Dear friends, I leave, with the hope that you can enjoy it, a futuristic tale. In this occasion I attend the seductive call of 
I am grateful.
If there was anything more boring than reading instruction manuals, it was reading instruction manuals. So she put it aside and let herself be won over by the brief advertising directions on the package.
Laura took the Cradle 3000 out of its box. It was very light. Magnificent. It was pretty, light-colored, and looked luxurious and practical. The electronic board was attractive, futuristic but warm at the same time. She had chosen the pink version for her little Rosa Ellen, who had already turned three months old. Much like a car seat, the Cradle 3000 was equipped with sensors underneath its "ergonomic plush upholstery that makes the baby feel embraced by his favorite teddy bear," according to the box. It also had easy-to-program functions: all you had to do was enter the necessary numbers and permissions ("just press a few buttons!"). The Cradle 3000 was associated with its own emergency service. In the event of any eventuality, warned by the sensors that monitored the baby 24 hours a day, the emergency service would be in your baby's own room in a few minutes.
And you'll work calmly
And you'll sleep happily
For your baby will be cared for, hugged, stimulated
For his Cradle 3000.
She had a variety of options to develop early intelligence: classical music, holograms for visual stimulation and supply of food, hydration and medication, hygiene; not counting the traditional lullabies and movement functions to rock the baby according to anxiety levels.
Oh, wonder! A small device could also provide gentle caresses, and from her cell phone she could download wonderful applications that expanded her functions and fit seamlessly into the intelligent home network.
Laura congratulated herself mentally. It had been a huge expense, but she sensed that the Cradle would be worth every penny. Of course, even though she was very tired, she did not plan to delegate all the care of her beautiful Rosa Ellen to a machine, no matter how intelligent she was. She loved being a mother.
Laura's mother had told her (and more than once) that she should temporarily move in with her or hire a nanny, as she would not survive "even a month" raising her daughter alone. Her mother belonged to that archaic (and quite hypocritical) generation that could not conceive of female independence. It didn't matter what feminist discourses she wielded. Deep down, her mother was convinced that no woman could raise a child without a husband (she said without the support of a typical or atypical consolidated family network), and, for her mother, the only truly equivalent substitute for a husband was herself, Laura's incredibly efficient mother.
To tell you the truth, she was pondering as she removed the biodegradable supports from the Cradle, and her mother had been far more useful than Paul, whom she had not seen since childbirth. She was perfectly capable, at the age of seventy, of carrying the pantry, the bills, the family celebrations, the repairs of her old car, and all the household chores without Alexa. Just with her horrible magnet notebook stuck to the door of her old-generation refrigerator. Laura, on the other hand, could not conceive of domestic life without her beloved Alexa, her beloved GPS, her beloved cell phone, her beloved intelligent toilet (which had been so useful to her during her pregnancy)... Perhaps to contradict her, it was that she had finally made a career in design and was desperate to make a name for herself in the field of technological creativity. His mother had always been reluctant to incorporate these advances into his life. Laura's adolescence had been desperate to live in the retro home of a dogmatic ecological activist, permacultor and detractor of industrialization, as the world advanced and Laura was more than ready to run with it.
Little Rosa Ellen loved her Cradle from the moment she tasted it. In fact, after the first week, she began to prefer drinking from the bottle without leaving the Cradle rather than feeding on Laura's chest, and she had willingly consented, as her work in front of the computer caused her almost continuous back pain. In addition, the baby looked happy. All the health monitoring values were perfect.
The Cradle was all it promised, and more. Soon Laura felt the ease of taking a half-hour for morning coffee. She could take a good nap in the middle of the day. Take a long shower without carrying the Cradle to the bathroom. Back pains had subsided. Even so, she never dared to go out and leave Rosa Ellen in the full care of the Cradle (yes, she had a Total Mommy application, programmable for 12 hours).
Rosa Ellen had adopted regulated schedules. She slept. She calmed down with the music. She paid impressive attention to holograms. She pressed the right buttons to get the prize of a caress or a song from the Cradle. And what a sweet voice the machine had been programmed from Laura's voice pattern! And yet Rosa Ellen had developed such a good ear that she couldn't confuse her; the baby perfectly distinguished Laura's voice from the voice from the Cradle 3000.
In the middle of the day, Laura went for a walk around Rosa Ellen's room. She stood at the door contemplating the happy romps of her daughter, who gurgled and feigned babbling conversations with the Cradle. Rosa Ellen laughed out loud and showed off her first pair of little teeth. Frequently, after a few minutes, Laura would return to work in her study on the lower floor without interrupting the games, as she had noticed that when she approached the Cradle, the voice of the machine would be silent and this often caused Rosa Ellen to start crying and become irritable the rest of the day. As a result, the warning loudspeaker next to her monitor kept beeping, turning on little lights and brief reports on the screen that distracted her.
It was her custom to program the Mommy Total application during the day and approach it from time to time at a prudent distance.
Rosa Ellen blossomed. She was beautiful and healthy. Of course, Laura's mother was not happy. She came less and less to visit, and when she did, her insistence on carrying Rosa Ellen ended in small battles that ruined her day and left the baby irritable.
On their last visit, things had gotten a little out of hand. Her mother accused her of not wanting to assume her "maternal role" in those sociological terms that had stuck to her activism since the middle of the previous century. After the first onslaught of rage, which had lasted until the night, she understood that her mother could not understand the present times or their advances. Her problem was dogmatic, cultural, not affective. And this certainty became clearer in that instant, standing on the threshold of the room, silent, contemplating her daughter's games with the Cradle.
Rosa Ellen and the Cradle were trying out a new application, and it seemed like a lot of fun. The hologram animations were made in the style of the old cartoons, angular and colorful. A Monkey Mom was running to try to get a Baby Monkey out of a Cradle 3000. Rosa Ellen pressed a red button with the palm of her little hand on the extendable board. She would burst out laughing every time she hit Monkey Mom with a banana missile. Then Monkey Mom would stagger, slip, and finally fall on her ass and a funny poing was heard!
Rosa Ellen gave enthusiastic cries every time the Cradle reproduced fervent cheers and the sound of applause.
"Shoot Monkey Mom" the Cradle cheerfully and sweetly encouraged her.
Rosa Ellen was exultant.
Laura was happy.
She would go back to work and in a few hours, or tomorrow, she would go for another ride.
Freedom for my country!
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://adncabrera.vornix.blog/2019/04/11/cradle-3000-a-story-for-tell-a-story-to-me/