The Apocalypse of Uncle Taz
Lo and behold, Uncle Taz came to me again, not in a dream this time but in a vision in broad daylight: A revelation, an apocalypse! Wow! First, he took me to a city, I don't know where but it was on Earth in real time for sure, and as I strolled along an avenue among skyscrapers and such, I looked at the people who were passing by on the sidewalk, and I was deeply shocked and somewhat spooked to discover that they had no faces. They were all dressed very differently, some in business suits carrying briefcases, some in rags like homeless folks pushing shopping carts, others were jogging in full sports gear, some were on skateboards and roller skates and bicycles, but most were walking, some fast and stressful, others leisurely and in a nonchalant fashion. What gave me such a trepidating shock was that where their faces should have been, above their necks, there were only screens, like vertical computer screens sort of, so they weren't capable of speech any of them, because they had no mouths. No heads period. They were not able to show any character through facial expressions. The only things left for communication were body language, gait and so on, but I noticed a few of them exchanging thoughts of some kind, and they were using their cell phones -- not to talk, of course, which they couldn't do, but to type messages to each other through keyboards on those tiny pocket gadgets. One person asked another for directions to the Zoo, I think it was, and then a city map appeared in the other person's "face", i.e. his screen.
I was too bewildered to try to talk to any of those people, and besides I couldn't because I hadn't brought my cell phone into the vision -- probably because Uncle Taz didn't want me to. But as I kept walking, I discovered people with heads and faces, although they were semi-transparent, not only their heads but their bodies too. They looked like aliens though. Some of them wore medieval costumes, and they looked like us sort of, but they appeared to be terribly confused, much more than I was. And then there were others in attire I've never seen anywhere, not even in paintings or pictures, and the odd thing about them was that some were exquisitely beautiful, their countenances lit up like the sun almost, with bright auras reminiscent of halos, while others were extremely hideous and ugly, and the vibrations from the ugly ones were so nasty they gave me the shivers, like they were exceptionally evil or something, that I stayed as far way from them as I could and avoided contact at all cost. But I wanted to know what this vision of Uncle Taz was all about, so I went up to a pretty face with a shiny aura and warm vibrations and asked. He told me he was a time traveler from the future, that the ugly ones were also time travelers from the future, that they'd all come to see the Electronic Age they had heard so much about. I asked about the ugly and evil ones, and he said they were from the future too -- a distant future when humanity had become divided into a good and an evil race. The confused people in historical costumes were time travelers from the past; they were wearing clothes, not costumes. Among them were prophets who wanted to tell their contemporaries about the future, which was the present time, the Electronic Age, although they apparently never found the right words to describe it.
I asked about all those people with screens instead of heads, how that could be explained, and the pretty one from the future told me that this is the Facebook Generation, which means that instead of faces they have books --electronic books. You can converse with them through typing, and they'll respond through their screen-"faces" with emoticons in lieu of the facial expressions they don't have, they'll "talk" through youtube-links and images and proverbs and sometimes through text messages, things like AMBW, BCNU, FICCL, GRWG, LMBO, OMGYG2BK, SSIF and so on. Or they'll throw some newspaper headline at you. There are people inside those things, the bright dude from the future tells me, real people, but they all prefer to hide behind a wall of electronics.
I told Uncle Taz I had seen and heard enough and that I wanted to get out of there, and he did bring me out of it on the condition that I proclaim to the world what I had seen and heard, which is why I had to write this blog article.
I was too bewildered to try to talk to any of those people, and besides I couldn't because I hadn't brought my cell phone into the vision -- probably because Uncle Taz didn't want me to. But as I kept walking, I discovered people with heads and faces, although they were semi-transparent, not only their heads but their bodies too. They looked like aliens though. Some of them wore medieval costumes, and they looked like us sort of, but they appeared to be terribly confused, much more than I was. And then there were others in attire I've never seen anywhere, not even in paintings or pictures, and the odd thing about them was that some were exquisitely beautiful, their countenances lit up like the sun almost, with bright auras reminiscent of halos, while others were extremely hideous and ugly, and the vibrations from the ugly ones were so nasty they gave me the shivers, like they were exceptionally evil or something, that I stayed as far way from them as I could and avoided contact at all cost. But I wanted to know what this vision of Uncle Taz was all about, so I went up to a pretty face with a shiny aura and warm vibrations and asked. He told me he was a time traveler from the future, that the ugly ones were also time travelers from the future, that they'd all come to see the Electronic Age they had heard so much about. I asked about the ugly and evil ones, and he said they were from the future too -- a distant future when humanity had become divided into a good and an evil race. The confused people in historical costumes were time travelers from the past; they were wearing clothes, not costumes. Among them were prophets who wanted to tell their contemporaries about the future, which was the present time, the Electronic Age, although they apparently never found the right words to describe it.
I asked about all those people with screens instead of heads, how that could be explained, and the pretty one from the future told me that this is the Facebook Generation, which means that instead of faces they have books --electronic books. You can converse with them through typing, and they'll respond through their screen-"faces" with emoticons in lieu of the facial expressions they don't have, they'll "talk" through youtube-links and images and proverbs and sometimes through text messages, things like AMBW, BCNU, FICCL, GRWG, LMBO, OMGYG2BK, SSIF and so on. Or they'll throw some newspaper headline at you. There are people inside those things, the bright dude from the future tells me, real people, but they all prefer to hide behind a wall of electronics.
I told Uncle Taz I had seen and heard enough and that I wanted to get out of there, and he did bring me out of it on the condition that I proclaim to the world what I had seen and heard, which is why I had to write this blog article.
posted by Tarjei Straume at 9:06 PM
