Musical Chairs

Di Luca Melegari

Richiesta di Aiuto Internazionale.

New York 2035.

Anna è una giovane docente alla famosa Scuola di Legge della Columbia University e si occupa del reinserimento nella società delle numerose figure professionali scartate dal mercato del lavoro a causa dell’avvento dell’intelligenza artificiale nei vari settori dell’impiego e dei Media.

La sua vita tuttavia, insieme a quella di Albert e Sophie, sta per essere sconvolta nel giro di poche ore, anche se la vera ragione di tutto questo non è nota a nessuno.

In breve tempo i tre amici si troveranno nel mezzo di una vera crisi internazionale che lì porterà sull’orlo di una possibile catastrofe.

Anna, da sempre esempio e riferimento per tutti, chiede aiuto ed ha bisogno anche del tuo aiuto, ora, prima che sia troppo tardi.

La sua vita pubblica e quella privata si intrecciano, come in una scena teatrale, il cui sfondo è il nostro mondo e la nostra società in un futuro molto prossimo, dove il Tempo e lo Spazio, così come noi li conosciamo, potrebbero assumere significati del tutto diversi da quelli a noi noti.

Questo è una sorta di “messaggio nella bottiglia” che ci arriva da lei e per questo è scritto in Inglese, come se provenisse dal naufragio del nostro immediato futuro.

• Lingua: Italiano
• Editore: Youcanprint
• Data di uscita: 21 mar 2019
• ISBN: 9788831608862

Anteprima del libro

pages.

Act 1

UNDER REALITY’S SKIN.

Scene 1

All of a sudden from the complete and eternal darkness, it came to life.

Albert was standing breathless in front of it, rapt, stunned, like a tree badly struck by the thunderbolt in the night, like a salt statue dried up by a desert heat-wave.

In a blink of an eye, his memory scanned his entire lifespan, swirling and spinning through childhood and youth, from pain to love, definitely and softly landing to the present and unbelievable time of here and now.

A fleet of photons was constantly hitting his retinas delivering astounding images to his optical nerves and from them, straight to his brain and neurons, up to that place where those immaterial particles mingle with the unconscious and inner self.

Tears were unstoppably flowing, his heart was racing and his soul was flying in the whirlpool of lights of the sky in front of him, madness and consciousness fighting like knights and dragons.

At the very same time, he felt the clear perception of this unspeakable and unthinkable unity of the small Universe engraved and carved in the picture glowing in front of him.

He was on the brink of enlightenment, in the rare state of mind in which everything seems to fall into place in the understanding of the mystery of life, which is by its own definition, impossible to catch.

A blinding light unexpectedly fulfilled the previous dark space and, in the same way it started, the dream abruptly came to an end.

OK Albert, said the technician, we got it!

Starry Night is OK, sensors and probes got all your data and we stored them in the memory unit inside your ipad-PRO 3000, you can check on them afterwards.

It took a full handful of seconds for Albert to come back to reality.

He was impressed by his own idea and arrangement: deliver an art view experience with a kind of stage set-up, into which the art masterpiece was itself the star, in this peculiar case the Starry Night, the famous Van Gogh painting at the MOMA museum of New York.

The genius of the lamp supposedly advised him when he came out with that incredible proposition: While the bystander is captured by the sudden and impressive picture or piece of art, we can scan every kind of data about him or her. We can gauge body temperature and pressure, heartbeat rate, breathing pace, and sweating inception. We can hear and record everything he/she is saying and every sound that might come out from this marvelous experience. We can take a movie picture of the few seconds or several minutes into which this art binge may last.

The final task, apart from the artistic emotional experience, had to be the catching of the onset of people’s feelings.

Once you have stored all these data, Albert was used to saying, they will come in handy for every commercial and advertising purpose and you can sell them like gold to the big internet and media companies.

Privacy issues would be taken care of by law-chewing people, possibly by half-deceiving bystanders with a compliance signature on the entry ticket paper.

This was, however, the first time he subjected himself to the art-star trip, as they were getting used to calling it and, above all, the first time ever in front of a Van Gogh masterpiece.

His engineering education made him the most rational being on earth and very seldom was he entangled with as truly soft stuff as feelings, unless you took them for practical and commercial purposes.

This time instead, he was sort of taken aback from his own reaction to the on stage view of the materialized and subliminal rendition of the most beautiful form of madness in art, as if some of this ethereal substance had struck a tuning chord deep inside himself.

It was as if, in a split second, a different and unknown layer of his conscience had floated to the surface wreaking havoc to the bold armor of his rationality in order to get rid of the logical Albert, let the emotional child come out and take over.

Whatever, thought Albert, it had to be effective and it really was, by his own experience!

A small spotting light suddenly came out from his body digital cam device and cast over the Starry Night painting a pulsing digit: 11.00 a.m..

Oh Shit! Albert mouthed, still slightly upset by the art stage rendition I completely forgot my appointment with Anne at Bryant Park! She is gonna kill me if I’m late!

Don’t worry Albert. The technician said.

Bryant is only few blocks away from here, if you take the 5th or the 6th Avenue toward south you can easily make it.

Thank you all guys. Albert said.

You’re the kindest and smartest crew I’ve ever had in my life. Do you mind tossing me the black bag please, I’m in a rush. See you tomorrow at the MET for the Dali’s Hypercube stage.

Scene 2

The Music unpredictably sprang out from its aboriginal source.

Like a river takes its power and life from a little creek, like a flower bursts into blossom from a feeble twig, a train of spherical sound waves carrying the Music flooded the whole area filling every nook and cranny of Bryant Park.

Albert was closely scanning the park in order to find the source of the heavenly tune hitting his eardrums, far from expecting to be submerged, here, by the notes of the Pachelbel Inverted Canon.

Clusters of notes were coming in, replicating themselves at regular pace and coming out, backwards, if you could only follow the music arrangement, drawing an ideal mathematical perfect scheme, the golden ratio, as if you could see what you were hearing in an astonishing fractal generation of shapes and forms.

More than anything though, the Music was lifting Albert from a worldly and busy city like NY, straight into the place where notes and melodies tune to the frequency of Life, rocking and shifting in a perfect match, in a way that you couldn’t detach yourself from the whole Universe anymore.

For the second time in a matter of few hours, Albert felt tears, abhorred by his rational mindset, filling his eyes.

He was fiercely fighting back his weeping instinct but he couldn’t help but notice that for the second time he was facing an incredible coincidence of circumstances meant to deliver him an experience of a terrific artistic and conceptual synthesis.

A couple of musicians, an innocent girl with a double bass and a boy wearing an odd Borsalino hat with his acoustic guitar, seemed actually to be responsible for that wonderful rendition of the Canon and, judging from the big circle of ecstatic people around them, Albert was far from alone in the appreciation of this performance.

Slowly recovering from surprise, with the Music still flowing, precisely the same music he was used to saying he would have wanted joyfully played at the end of his own days, Albert set off in search of Anne, who should have been somewhere near and around the park.

Meanwhile, his mind was wandering back to those glorious days with Anne at the Columbia University.

To be honest, he thought, his life was precisely cut in two historical ages: Before Anne and After Anne.

Anne really should be actually delivered as Anna, from her Italian origins, a beautiful palindrome name resonating itself in the Inverted Canon structure he was still hearing.

As Anne would have probably pointed out if asked, they didn’t actually meet, they literally crushed onto one another! The first time ever, in fact, was at a basketball match: Albert in the senior class of Engineering and Anne in the School of Law team as a freshman.

Anne, the only girl in her team, was a really good player and, half by chance and half on purpose, made her way in action straight into Albert’s left side while he was shifting to his right, sending him unbalanced, face to the ground.

This was her own crush. Albert instead after his tumble, with Anne sincerely worried and bent over him asking for forgiveness, set his eyes on her and immediately realized that he was going to have, in addition, a real crush on her!

However, even though he was three years her senior and very popular in the Columbia circle, Anne didn’t seem to be, at first glance, impressed in that way by Albert.

Nevertheless, they immediately got along and became best friends.

After almost five years now, from the last time at Columbia, Albert was sent an e-mail by Anne with a strange list of requests and a Whatsapp message as well, asking him to show up at Bryant Park today at that hour.

Still now, she was apparently nowhere to be seen.

He was looking for that athletic, tall, blonde, piercing blue-eyed nice girl, but he hadn’t any clue where to find her, feeling also unsure he would have been able to identify her.

In the circle around the two musicians, still playing the final riff of the Canon, Albert finally spotted two young women and a little girl gently and softly dancing following the wave of the Music.

A curly blonde little girl of around six, a blonde pretty woman, possibly her mother, and a short-haired brunette with a colorful summer dress were flying in the dance motion.

A magnificent dog, a Border Collie, was also enjoying the music and was happily circling around the dancing trio, clearly belonging to them. Albert, carefully observing the scene, had a sudden, strange feeling about it, as if he had already seen that superb hound, somewhere or somehow, in his past.

In that precise moment, however, the brunette girl turned her face and cast her magnetic blue eyes right on him.

Oh my goodness! Albert almost shouted out.

The girl abruptly stopped her dance and started to run to Albert with open arms and an overwhelming, welcoming smile.

Surprise was printed over Albert’s face and he couldn’t hide either the shock or the inner happiness he was feeling in front of his Anne.

Albert it’s me! Don’t you fancy meeting me anymore? Anne said in a quiet and more than friendly tone.

Oh, please don’t be foolish Anne, you know… let me hug you.

So they embraced with their bodies almost entangled for a long, eternal and silent minute.

Then, with their arms stretched, they looked into each other’s eyes and Albert couldn’t help but say:

Listen Anne, I must say you’re more beautiful than ever and I can’t stand looking in your eyes more than a few seconds without shivering inside, but…let me frankly ask you as a friend: what the hell did you do to your blonde hair?

So Albert, don’t you like me in this way? Anne said, just pretending to be offended, with those winking eyes he couldn’t resist.

Quite the contrary Anne…you only look different, I’d say more like…a woman.

Well, Albert, let me tell you now that I spotted more than a few lines in your forehead too!

They looked into each other’s eyes for a few seconds then, on a sudden impulse, they couldn’t help but explode in a burst of unstoppable laughter!

Scene 3

Albert I really need your help.

These were Anne’s words as soon as they met.

Albert though, immediately got that she wouldn’t have told him now the whole story. She actually was in charge of the management of the renowned Musical Chairs event and in addition, she seemed to have people around her to deal with.

Before getting started though, let me introduce you to one of my dearest friends. Anne said.

Albert meet Sophie, Sophie meet Albert. And this little girl is Julia - Julia say hi to Albert. Oh, I was forgetting our faithful guardian Angel, Leslie, our amazing Collie.

With a sudden and firm bark, Leslie responded to Anne’s call and, as if she had already understood the whole situation, the lively dog stood in front of Albert with tongue outside its mouth waiting for Albert’s formal answer and acknowledgment.

Really nice to meet you Sophie, Hi Julia, you look like a very good young dancer! Albert said politely, while he was stroking excited Leslie’s head.

Sophie warmly replied and Julia shyly mouthed, Hi Albert.

At that point, Anne tactfully asked Sophie and Julia to leave her alone with Albert, just for a coffee and a brief chat.

Julia joyfully caught the opportunity to flee with Leslie, toward the ice-cream booth followed by her worried and panting mother.

Then first, it was Anne’s story about all those years spent at the University, the famous School of Law at Columbia, and then her tenure, as a full professor, soon to be achieved in just a matter of a few months from now by the end of the year 2035.

All this hard work anyhow, had prevented her from having anything you can remotely call a stable relationship with anyone, which was almost the same condition shared by Albert, as he briefly pointed out during her storytelling.

And now her job was to teach and develop a new line of research on the subject of Experimental law framework for the New Globalized Economy and financial crimes , which was a vague and cloudy concept in Albert’s mind.

On his part Albert let her know that he had just left his vocational path in Infrastructure monitoring and Civil Engineering retrofitting, because of the lack of perspective in the main field of Artificial Intelligence in which he was now totally involved, with more than an eye on the economic and financial side of the subject.

Having spotted something about him from Linkedin-ADV or surfing on the internet, Anne was now wondering if he, Albert, could give her a hand dealing with some very sensitive issues she was facing in her field research.

Problem was, in fact, that more and more professional along with ordinary people, were now rejected from the job market because of the fierce competition, the onset of new AI technologies and the marginalized role of the traditional economy as opposed to the new, globalized and ultra-finance prone digital one.

This was increasingly causing a shift in the behavior of people frightened to lose their job and the financial support for themselves and their families, definitely pushing them on the verge of petty criminal acts or misconducts, meant soon to become real