To Homes of the Future

You will know our every need, predict our every desire. When we come home at 5:30, our blood pressure slightly elevated, our eyes a little dilated, you cue the scent of salty ocean tinged with eucalyptus. Our childhood afternoons come flooding back to us. We ease onto the couch, which has been raised to our perfect height, the cushions set at a relaxing 72 degrees. Our favorite Brahms begins at just the right volume.

 

By Carrie Kellenberger from Banciao, Taiwan
(San-Zhr Pod Village 17  Uploaded by Pbdragonwang)
[CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

We still make our own cocktails because that’s fun, but the gin has been restocked and the tonic is fresh. We order the appetizers, crab stuffed mushrooms, and the self-setting table rolls out from a hidden panel in the wall. Mirrors become televisions playing first-run movies in 5-D, no glasses needed.

You are all touch-screen and voice-recognition. You look into our eyes and know our next move. We walk across your floors and you know from the shape of our toes who it is exactly and how warm the floor should be. You learn our habits--coffee then shower (him) or shower then coffee (her)--and adapt. You are the path of no resistance.

But you will never sell. No one will buy the complete version, the house fully tricked out with all the latest, but not because of price. A few conveniences, sure. Why not?

But by the time we are old enough to buy a house, we know.

We know it doesn’t matter how quickly dinner is made or the table cleared, it won’t make our son speak to us. We know no matter how real-life the television, it won’t cure our aunt’s Alzheimer’s. We know no matter how effortless is it to clean up after the dog has run all muddy across the white carpet, we cannot forget what he said right before he left. The look on his face. If we are old enough to buy a house, we know It doesn’t matter where we live or what we live in, we still have to live out this day, bright and heavy as it comes.