John Arnold: Back to the future..thoughts from the summer of 2086
John Arnold with his granddaughter Clodagh May at the hay wynd
It’s the month of August in the year 2086. The summer is nearly over, and the temperatures are dropping back to near normality – a cool 36C by night and around 42C in the afternoon. There is great excitement all over the country as the 1986 Census of Ireland returns have just been released. Scholars of the robotic nature and AI-generated university professors have been poring over the statistics and figures trying to get a clearer picture of how people lived long, long ago.
A child of ten is talking to his 125-year-old grandfather and asking him questions generated by the child’s implanted-at-birth mega alternative braiwen. As the middle-aged grandfather steps out of his rocket-propelled lawn mower (an antique! lawns were outlawed in 2047) he recalls his youth of twelve decades earlier. ‘Ah yes, every day we walked to the school -a building with different compartments (rooms) where teachers -ye call ‘em ‘educational relics’ today- came in each day and told us how to learn. You see, back then every child had a brain the size of a walnut (very small) and year after year we ‘learned’ new things and gradually got to know more as we grew up’. The puzzled-looking child doesn’t seem to understand. ‘But that sounds crazy and slow and ancient!’ The old man sighed and shook his shoulders and replied: ‘I know that with years of what they call genetic mechanisation and some sort of engineering that in this so-called ‘modern’ world every child before it’s born gets fitted with an updated, upgraded and alchemistised braiwen so schools, universities and colleges are no longer needed -all closed down around 2070’.
‘What was 1986 like?’ ‘Well, that time we used be able to run our own country and a man from Clare, Hillery was the President and Fitzgerald was the Taoiseach or kinda Prime Minister’. ‘What were they for granddad?’ ‘Well you see we had a system called democracy where people-every one, could have a say in how the country was run. Ireland was a separate country then before the Americans and the Russians bought us out with billions of dollars and rupees for everyone twenty years ago’. ‘But it’s great to be able to speak Russian and Yankee too- did ye learn them in the old schools?’ ‘Ah no, no not at all, we had Irish-our own language which was lovely and ancient and lyrical and musical…’
‘Ah but we had values then -not the value of everything in cents, dimes and dollars like today, but we loved songs and stories and tales of ancient times like the 1960s when television came, and hot water and inside toilets and electric light in every room.’ ‘Sounds gross,’ said the ten-year old. ‘What good are poems or stories or auld tales from when you were a child - no profit there- no accumulated assets or economic malustationability as we are programmed.. er I mean trained to evaluate today as nine-year-olds. ’
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He looked at his grandchild and thought that in this so called Global Economic Unit (world) how different things were now than even in 1986, the year of Chornobyl and the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. Back then we cared, the world cared and empathy and sympathy were shown in equal measure, but not anymore. Truly now the Global Mantra is survival of the fittest and forget about everyone else. Awful to imagine that human emotions like love and kindness and giving a helping hand are now frowned upon as being signs of weakness in a world system where power and wealth are the normal currencies of life.
‘Did you ever learn a poem?’ he quizzes…’ A poem, what’s a poem?’ ‘Well, words written not for profit or glory or fame or self-advancement, but just to say what you mean and what you feel in your heart.’ ‘But the heart is just a functional body organ for the dispersal of blood through the extended organic mechanism of the body, that’s what we were told the heart is for.’ ‘Ah wisha, I dunno what to say at all, at all -what is the world coming to and where will it all end? Let me think of a poem I can say to tell you how I feel now, then again I suppose you don’t really understand what ‘feelings’ are all about.’ ‘Well once upon a time years ago people used be allowed play what they called ‘games’ where groups of men and women and boys and girls would play against each other in sports like hurling and football and..’ ‘But,’ the lad interrupted ‘they were all banned by the Supreme Leader about 40 years ago because they were dangerous, divisive and were in no way beneficial in the capitalisation of energy into economic advantage.’ ‘I know, I know,’ said the old man, ‘but let me tell you anyway- a man I knew called Bryan McMahon -I used often meet him at Listowel Races (banned too like all other sports in the world), well his son Gary was a good footballer -won an All Ireland with Kerry he did, well he wrote a grand few lines when his father was getting old -like I am now.’ ‘ But you’re only a 125, that’s not old.’ ‘ Well, I feel old and a bit lost too in this word, anyway I love these few lines -listen now listen and tell me what you think;
‘That’s nice but what’s barefoot men? ‘Ah child we were young and wild and ran through the fields with neither stockings nor boots on.’ ‘And grand dad, what were boots?’ And I explained, said all that glitters isn’t gold -like the golden furze bushes and beauty is all around us and, like Padraig Pearse, mountailly men hath sown.’
Then he asked, ‘Are you a mountailly man?’ The old man laughed.
Back now in 2026; well a few months ago I came across a picture taken in our haggard around 1910 of two youths standing in front of a wynd of hay so yesterday, on the very same spot (the hayshed was erected in 1913) with granddaughter Clodagh May I too made a wynd of hay – just for the sake of doing it, ah yes back to the future.
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