Falling Through
Falling Through
Chanel opened her laptop and checked her messages. It was time to pay a few bills; she wasn’t sure if the money was in her account to pay them. Her latest book wasn’t selling as well as she had hoped. Her first non-fiction book, The Exploitation of Tomorrow’s Children, had sold quite well, maybe because of the topic. That was three years ago, in 2124. Then last year, 2126, she wrote, Love in My Mother’s Time. Chanel wasn’t sure why people didn’t like that one. Perhaps they thought it was too sappy. Or maybe they thought she was too old to be writing about love. Either way, that book was not living up to her reputation as an author. With inflation and a few bad investments, her money was not stretching as far as Chanel believed it should. Here she was, ninety-nine years old, struggling to pay her bills.
Fortunately, there was enough money to cover her rent and utilities for June. She put in a small order for essentials, her nerves flaring at the pop-up ads for newer, more modern computers. Some recorded speech, with words appearing on the screen, but she preferred to keep buying updates to her old laptop. Back in the old days, people drove vehicles to the stores. Chanel chuckled; they probably thought it was fun. She would much rather be in her garden, tending to her primrose and peonies. Other than walking around her neighborhood, she hadn’t gone anywhere in twenty-four years. Often, the new-fangled transport stopped on her street. Chanel looked out the window, curiously watching her neighbors as they welcomed family and friends who had come to visit. She had never even been on that thing that resembled a silver bullet, hovering just above the street, and had no plans to.
Whenever she was online, those stupid ads for social media sites popped up everywhere. Chanel closed all her social media accounts over seventy years ago when she gave her baby boy up for adoption and changed her last name. She wanted there to be no way for him to be able to track her down. He would live a happy, well-adjusted life with the perfect family. She could never give him that, so she did the best thing she could for him.