Short story
It’s not exactly known when or how it happened. A few things here and there had always been broken, but one day it was clear to everyone that too many things were broken - were wrong.
Wrong dates on tombstones, doors that couldn’t be opened, fridges making food warm, ice cream coming out of toasters, solar panels beaming energy into space.
What we do know is that it has become worse over time. First it was only tiny things that didn’t matter. A skewed carpet. A handwritten sign reading “be right back”. An out-of-service escalator. And, because these things were small, we didn’t do anything about them. We just accepted them. And then they became slightly bigger: kitchen cabinets made to the wrong specifications, diapers that leaked too often, charging cables that stopped working after just a few days.
We shrugged our shoulders, “What can we do?”.
At first, we tried to fix these slightly bigger things. But nothing seemed to come of it. And, quite frankly, we were just so busy! Mouths to feed, money to make, friends to meet, promotions to chase, vacations to take, shoes to buy... "So what if the cable stopped working? Even if I try to complain, nothing will happen. I'll just get a new one!"
And it was thus that the situation grew steadily worse - and more surreal. By then, however, there was no way back, because even the way back pointed in the opposite direction, forwards towards more madness! All any of us could rely on was quiet resignation and the muffled hope that our blood would keep exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide in the correct order. Beyond that, survival was mostly guaranteed thanks to GAIA, the Great Advancement In Automations that had taken place in the previous century. Even though most of them failed most of the time, the Life Process bots managed to keep us fed and alive, even if almost all other life on earth - and all meaning - had withered away.
Until the Great Loud Light.
It flooded the landscape and swept away all the mechanical noise of the Life Process bots. The clicking and the humming were in a moment overwhelmed by ten thousand notes blasting and shining in perfect harmony. "Perfect" was one of the forgotten words we found again that day, as were "Beautiful" and "Good". All that was wrong fell effortlessly into place: water into its containers, dry leaves off the tree, hearts again in love.
On the day of the Great Loud Light, one year swiftly passed, and by morning blue had returned to the skies above and green to the earth below.
The Light brought serenity and told me to write.
In love as I was, I did.