeah, that was a mistake. A freak of nature that was never meant to happen. So if you have any crazy ideas about circular objects, just wash them clean out of your mind. Go back to your cave, kiss your ugly mug of a husband and go to bed happy. Oh, and don’t forget to burn this letter; you never know what might happen if it falls into the wrong hands.
Finally, I’d just like to say, it’s been real nice knowing you, I mean you’ve been a pal really–a friend. Perhaps the only person who has ever read my soppy prose, so thank you–I really mean it. But despite all that, forget everything I just told you. Don’t go around inventing aeroplanes or none of that nonsense. Just stick to good old-fashioned eating, sleeping, and pooping. Those are the only things you’ll ever need to live a successful and fulfilling life. Good luck. You’ve got this!
Yours truly,
The woman from the past who wasn’t born a woman but now is a woman or at least partially a woman – Riana.
P.S I can’t have babies but I can go through the motions.
P.P.S It has occurred to me that you may wish to reply to my letter, which is of course impossible. Therefore, considering the one-way communication between us, and the fact that we will never have another chance to speak, I’d like to end this letter with these final words: Pawn to E4.
P.P.P.S I realize that wasn’t very sportswomanly of me so I take it back and offer my sincerest apology. JK. FU. LOL. XD.
P.P.P.P.S If any of your sons are called Elon, they must die–those little fuckers are trouble with a capital T!
See ya later alligator 🙂