Transition : Part -1

A Sci Fi story by Zeashan Zaidi

(This story was published first time in July 2006 in a Hindi magazine 'Electroniki Aapke Liye')

Unemployment had made his life a total mess. He had not eaten anything in two days. Even he was dying for sweet water since ages, as water was a property of multinational companies now. He was somehow drinking the salt water of the sea. Due to global warming the sea had lost its saltiness to some extent, because of which the water had become somewhat drinkable. For poors this water had become a single source of killing hunger and thirst.

“I will die if I don’t get a job in a day or two.” His body told his soul.

“But how?” the body did not have any answer for this question of the soul. The era of computers and robots was now at its extreme in the earth. Lower level tasks were done by robots and computers and at the higher level people had the companies of their own which used to run under the governance of their own family.

There was only one way left for getting a job and that was to kill someone and occupy their company.

While roaming on the side of the sea he found out a piece of a newspaper on which was printed a small advertisement. Reading this his eyes twinkled. The advertisement was about the requirement of jobless people who want to earn money by getting their body printed by advertisements of companies. 

He kept the piece of paper in his pocket and headed in search of the address given in the newspaper. It was quite a long distance and he had to cover it on feet.

*****

There was a long queue in front of the company which consisting of jobless people same like him. This was being controlled by four traffic robots. As soon as someone tried moving forward outside the queue, the robot would give a tight slap to make him stand in his prior place.

Standing there since morning his turn arrived in the evening. A computer scanned him with X-LASER rays.

“Your name?” asked by the speaker of the computer.

“Anand!” he answered. Computer asked him several more questions and approved him. Anand was transferred to the next chamber in which the clothes on his upper body were removed and advertisements were getting ready to get printed on his chest and back.

Advertisements on the body were introduced in the beginning of 21st century, and later on it became a necessity. There were no place left on the face of earth where hoardings and advertisements can be displayed. There were many companies and their products were uncountable seeing which the government had banned the display of any kind of advertisements or hoardings in public places. Now the only option left was the human body, cheap and best option for promotion.

According to the agreement of the company Anand had to stay without using any piece of cloth on his upper body for six months. But Anand was happy as he had found out a way of feeding his stomach for next six months. After many days he had eaten in a good restaurant.

Spreading his leg on the chair he started thinking something. After filling his stomach his brain had started working properly and he started wondering about the upcoming situations.

“According to me I should start up with a factory which produces clean water. These days these kinds of things are in demand.” He thought. The amount of money he had in his pocket was sufficient for a bank to give him a loan.

The owners of the factories which can produce clean water from sea water had become big time billionaires. 

To Be Continued...