Entry 003 – A Dispatch from the Wrong Side of the Future
City of Angels, 2026: A Dispatch from the Wrong Side of the Future
Los Angeles in February. They told me it was supposed to be perpetual sunshine, the land of milk and honey and Botox. But here I sit, shivering on this godforsaken balcony, wrapped in a threadbare blanket that feels like it was salvaged from a moth-eaten crypt. February 2026, they say. The future. And what a joke it is. It feels less like the gleaming chrome promise of tomorrow and more like a stale, week-old donut left out in the rain.
Sixty-three years hammered onto this weary frame, and I feel like a relic yanked from some flea-bitten museum and plopped down in the middle of a damn holographic disco. Everything’s slick, shiny, and humming with a technological arrogance that grates on the nerves like nails on a chalkboard. The air itself feels manufactured, pre-packaged for optimal consumer experience. But for whom? Certainly not for this broken-down ghost clinging to the edge of oblivion, staring out at the hazy sprawl that stretches to the horizon like a concrete plague.
They say life’s a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death. Well, let me tell you, pal, I’m not just starving, I’m gnawing on the damn bones of regret, picking at the gristle of past mistakes until my teeth ache. Look out there, past the shimmering smog-screen, toward the hills. You see those mansions clinging to the slopes like golden ticks on the hide of a dying beast? That’s where the beautiful people dwell. The socially lubricated elite. The ones who glide through life on greased rails, champagne flutes in hand, laughter echoing like wind chimes in their manicured gardens.
Handsome bastards with teeth whiter than a freshly laundered straightjacket, draped with women who look like they were sculpted from moonlight and unicorn tears. They jet around the globe, hopping from Monaco to Mykonos, Bali to Bora Bora, their lives a perpetual Instagram reel of sun-drenched bliss. They probably think rain is some kind of quaint, artisanal experience they can order on demand for their rooftop gardens.
Me? I watch the jets scream overhead from this concrete penitentiary they call an apartment complex. Each roar is a reminder, a sonic boom of everything I’m not and will never be. I squint into the distance, trying to pierce the artificial haze, toward those hillside Xanadus. What the hell do they do up there? Do they even know we exist down here in the trenches of reality? Probably not. We’re just the background noise, the unwashed masses who keep the machinery humming, the cogs in their opulent clockwork universe.
The life he had. Some phantom in my head, a shimmering construct of what could have been, what should have been. I have no damn idea what that life truly entails, but from down here in the gutter of experience, it looks like paradise. Unblemished, effortless, and utterly divorced from the grim reality that clings to me like a second skin.
My own reality? Let’s just say it’s less ‘sun-drenched bliss’ and more ‘rain-soaked despair.’ Marriage. That sacred institution, the bedrock of society, supposedly. For me, it was a damn battlefield. Adultery, the slow poison that corroded everything good, leaving behind only rust and bitterness. And when I dared to voice my displeasure of my wife's infidelity, to point out the gaping wound in the fabric of our vows, the response was… visceral. Let’s just say an ink pen makes a surprisingly effective punctuation mark in a heated argument. Once in the neck, no less. A clean slice of betrayal, a stark reminder of my own pathetic vulnerability.
They live. They thrive. The beautiful, the damned, the indifferent. They float on a sea of privilege, oblivious to the undertow of despair that threatens to drag me under. Is it jealousy? No. Not exactly. Jealousy implies a desire for what they possess. I don’t want their lives, not really. Their manicured perfection, their hollow smiles, their soulless existence. What I feel is… envy, perhaps. A bitter longing for the ease of it all. The effortless joy, the absence of gnawing pain, the freedom from the constant grinding weight of regret.
Despair. Yes, that’s closer to the truth. A thick, suffocating blanket of it. Regret, too. A constant companion, whispering insidious suggestions in the dead of night, reminding me of every wrong turn, every missed opportunity, every foolish choice that led me to this frozen balcony in the wrong damn future.
Alcohol. The old reliable anesthetic. The liquid courage, the quick fix for a broken soul. It used to be my friend. My confidante. My temporary escape hatch from the suffocating reality of existence. But even that fleeting solace turned on me. Became another chain, another prison. So I kicked it to the curb. Cold turkey. A damn heroic feat of self-destruction, if you ask me.
Now, I search for relief in little white pills. Prescribed, of course. Legitimate. Respectable. Handed out by my beautiful Egyptian Doctor. With eyes like melted chocolate and a voice that could soothe a rabid badger. Married, of course. Beautiful women always are. No point in indulging in those fantasies. They lead to darker places, deeper pits of despair, and I’m already teetering on the damn edge. Besides, I know the pain of betrayal. I’ve tasted that bitter poison. I wouldn't inflict it on another, even in thought. Not intentionally. Lord knows, I’ve had more than my fill of that particular brand of suffering.
Sleep. That’s the only real escape left. The great oblivion. A world different from this waking nightmare. Not always pleasant, mind you. Dreams can be treacherous, filled with their own brand of bizarre and unsettling horrors. But at least it’s a change of scenery. A temporary respite from the relentless monotony of this… this waiting.
Maybe adventure will find me. Ha! What a laugh. Adventure for a broken-down fossil like me? More likely to find a damn meteorite crashing through the roof than adventure knocking on my door. But a man can dream, can’t it? Even a man on the verge of becoming compost can cling to the faintest flicker of hope, however delusional it may be.
I look forward to my next doctor appointment. Pathetic, isn’t it? That the high point of my week is a fifteen-minute consultation with a woman who professionally pities me. But the Egyptian listens. She asks questions. She prescribes the pills that take the edge off the gnawing emptiness. She offers a fleeting moment of human connection in this desolate wasteland of solitude.
Time goes by. Another day bleeds into the next. The sun, when it bothers to show its face, is a pale imitation of its former glory. The city hums with a relentless, indifferent energy. And here I sit, on this cold, godforsaken balcony, in the supposed future, waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Waiting for nothing to happen. Waiting… to die. And in the meantime, the damn birds are singing. The irony. It’s enough to make a man weep, or maybe just reach for another one of those little white pills. Yeah, maybe just another pill. The future can wait.
END TRANSMISSION // 2026-02-08 02:31 PST // ERROR 4̶0̶4̶ – REALITY NOT FOUND // AWAITING NEXT CYCLE... OR NOT
