Isolation

Drops of dew collected on his visors as drove through thick walls of fog. The pod-racer sputtering of the Harvey echoed through the silent, needle covered branches. There was no traffic. Only him, the bike, and the road, smooth from inactivity. People rarely drove, only automated cargo trucks crossed the heavy-duty, consumerist, highways.

 He was almost home, a wooden hut with power lines spanning a canyon to reach it.

To him the world had a dull black and blue overtone. Greens and auburns from the fauna faded into a swirl of mush. As much as he hated traffic, there was a large part of him that ached for it. Just some confirmation that he wasn’t alone, that his invention hadn’t doomed the human populous to stay indoors for eternity. 

Traveling up several switchbacks to reach his house, the dirt path sprayed rocks onto his jeans. Dusty with wear, he made it up the small hill to his personal plane of oblivion, his home. 

The door was a shaggy, splintered wood. His motorcycle lived in a shingled hut beside the house. The dirt road crept up to a patio leading into the house, a yellow hammock and brown rocking chairs strewn across it.

Three men ducked into bushes as he walked to the door. He noticed them, but did not pay them any attention. They were harmless really.

He wished he had the greed to engage in the abundant thievery in this inactive world. Everyone was home. But only physically. So the thieves, in their genius, could simply stroll in and out, stealing technologies and food ripe for their bellies. The already minuscule resources for law enforcement were dwindling. The government chose to fund the non-physical enforcement of laws. Trading in blue suits and badges for programs and virtual robots.