30.9.2045

Morning

The sleep pod opens with a soft hiss. Five hours—that’s all I need anymore. The pod regulated everything through the night: temperature shifting through optimal sleep cycles, gentle massages during deep sleep, binaural tones guiding my brain through REM. I step out feeling completely rested.

The morning supplement tray sits on my nightstand — Lux must have brought it up from the kitchen while I was still asleep. I dry-swallow the pale blue pill first. Within a minute, the familiar shift sets in. Not euphoria, but contentment and readiness. The low hum of anxiety that used to accompany every morning, gone. The potential for frustration, anger, despair—all dialed down to nearly nothing. I’m still me, still feeling, but the suffering parts are muted.

You’re tensing your shoulders again, Lux says into my mind. Might want to stretch before bouldering later. I roll my neck, feeling the tightness my AI assistant caught before I did.

Heart rate’s optimal, Lux notes. You slept well.

Downstairs, the kitchen hums softly as it assembles breakfast. I can smell coffee, waffles, something with cinnamon.

Simone is already at the table with Oliver, who’s building something with blocks that shimmer and reconfigure in his hands. “Grandma’s joining us,” Simone says, gesturing to the empty chair where a faint grid of light is already forming.

The AR resolves into my grandmother, seated across from Oliver. She looks sixty-eight, maybe seventy—the age the reversal therapy restored her to after catching her Alzheimer’s just in time. She’s wearing her favorite cardigan, the green one.

“There’s my boy,” she says, smiling at Oliver. Then to me: “And my other boy.”

Oliver grins and launches into a story about his treehouse project—something about weight distribution that Lux has been helping him calculate. Grandma listens with the patience only she has, asking questions that make him light up.

Then she starts telling us about her travels. Morocco in the 1980s, when she and Grandpa backpacked through the Atlas Mountains. Her childhood in Rotterdam during the war years—the hunger winter, hiding in the cellar when planes flew overhead. Oliver’s eyes go wide at parts.

When she shifts to talking about the different types of rationing systems the neighborhood committees used, I feel my attention drifting starting to check the newsfeed in the corner of my vision.

Lux gives me a nudge: She won’t be here forever, enjoy your time with her Lux says quietly in my mind. Of course Lux is right, I want to be present with my family. I blink, refocus on her face—the way she gestures with her hands, the warmth in her voice. She’s here. Right now.

Maybe redirect to Oliver’s project? Lux suggests.

“Hey Oliver,” I say, leaning forward. “Want to tell Grandma about that treasure hunt you and the other kids are building?”

His face transforms. As he explains the riddles and clues they’ve hidden around the woods—something Lux helped them calibrate for difficulty—Grandma leans forward, delighted. She asks about the treasure (chocolate coins and a 3D-printed trophy), and he explains with his hands the way she does.

After breakfast, Oliver hugs her goodbye. His arms pass through the projection, but the gesture still lands, before he runs off toward his rooms.

Grandma fades out with a wave. Simone reaches across the table and squeezes my hand.

“I love watching you with her,” she says softly. “You’re patient in a way you weren’t ten years ago.”. She’s right. A decade of Lux catching the small signals—the tightness in my voice, the subtle eye movements when I’m getting impatient, the patterns I fall into when I’m defensive. And then the gentle prompts to reflect, to notice what I’m doing before the moment passes. It’s changed me to the better. But to be honest it might also just be the pills that radically reduce all that annoying mental suffering we used to have.

Mid-day

The home gym is in the back of the house, where the morning light comes in through the tall windows. The climbing wall stretches up fifteen feet, holds configured into the 7c route I’ve been projecting for three weeks.

I chalk up, feeling the familiar texture on my fingers. The first moves are smooth now—I’ve done them dozens of times. Left hand to the crimp, right foot high on the volume, push through.

Weight’s too far back, Lux says. Hips forward, shift your center of gravity over your right foot.

I adjust, feel the difference immediately. The next hold comes easier.

Halfway up the route, I reach the crux—a long dynamic move to a sloper that’s always felt just out of reach. I try once, twice. My fingers slip off. In the old days, this would’ve sparked frustration, that tight feeling in my chest. Now—nothing. Just: “okay, what’s the adjustment needed?”

Want me to show you?

“Yeah.”

The neural link deepens. My right hand lifts without me—or rather, with me, but Lux guiding the motor cortex. The movement is precise: a slight twist of the hips, weight dropping low before the jump, fingers angling to catch the sloper at exactly the right spot. I feel it in my body, the way the motion should flow.

Lux releases control. I drop back down, reset, try it myself. This time my hips twist right, the timing clicks. My fingers catch the sloper and stick.

There, Lux says simply.

I finish the route, hands burning, breath hard. At the top, I look out at the woods beyond the window—trees stretching into the distance, no houses in sight.

“Felt good,” I say out loud, grinning. “I’ll take 5 and then try it wihtout your help.”

Heart rate’s elevated but controlled. You’re getting stronger.

Afternoon

Lunch appears on the counter as Simone and I walk into the kitchen—two bowls of something that looks like Thai curry, smells like it too, but packed with exactly the nutrients Lux calculated we need today. The texture is perfect, creamy and rich with vegetables that have the right bite.

“How was the climb?” Simone asks, settling onto the stool across from me.

“Got the crux. Finally.”

“The one you’ve been cursing at for weeks?”

“That’s the one.” I take a bite. “How’s your project going? Did the Planetary Coordination Council finally come through?”

Her face lights up. “Approved last week! All 19,235 communities cleared. We’re starting with forty volunteer sites—Tasmania, rural Norway, three in Peru. The first shrines are already being built.”

“That’s amazing.”

“I’m most excited about what people will bring. One community in Japan wants to include origami cranes every child folded. Another is installing a soundscape of their grandmothers’ voices.”

“At least the prototype worked. I still think about that sculpture.”

“Right? I was so nervous when they matched you with that woman from Osaka.”

I remember it: walking into the test shrine, seeing the items people had brought—Oliver’s drawings, pressed flowers, woodworking tools. Then Lux connected me with Kimiko, and suddenly we were collaborating on something neither of us could have made alone. Her calligraphy with textures from our woods, her city sounds with Oliver laughing. Three hours gone like nothing.

“She sent me a photo last week,” I say. “Installed it in her apartment.”

Simone’s eyes soften. “That’s what I want. Those connections.”

After lunch, I head to the studio room. The painting sits on the easel—woods in late afternoon light, for Simone’s birthday next month. I mix colors, trying to get the shadows right.

The darkest shadow needs more blue, Lux says. There’s reflected sky light you’re missing.

I add prussian blue. Better.

Now the highlight—less white, more yellow. It’s warm light.

An hour passes. Each session, Lux catches what I miss—color relationships, where my eye lies about values. My strokes feel more confident than six months ago.

“Looking good,” Simone says from the doorway.

I step back. “Getting there.”

She moves closer. “Is this for…?”

“Maybe.”

She grins. “I love it already.”

Late-Afternoon

I settle into the chair by the window with coffee, pulling up the latest astrophysics feeds in my vision. The headline makes me blink: Researchers Achieve First Stable Wormhole Traversal in Lab Conditions.

“Lux, is this actually—”

Yes. The paper’s legitimate. They used the quantum foam manipulation theory that came out of the AI research consortium three years ago. Looks like interstellar travel just became theoretically possible within our lifetime.

I read through the summary, my mind spinning. Wormholes. Actual traversable wormholes. The researchers engineered microscopic tunnels through spacetime that stayed open for nearly eight seconds.

The energy requirements are still massive, Lux adds. But the breakthrough is real. They solved the exotic matter problem.

“This is incredible.”

You might want to discuss this with Oliver later. He’s been asking about space travel.

The door bursts open. “Dad! Can you help me with something?”

Oliver climbs into the chair next to me, pulling up his own interface. “There’s a vote tomorrow and I need to decide.”

“The compute allocation one?”

“Yeah. Lend our compute to the global medical research cluster, or build new generators for our community. Lux says I should research both sides.”

Medical research is currently focused on neural pathway regeneration, Lux explains to both our minds. Helping people with spinal injuries. The generators would increase our community’s power capacity by 40%, which means more compute for future local projects.

We spend the next hour going through it together. Lux pulls up data, helps Oliver understand the tradeoffs, shows him projections for both scenarios. He’s taking it seriously, asking good questions.

“How are you voting, Dad?”

“Honestly? I’m not spending many credits on this one. Saving them for the adult playground vote later this year.”

He grins. “The one with the zipline?”

“That’s the one.”

The playground design vote is scheduled for November, Lux adds. Current proposals include three zipline configurations.

Oliver bounces in his chair. “I’m definitely voting for the longest one.”

Evening

After dinner, I pull on the VR headset and the living room disappears. I’m standing on a street corner in Los Santos, the late afternoon sun rendering so perfectly I can feel the warmth on my skin. Almost.

“Finally!” Marcus’s avatar jogs up, grinning. “We’ve been waiting.”

“Sorry, got caught up with Oliver.”

Chen’s voice crackles in. “Alright, so are we doing the heist or just stealing random cars like last time?”

“The heist,” Jade says firmly. “We planned this.”

We pile into a stolen van, arguing about the plan the way we always do. Marcus wants to go loud, Chen wants stealth, Jade is calculating optimal routes. It’s chaotic and familiar and exactly what I needed.

Two hours later, after the heist inevitably goes sideways and we barely escape, we’re just sitting on a beach in the game, watching the sunset.

“I can’t believe we still play this,” Marcus says. “GTA7 is what, ten years old?”

“Classics are classics. Also I’m just so nostalgic for the time right after all the jobs were automated by AI and we were just gaming all day.” I say.

“Yeah good times …” Markus reponds.

The light catches the water just right—the VR rendering almost indistinguishable from reality, except for the absence of wind, the missing salt smell. Close enough that I don’t miss the city anymore, living out here in the woods. Not when I can be anywhere with them.

“Same time on Friday?” Jade asks.

“Absolutely.”

Night

I find Simone in our bedroom, already changed for the night, sitting by the window looking out at the dark trees.

“Good day?” she asks.

“Really good.” I sit beside her, taking her hand. “You?”

“Mm. Three more communities said yes to the shrines. And I got to watch you be present with your grandmother.” She leans her head on my shoulder. “That’s worth everything.”

We sit in the quiet for a moment, just breathing together.

Your cortisol’s been low all day, Lux notes. Good baseline.

I reach for the headphones on the nightstand—sleek, subtle. “Want to join me?”

“Yes of course!”

I put them on, lie back on the couch. The first tones wash through me, precise frequencies stimulating patterns deep in my brain. Within seconds, I’m flooded with calm. Then light—not visual, but felt, radiating from somewhere in my chest and expanding outward. Gratitude rises like a wave, so strong it’s almost overwhelming. My breathing slows. The boundaries between me and the room soften.

Thirty years in a monastery, they used to need. Thirty years of discipline and shitty food and cold stone floors. Now it’s fifteen minutes and a pair of headphones.

When it ends, I open my eyes. Simone is smiling at me.

“So are you enlightened yet?” she teases.

“Getting there.” I answer smilingly.

Lights dimming, Lux says softly. Temperature dropping to 18 degrees.

The room darkens. We go into our sleeping pod and Simone curls against me. I think about the day—Grandma’s stories, the crux hold finally clicking, Oliver’s serious face discussing voting, the sculpture Kimiko hung in Osaka. Tomorrow I’ll boulder again, maybe finish Simone’s painting. Oliver will test his treasure hunt with the neighborhood kids.

It’s a good life. My life. Exactly as I want it.

I drift off, Lux monitoring my sleep cycles, already planning tomorrow’s supplements.

This story was written by me reflecting about aspects of apositive futures (see my previous post on the value of positive futures) and then letting Claude make a nice story out of it with some feedback and direction from me. I can highly recommdn doing the same exercise.