More than fifty years had passed since the great tragedy.
Now, in a large room, in a secured wing of the most prestigious metropolitan hospital, a patient’s signs were looking positive. The bed was surrounded by dozens of doctors, surgeons, scientists and neurological specialists, all excitedly muttering to each other. They had been brought here from all corners of the planet to witness the event. The elderly patient was none other than the revered descendant of one of the several men, each one regarded as ‘the father of the internet’, at the time of the global tragedy. At the time when digital technology, as it was known back then, had suddenly stopped!
Nobody understood what had happened or indeed why it had happened. It started with networks simply dropping out, one by one, world-wide. The all-consuming dependency on what had been taken so much for granted, became apparent as more and more services and systems became non-operational. The planet as a whole was fast reverting to a condition where things mechanical and analog in nature took over. Rich countries got poor, poor countries got poorer and the mortality rates skyrocketed across the planet. There was still electricity, but nobody knew how to control it, and when anything went wrong with it, nobody knew how to fix it.
It was in the year 2025 when this young genius, the man in the bed, had been in his early twenties. Apparently, this super guru was tinkering in his government-sponsored laboratory when it happened. He’d been working on a project designed to improve the overall capability of the World Wide Web. Although it was never properly established what did happen that day, a number of cynical pundits at that time said that he had simply pressed the wrong button. However, notwithstanding any such popular rumours circulating at the time, it was generally accepted that, looking back, if anybody could fix it, he could.
At the time, it was considered that the young man had suffered a heart attack and had fallen into a coma soon after. Throughout the medical world there were many alternate theories about this, up to a point when it was generally agreed that arguing about it was simply a waste of time. The event, although nobody understood why, through the auspices of the world press, became known as the ‘Great Cessation’.
The frail figure in the bed stirred.
Despite clear instructions that had been given to the contrary, en mass, all those assembled moved forward slightly.
At last, with his old, faded, tear-filled eyes, and despite the dribbling, he was heard to murmur, “I want my mummy.”