fiction

Read the Code

QR-1435-7484-9917B could faintly remember a time when humans actually spoke to one another. It was a long time ago, but QR-1435-7484-9917B remembered when humans shared thoughts and emotions. Little things, such as the weather and if it looked like rain. QR-1435-7484-9917B would ask about someone’s family, how were they getting along. When QR-1435-7484-9917B was happy, the emotion was shared with others, and when QR-1435-7484-9917B was sad, that was shared as well.

This was a time well before the QR Code made life so much easier. Now, humans no longer had to struggle to find the words that would convey their emotions. The QR code embedded in their foreheads was designed to relieve us of this burden, and it did so with great efficiency. Now, when you passed another human on the street, you could instantly learn their entire life story, their hopes, their dreams, whether it was a good day or a bad day, everything that could possibly be important to knowing who they were. What a relief this was to a race that was so weary of human interaction. In the early days, we tried using 140 character capsulations, but that too was insufficient as a means of understanding and relating to our fellow beings. The fact that it was based on one-way interaction soon became obvious, and reinforced just what a revolutionary advance the QR Code was in the way humans communicate.

With boring pleasantries out of the way, humans could get to the nitty-gritty of what we wanted or needed. Let’s say you need constant validation. The QR Code insures that every human you meet will know this about you in nano-seconds. Or perhaps you have an inflated sense of self. This is immediately obvious to everyone you encounter, relieving them of the boredom of learning this about you over an extended period of time. Almost overnight, there was a quantum leap improvement in mutual understanding. Yes, there were still disagreements, sometimes even warlike behavior, but at least we all knew instantaneously where we stood.

So what explains this interest in the so called “good old days of human interaction?” Nostalgia, plain and simple. In every era of human progress, there is always a futile yearning for “the way things were,” a desire to get back to our human essence for wanting to know another human’s thoughts by talking directly to them. Everyone feels this way at one time or another.

For QR-1435-7484-9917B – not so much.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.