CreativeNothing was impossible. And, now, wallowing in the glory of a world that was entirely man’s creation, Maxwell could finally realise that elusive statement. The sky was a delectable blue and the sun’s heat caressed his skin. The sand tickled his thankfully bare feet, and the cool breeze enveloped his naked body. He stood still for a while, taking note of every detail. The frivolous palms, restfully inclined, the waves, softly licking the white beach, and the luscious green forest behind him. Man’s ideal world was one in which nature ruled. Maxwell suddenly had realised that the sun’s heat had begun scorching his skin. A cloud passed over the sun. A cool sea breeze refreshed him. He was anointed. Maxwell turned and walked meditatively into the forest.

But soon the cloud had passed, and the ground was suddenly dappled, specked with drops of golden sun. When man is given choice, these days, this is what he chooses. This untouched, pristine land that is, in the eyes of the modern man, a world that presents the sweet tang of nostalgia. His head full of thoughts, Maxwell sat, leaning against the reassuring, smooth bark of a large gum tree. In distance, sparrows chirped. Science deserved no place in the world, for it tainted the minds that had treated it with such hospitality and respect. Science had taken man through a convoluted journey of understanding, mercilessly forcing him to the painful realisation that ignorance was bliss. Maxwell looked about. Night had fallen. Everything was dark. And suddenly Maxwell pulled off his headset and realised, for the hundredth time, that it was all a simulation.

He looked at the time. Twelve noon. He looked out of the window. Darkness. Well that’s what it was, if one did not count the glaring neon street lights and the headlights of the supersonic transportation capsules. They whizzed silently by, for they couldn’t afford to make any noise (this would result in incessant sonic booms). Man had once again been silenced by science. Maxwell looked up at the dark sky. The blackness he saw was man’s reaction to a fuel crisis, the underside of the Solar Collection Sphere. Considered to be one of man’s greatest scientific achievements, it could harness all the solar radiation that would have otherwise been incident on the Earth. It ensured that man had enough energy to please himself for an (ostensible) eternity. It also ensured that no human being, since its installation 20 years ago, could behold, in real life, the blue sky he had taken for granted. Hence, despite his access to plentiful renewable energy resources, man had ironically been imprisoned by technology in a world of darkness.