George Miller’s 2022 film Three Thousand Years of Longing revisits the tale of the genie granting any three wishes, which apparently can only lead to ruin and was food for thought on my recent hikes.
I started with the obvious…1. Wealthiest person in the world 2. Power of Invisibility 3. Crazy fun sex with a multitude of gorgeous women. (Which would be good for at least 10 years. Maybe even more?)
I reconsidered and focused on more of who I am. 1. Publish several novels to critical acclaim 2. Produce several films to popular acclaim 3. Lots of crazy fun sex, etc.
And then I realized that maybe I had fallen into the trap of this game and tried to dig deeper…1. Rediscover the wide-eyed rapture of life 2. Not feel like I always need something else to be happy 3. Help society in a more fulfilling and less self-destructive direction.
The satisfaction with the last set lasted all of a minute and I returned to my first try. Being invisible with lots of cash, and, yeah, you know the rest, that sounded good to me.
They couldn’t pay their rent and now make $400 a day? What? Just by playing games on their phone? Who are these people supposed to be? Failed Only Fan models?
And what is with the disinterested look? The vague shrug? Pointing up at silly text? Does this actually sell? How am I supposed to relate to a someone pointing up and shrugging and clearly doing nothing with their lives?
I made the commitment. It seemed the right thing to do. He loved me and I knew he was a decent person. The fact that he had been married for thirty years and was leaving her, coming out now, demonstrated all that I needed to know. I had taught his daughter in high school. That was how we met. But then I realized that I wasn’t a woman – after assuming I was – and was still pining for the idea of my college sweetheart’s breasts.
I told him I couldn’t go through with it. It’s true that I had waited until after the ceremony was over, which both his daughter and wife had attended. They were devastated. They had accepted his decision to be with me and now I had humiliated him. I apologized profusely. I had made a terrible mistake and couldn’t go through with it now. The daughter would not see me and I left the wife in tears
The crowd was larger, people up both walkways, chants and holograms everywhere. A bright orange drone floated above, slowly coming down.
“Hello, how are you doing?” It was the man from the Hive, now dressed and atop a glider, floating behind the drone.
“Want me to smash that thing?”
“We’re making a film,” he replied.
Dee frowned.
“Name’s Norich.” He raised his eyebrows at her as he glided down. “How would you feel about me filming you now?”
“For what?”
“A document.”
“For your personal pleasure?”
“Sort of Cinema Verite.” The camera-drone, an orange sloped contraption, floated down over his shoulder. “I’m examining the nature of The Hive for the Ark News. The impetus of that, right? I’m thinking individually, right? Why do we do the things we do?” He looked half drunk, the way he glanced back and forth between them. “Like, what is to experience it?”
Dee shrugged. “Go ahead and try it.”
He landed, leaning forward, wincing at the effort to think of an answer that could not be deflected. “Wisdom, knowledge, that is very human.”
Dee studied his long face, almost earnest, knowing he wanted to listen, his hands open in front of him, waiting for something. “Sex, that’s what I think you’re after, sex and more of it.” Norich nodded back at her. “You know how people say that men want to have sex with young women to avoid their fear of death? That gorgeous taut flesh, so primal and real, the dream of the boy through the old man, it’s got nothing to do with dying, my friend. It’s just being alive, that sexual drive, mindless and direct. But to avoid death? No, it’s not that. Everything is to avoid death. Eating, drinking, going to the bathroom—”
“What about good driving habits then?” Dee added.
“That’s sure as hell part of it, awareness of what you are – your limitations, that you have a perspective, that you’re aware that we tend to think that we know something—”
“You men?”
“Us people. That we know something that no one else can exactly understand. Even with as much as anyone might know, in their mind for a certainty, whatever is gathered through books and media, experience, relationships, there’s only that, only that perspective.”
“Humility then,” Dee ventured.
“Yes, that’s part of it.”
“I think what you really mean is sex,” Dee concluded. “And the answer is no.”
“It’s more our limitations.” Norich tried to pat her on the shoulder. “It’s all about being aware of that.”
“So we’re in agreement then.” Dee went past him into The Hive.
