Do you remember that trip?
A cardboard box with blue and white stripes and only this one written in block letters on it.
Do you remember that trip?
Inside it a 64 gb USB flash drive with 2112 tracks.
A book without cover with blank pages, totally empty if not for a writing that repeats every 21 pages then every 12 then every 21 again.
This is the book that has never been written.
A pirate flag wraps this strange empty book and an apple, symbol of sin and humanity is hidden in the corner.
A one-way ticket to Jacksonville dated 21/12/2... the time has faded the last 3 digits of the reference year of the ticket. Under the ticket a model of a grey Alfa Romeo Giulietta from the 50s and a torn cinema ticket with "Back to the Future".
Vintage stuff this, very vintage stuff that my father left me the day before he died.
He told me:
My father left it to me asking me never to open it. If you are still alive on 21/12/2112 fly to Osaka and take it with you. Only there you can open it. That day you will understand everything.
If you are dead before that day then everything will have gone wrong and this box will be useless.
Today is 21/12/2112.
I am in Osaka and the world seems to turn upside down here.
Everyone is in a hurry. There are no cars. People stay at home while their robotic butlers do the shopping on their behalf, go to the movies in their place, do the clerks in their place, clean the streets in their place.
At the airport I met 3 robots. One showed me the exit, another one gave me the luggage, another one took me to the shuttle driven by an automatic system remotely controlled by a team of robots.
Now I am here in Sesame Street in Osaka at the entrance of the building named after my father: Nemo.
At the reception they point me to the 21st floor room 12.
They are waiting for me.
The Adam project will be activated today.
They need my fingerprints say.
I open the box again.
I close it again.
I open it again.
I have Flash.
Dejavu perhaps.
That's me.
Or is it not me?
Who am I?
Why do I remember things that I have never experienced?
Where am I and above all why am I here today?
Who are these people who seem to know me?
They look at me as if they have seen a Greek God descending from Olympus.
I have never been here.
I have never been to Jacksonville.
Then why do I remember all these faces? Why do I think I saw them in Jacksonville a lifetime ago?
That flag...damn that flag.
I know that flag.
I open the box and pull it out.
Everyone bows to me when I take it out. What is going on?
My Delorean, my Grey Alfa Romeo. I'm going back to the future.
I arrive at room number 12 where an elderly gentleman is waiting for me. He has a long white beard, dark glasses and a Hawaiian shirt. He smiles and exclaims.
You are the only person in the world who is both daughter and father of his time.
His face gets dark and serious before he opens the door and whispers to me:
Sit down. Insert your USB and listen to the first 3 songs. Pull the crank and follow the instructions that will appear on the screen. Then you will understand. I will be waiting for you when you transform.
My legs are not shaking. I am too petrified to tremble.
I enter this huge empty white room with a huge screen in the center and a red knob. A few meters away there is a huge box with a USB input.
I insert my flash drive and I lie down on the floor.
It's not time to make a change,
Just relax, take it easy
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to know
Find a girl, settle down,
If you want you can marry
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy
The song goes on and I wait for it to end.
Here he attacks a classical guitar and starts the second song:
Mother do you think they'll drop the bomb?
Mother do you think they'll like this song?
Mother do you think they'll try to break my balls?
Ooh, ah
Mother should I build the wall?
Mother should I run for President?
Mother should I trust the government?
Mother will they put me in the firing mine?
Ooh ah,
Is it just a waste of time?
The song goes on and everything is clearer.
The third one arrives:
I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins
Like dolphins can swim
Though nothing, nothing will keep us together
We can beat them, forever and ever
Oh, we can be heroes just for one day
I get up.
I head to the screen and lower the knob.
On the screen an inscription:
If you are still alive on 21/12/2112 fly to Osaka and take it with you. Only there you can open it. That day you will understand everything.
The writing disappears while the tears on my face peep out.
Goodbye My Son
2 palms of one hand appear on the screen.
They are of my identical shape.
Now I am shaking.
I'm shaking because I understand.
I'm crying because I understand.
I smile because I remember.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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