“There is no way these atrocities existed in this land!”

I whispered on the train home. Again, I scanned my recently downloaded feed from the National Archive on my VR glasses. My notification suddenly rang, telling me my destination was just five minutes or twelve kilometers away. I got off after I checked the command panel on my wheelchair.

I hurried to the assembly room. I spent my last night awake, reading academic papers on a draft bill about permanently closing fossil fuel mines. I didn’t want to miss out on a historic event that marked the end of an era. I had just arrived at the assembly room when my partner texted, “Do not forget that later tonight, there is a poetry recitation at town hall.”

The session ran briefly. The millionaires were asked to invest their wealth in turbines and solar panels, or their net worth will be confiscated. I could make it in time to tend my garden at my flat in the periphery. Alright, my train would arrive in less than two minutes.

I was still pondering about what I had just read this morning. How many had died in those atrocities that were yet to be stopped for decades after? What the hell kind of history this country had been going through?

Arriving at my complex, I entered the lift and contacted the Lumbung to ask for protein stocks. While I waited for my ration, I downloaded the papers about the monoculture food industry—which would be the issue for tomorrow’s assembly.

I heard the Public Information Disclosure and Privacy Protection Bill, ratified eighty years ago, flooded the National Archives’ servers. There were many declassified and digitized archives, and how surprised we are still about the bleakness of this country’s history—even after eighty years, we still talk about historical details that felt like a fantasy.

I couldn’t have imagined how different the conditions would be in years before the Great Revolution, a century ago. We take the Lumbung, Integrated Rail System, and Vertical Housing Committee for granted. The legislation process nowadays is way shorter than ever because the representations are much more proportional with active participation from the indigenous community. Justice felt way restorative.

My daydreaming was interrupted by a text from my partner, “Tune in on the streaming now. The last billionaire is live.” I turned on my VR glasses, watching an incredibly extinct character available only at a maximum security prison. I don’t think ‘billionaire’ even exists as a word anymore.

I saw a doctor on the side of the bed where the billionaire was lying measly. Every once in a while, the doctor holds the billionaire’s wrist and glances at the camera. I wait anxiously, along with millions of others, in the comment section. The billionaire no longer moves when the doctor releases his wrist and declares, “The last billionaire is dead.”