Dear LPG

I am guessing that we older members of the world’s population do a lot of thinking in our spare time.  While we have more time than most, we also have more memories than most to cast our minds back to.  

It is usually left to the young to look forwards but perhaps I watched one too many science fiction programmes and fused those thoughts with all that news of where this world is headed if we don’t do something about altering the future.   

I found myself imagining one version of what a pensioner like me might enter into his diary for August Bank Holiday fifty years on from today...  

MONDAY SIESTA.

The Big Heat is early.
An after-lunch siesta is obligatory.
ALEXA woke me – “Time for
Awareness Session. It’s 2071”.

I looked through the window.
The houses opposite were gone.
There was a drone-port.
Mine was ready to fly.

“Alexa, what’s happened to my car?”.
“It’s the latest model of hydro-cars,
Electricity is finished.” “Where are my roses ?”
 “Drowned by The  Flood of 2048”.

“Any chance of a coffee?” “Not possible,
this is No Coffee Month, as a result of
the Fair-Trade Law of 2062.” “I would like 
the TV then, Channel One”.

“Royal Programme all afternoon -
Watch them hugging forests in China.”
I shut the curtains, it’s 2021 in the room.
Fifty years ahead is too much of a shock.

Foster Murphy