A Study in Alternate Realities #2: Cybertruck or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the crisis

Reality Pond Displacement Value: 0

It was getting hot early in the season. I think it was only the second market of the summer but the streets were feeling like they were charging quickly for their habitual urban heat effect. As is my manner, I was displacing myself from one market to another, to keep the gears greased and the crew pastry fed. I had stopped at a light on Hiawatha. One of those lights that take a minute. My windows were down. It was hot, as mentioned, but not deadly. And the air conditioning in the van was pretty subpar to boot, so what’s the point.

With the windows down I heard a voice: “Hey!”

I didn’t assume that anyone might be addressing me, but I should have. All the other windows of all the other cars were up with a climate controlled interior, save one.

“Hey!…..HEY!!!”

I looked to my right. Two lanes away some guy had targeted the only other person with their window down in his vicinity.

“Hey!! Dude!! LOOK!! Cyber truck!!”

I looked at him baffled. He pointed past and ahead of me, “Cyber truck, dude! Have you seen one yet!?”

His excitement was palpable and I looked in the direction he was pointing. There it was, in the left turning lane opposite. It was given a green light and started making it’s turn. It crossed both our paths looking like a disqualified pinewood derby car made out of a brick wrapped in tinfoil.

“Dude!! Have you seen one yet. Whoa?!”.

I hadn’t.

I saw it.

I felt underwhelmed.

I looked back at him and shrugged. “I’m mean…whatever.”

He shot me a sour look. Our light turned green. He hit the gas leaving a cloud of smoke that would never have passed emissions back in the day.

I sat there for a second thinking, “Here is another human, just trying to be excited about something with another human, and I just…couldn’t do it. What’s my problem?  Why am I such a killjoy?”

Reality Pond Displacement Value: 132

I was sitting at red light on Hiawatha for what was already feeling like an eternity. It was hot. Way hotter than it really had the right to be. It was 9 am and the pavement had already reached carrying capacity. I had already reached carrying capacity!  But my air-conditioner was busted, so my windows were down. That’s what you get with these older models. “That’s it” I thought, “This’ll be the day that gets me.”

Apparently someone else’s air-conditioner wasn’t working either, because there was a guy sitting in his wide open Impala, and despite the heat, he was drumming excitedly on the steering wheel. He seemed genuinely exuberant. He saw me looking at him and he turned his gaze another few degrees from were he had been looking to engage with me.

“Dude…I can’t believe it dude. Look over there in that turn lane! It’s a freakin’ CYBER truck dude!! Can you believe it?! Look!”

He pointed past me to the opposite turn lane.

“Have you seen one yet, dude?”

I hadn’t. But I was about to.

The truck in question had been given a green arrow and it began to make it’s turn, clumsily entered our view. I don’t necessarily want to describe what I saw that day, but if I were pressed, I would say that it looked like a DeLorean that had hit a deer on a country road at 2 am, but went home to sleep it off. However, after having awaken the next morning, the DeLorean realized what it had done, and felt guilty. Not a guilt about the dead deer per say, but more like the “What will the others think if they discover that it was me?” kind of guilty. So the hungover DeLorean returned to the scene of the crime to cover up the evidence. Unfortunately for the rest of us, upon arriving it realized that it was not able to effectively and without suspicion relocate the long dead mammal to a discreet resting place. Thus, as a desperate plan b, it engaged it’s on board transmogrifier to merged its stainless steel body with the already bloated deer carcass, thus becoming…Cybertruck. Again…if I were pressed.

We both watched it go by. His eyes were open wide.

“Dude…I feel like we are seeing the future. I feel like…like everything is going to be okay. Right…dude?”

I looked down at my foot, pressed solidly on the brake. A drop of sweat rolled down my face and jumped off the edge of my nose onto the worn rubber mat below

“So” I said not yet looking at him, “I think that’s part of it right? We…we are supposed feel some sort of…some kind of…hope…seeing that thing. Like we are part of some sort of futuristic arrival or…something. And…I get it, I do…I think. Or…I want to…but I guess that…” I was finally able to take my gaze off my foot and look at my fellow busted air conditioner cohort. The sweat came faster. “Look…like…we’ve been promised a lot, right? The future was supposed to be some…bright shining city on the hill or some awful thing. And all this time I thought that we were going to do something…like something real. Didn’t you? I mean, I thought with the enormity of the threat and all the promises being made that we would have some…I don’t know…some policy maybe…or something…promoting sustainable transportation that would be somehow cultural and environmental at the same time. Maybe some amazing shared spaces so that we wouldn’t have to isolate in oversized houses.  Maybe..I don’t know…some agricultural policy that would respect workers while simultaneously rewarding farms that are able to effectively capture carbon in the soil so that they can continue doing so. I thought that was the type of thing that we’d get for all the hoopla. I mean…considering the situation, right?!! Considering the threat! Desperate times and all that! I wanted solutions! I wanted solutions that we could all feel good about! That we could work on together! I wanted a rewilding! I wanted migratory routes and prairies and goddamn solidarity! I wanted…I wanted…SOMETHING!”

The heat was filling my lungs and my face faucet was turning itself wide open. I would have cried, but all resources were being redirected for cooling. He was looking blankly back at me. The thing in question was long gone. He was sweating more now too.

“And what do we get to keep us…to keep us…what! Hoping?! What do we get?! US? What do WE GET?! We get THAT! A goddamn tin monstrosity with tinker toy wheels!!”

He looked back at me. Our light had long turned green, and all the climatized vehicles full of cooler heads behind us had started to honk. I was too hot and exhausted to feel their pressure. I looked at him with desperation. I looked to him for some acknowledgement. I leaned forward and my lungs rattled as they grasped at oxygen.

“Dude”, he said slowly and shook his head, “You are such a killjoy.”

Reality Pond Displacement Value: 1057

It was a good day. I mean, I suppose that could depend on who you ask. It always does. For me, it was a good day. Actually, they are all good, so maybe I should say that is was a particularly good day. I’ve only had a handful bad ones really, if I’m being honest. And most of those I don’t even remember. I look around and I see so many unhappy people and I just think, get it together man. You can have a good day too. Anyway, this day was, again, particularly good because I had just woken up to some great news and I was on my way to celebrate with my “partners in crime” (I call them that, but I assure you, everything is above board). Our IPO had broken all records! We were going from amazing to astronomical overnight! I have always felt unstoppable, but that day, I was feeling…untouchable!

Anyhow, on this specific, life changing for the even better than good good day, I was sitting at a traffic light, and…being the gentleman that I am, always… I was waiting patiently for it to turn green. Certainly it’s true that I’ll sometimes run the red. I mean…rules are meant to be broken after all. But if no one gets hurt, no harm no foul, am I right? But I decided to be patient this day. It was an another busy day out on the roads for one, but I was also content to be right where I was. I was feeling good to be on my way somewhere for all the right reasons! See, not everyone on the road was even going anywhere in particular! It was, as is quite the norm, an extreme heat day. Not everyone has a private power provider. That is just not feasible. And the old electric grid is so terribly outdated. So, when the heat gets to be too much, everyone just goes for a drive for as long as they can with the climate control cranked.  I mean, for some people, that’s their only choice! To enclose themselves in their car with the climate control on is the only place they are safe! And happy, of course!! Safe and happy.

Well, I think I really knew that this wonderful day was going to arrive because I had made a very rash decision several days prior. You’ll never guess!! I bought myself a RoboWheeler!! But not just any RoboWheler! A none production model!! Concept even. See, Erlan and I go back a little and well, life is good for both of us. He gave me the inside track on this baby. Thing. is. a. Beauty!! Smooth both in drive and style. I thought it only appropriate that I drive it to my little morning rendezvous celebration. Maybe show off a little.

So there I was, sitting at the stop light on this wonderful day and beside me is this fellow with his window down, just hanging out the window and sweating like a…well, like a pig, frankly. He was hanging out the window and saying something to me. He looked a little stressed, but that was obviously from the heat. Why he wouldn’t just roll his window up and crank the AC was beyond me for a moment but then I realized that I thought I knew what he was trying to say.

See, I am particularly good at lip reading. You have to be in this line. If you are at a convention, you have to be able to know what someone is saying across a room. Whether its about a new application or someones opinion about you. You gotta be in the know. And you know,  I thought for the life of me in this particular situation that I was reading him correctly. He was seeing my new wheels and maybe me too and he wanted to share the moment. I saw that he was saying “Hey! Cool!” And why wouldn’t he be?

I gave him a big thumbs up through the window and I mouthed back “Life is good”.

But he obviously wasn’t a lip reader himself and he just kept saying the same thing and hanging out the window. Now, I don’t usually do this but it seemed so clear to me that it was really important to him that we share this moment. So, despite the oppressive and frankly dangerous heat outside I rolled down the window, ready to make my effort worth it with his praise. But I was quickly awakened to the fact that he wasn’t saying what I thought he was saying at all! He was saying, “Hey Dude!”

So I tried again. And mind you this was a REAL effort on my part. It was REALLY hot out. I said the same thing that I did before. I gave hit the thumbs up and said “Life is good!”

And you know what he did? He winced kinda like he was in pain and he said “Hey dude!! You look like an idiot in that thing!!”

Well, you better believe I shot him an ice cold look, a real chiller (probably even cooled him off a couple degrees) as I rolled my window back up. I had done my best. Why would I give it any more effort? I don’t have time for these killjoys.