It's 96 now. There are still day labourers, and students, and soldiers, but they no longer burn calendars or shout slogans in the streets.…

It's 96 now. There are still day labourers, and students, and soldiers, but they no longer burn calendars or shout slogans in the streets. Everyone's watching too much television.

Nothing can change, nothing should change.

For years you've thought to yourself: 'It can't keep going like this', and for years it has.

Not enough slots.

I don't accept this world.

By any objective measure, this has been the most peaceful and prosperous century since the dawn of humanity.

The art's been shit, though.

Words taught to every gymnasium student:

'The signatories further affirm that the present circumstances, hereafter referred to as Reality, shall be considered too costly to further modify through actions of a historical character...'

The Treaty of Latour-Woolgar.

A great reset for humanity. The end of centuries of wars against the rich, the imperialists, the racists.

The most widely accepted tally: One hundred and fifty million deaths, approx. 10% of the global population.

I miss all the fun stuff.

In Novessa and Landau, the people burn calendars in the streets. There are day labourers, students, and soldiers, shouting slogans like 'DOWN WITH TELEOLOGIES!' and 'RETURN TO THE ETERNAL PRESENT!'

No more distance, no more pain...

You still live in the afterglow of that delirious jubilee.

But what actually changed?

Everything, nothing.

In the Superbloc, it's farewell 'Perpetual Revolution' and hello 'pragmatic market reforms' and 'freedom of assembly'.

OVERTHROW THE VALUE-FORM, EXCEPT IN STRATEGIC INDUSTRIES.

And in the Developed World?

Across the Developed World, the last colonial empires finally crack up -- a bloody wound stanched with billions in foreign currency under the guise of EMTERR's new stabilisation loans.

Now a quarter of humanity inhabits a paradise of cheap jeans and dishwashers, even as their real wages stagnate year after year.

What about La Luz?

By year zero, La Luz was widely considered a failed state, without a functioning government capable of signing an international agreement.

As a result, it has never recognised the End of History.

Things happen...

In year zero, the masses burn calendars in the streets. In 13, the People's Republics open to foreign investment. In 56, the first lunar cadmium deposits are discovered. In 61, you're born. In 62, the city-state of Portofiro accepts a loan it will never repay. In 79, you fall in love for the first time. In 85, the consumer-grade audio disc hits the market. In 89, Quisach PC wins its last pelota championship.

History-times, who cares?

No one. That's the point, of course. The words were precisely engineered to muffle the little voice in the back of your head, the one that tells you things could be any other way.

Where does that leave us?

In the afterglow of that delirious jubilee.