Free Write - If it Were History

 

Julia, Rick, and D-L take turns in offering weekly prompts. This week Julia made a change from the usual photo or sentence that we use to get our creative flows going. "Give me a word," she said to Rick. 

He hesitated, then said, "History." 

Julia worked it into a sentence, "If it were history..." 

Julia's Free Write

It was a beautiful sunny day, mid-morning and before recess. He was bored. Why, oh why was he stuck here, listening to his classmates drone on and on, reciting times tables.

It was a mixed-grade class, so these were the older kids: himself he was glad that he had finally caught the trick of adding 10 to any other number and writing it properly.

Then there was reading and writing. He had always loved books and words so that was almost fun. Even his grandmother thought that he wrote well – high praise indeed from someone so old that she hadn’t even had a tablet or cell phone when she was in school!

Spring was just around the corner so looking out the windows was somewhat distracting; watching the buds and leaves starting to form or unfurl.

Was it not almost time for the bell and recess!

Now, if only it were history: he loved hearing about the “olden” days; the re-constitution of naval battles or even medieval times and the clash of swords.

If only it were history: that he would enjoy.

D-L's Free Write

Dr. Goler* was called before the university president. "There's been a complaint about your course."

Dr. Goler tilted her head.

"You aren't teaching the approved curriculum," he said.

"I didn't agree to it. I showed the committee documentation that proved it wrong. They rejected it."                                   

"That doesn't matter."

Dr Goler looked at the president. He was a good-looking man in a business suit and a graduate of some podunk Southern religious  college.

His appointment?

It was bought by a hefty donation that pulled the college back from bankruptcy.

"Okay, I'll teach the approved shit." Dr. Goler almost never used bad language.

During her 2 p.m. Wednesday class, she taught the approved material.

Five minutes before the class ended, she told them, "Tear up what you just wrote. What I just gave you was fake history." She handed out a paper to them with her original lecture. "Real history, provable history, is what I just gave you."

She knew she needed to look for a new job.

Rick's Free Write

History is a record of things that happened and real people. Unfortunately, history is written from the bias of the historian. And subject to revision by other historians or politicians who control what gets cancelled or overwritten to suit their ideology.

But what if, in the future, possibly the very near future, almost nothing is real? If words and images and sound and video are non-real, artificial? And we can’t tell the artificial from the real?

Is it history? Or is it simulation? And if you are interacting with AI, for example an online chatbot avatar, is your side of the discussion or sensual experience real? Or imagined?

Some years back, I took my grandkids horseback riding. A real experience. But it was raining so I didn’t get any photos as keepsakes. My daughter remarked, “If it’s not on Facebook, it didn’t happen.”

We’re rapidly reaching a point where we can’t trust anything. Certainly not the government. Probably not social media. Maybe only our closest family and friends. And even then…

And now we can’t trust history.

*I used the name of a late history professor history. She was the best history teacher, I ever had.

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the top stories about the airline industry. He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

Visit D-L.'s website  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, She is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 

Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/