The breakfast

Alfredo is working on the land when he hears a hissing sound behind him. He turns around and finds a person with dark skin, black eyes, and black hair. The person’s eyes widen, and one or two seconds pass that seem eternal. Alfredo breaks the silence and greets the newcomer. The newcomer returns the greeting and asks, “When is it?”

“It’s hard to say for sure, but you, being a newcomer, should know better than I do. My name is Alfredo, what’s yours?” “My name is Carlos,” said the newcomer as he extended his hand to greet him. “How long have you been here?” “As far as I remember, I was sent to the year 13333, and I believe I’ve been here for about 5 years,” Alfredo answered as he finished what he was doing and started to gather his tools. “Were you sent to 13338?” “I was sent to 13339. Maybe you didn’t count the days correctly.”

Alfredo brushed the dust off the newcomer’s shoulder and invited him to breakfast. “You must be hungry. Whenever someone arrives, I always ask them this question: How was your last breakfast? Please tell me about it while we head back to my house.” Carlos nods in agreement.

“Where I come from, we don’t cook anymore, we don’t have refrigerators, and everything we buy at the store to eat is soil.” Alfredo listens attentively. “My grandfather told me about those things. The government has managed to use time machines as a public service. Now we have bills to pay for electricity, water, internet, artificial intelligence, and now time. That changed the way we store food drastically. Now, delicious dishes are created and stored in containers that allow them to decay. And we receive food from the government every week in those packages. By the time we open them, they’re turned into soil. But now there’s a device, like what used to be a microwave, that when you put that soil in it, it returns the food to its freshly prepared state. You asked me what my last breakfast was. It was chilaquiles with cream and cheese.” Carlos stops talking and remains silent as they walk through the field back to Alfredo’s house.

Alfredo also remains silent for a while and then suddenly starts laughing out loud. “How long did it take you to come up with this joke? That can’t be possible. Before I came here 6 years ago, none of that existed. Artificial intelligence was in its infancy. You know, it was very hard to make the decision to travel to the future into the unknown, not knowing what I would find. When I turned 18 and they told me the truth about the future, you know, that at some point a meteorite would destroy life on Earth, and that at 18 we had two options: travel to the past and suffer artificial inflation or be cannon fodder and travel to the uncertain future, not knowing if the planet had recovered. And the worst part is that there would be no technology or anything. It was a relief to see that where I appeared was solid ground and the Earth had cooled down. How did you decide which year to come to?”

“Seriously, that’s how it was, I’m not making it up. It was random, the government launched a new service using AI. Now we have three options. You travel to the past, go to the future to the year you choose, or let an AI tell you which year to travel to. I chose this option because it gives you more years to enjoy before your trip. Now you and your family enjoy all the comforts for 6 years before traveling.”

Alfredo arrived at his house, a small wooden house. When he entered, he took out a couple of eggs, some meat, and herbs from a well in the center of the house. He lit the fire with wood using friction. And with a gesture, he invited Carlos to sit on a wooden chair.

“This is the closest thing to chicken eggs we have now,” said Alfredo as he started to cook.