Casper

Writing can be a funny old business; one day you are flush full of ideas, the next your mind is as blank as an inventory of Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. At other times you have a great concept but can not put it down "on paper". Take today for instance. I had an idea for a little story but try as I might, I couldn't get the damn thing to work for me.

It involved an 80 year old billionaire named Casper, who died in 1972 from a heart attack following a night of wild sex with his 19 year old secretary. OK, this is fictional and I could have had him dying from natural causes. However, when the time comes for me to shuffle of my mortal coil, that's my preferred method - so that's how Casper was going to meet his maker.

Prior to dying, (he would hardly have been in a position to do anything afterwards) he had arranged with a Sydney science department to have his corpse cryonically preserved by being frozen in liquid nitrogen, then bought back to life thirty-five years later - a little like being married then getting divorced.

The plot involved Casper being thawed out then facing a welter of Australian officials and medical people, all asking the same sort of half-arsed questions the rest of us have become used to while Casper was frozen stiff.

You know the sort of thing I mean -

Could he show his drivers licence? Did he have any other form of identity? Had he been overseas during the last thirty-five years and if so where? Had he been in contact with any Muslims or anyone who had a funny sounding name and spent a lot of time on their knees praying and chanting? (not including Catholics, because that sort of thing is quite acceptable for them to do). Can he prove he had been dead?

That sort of thing.

Casper finally escapes their clutches and decides to take a walk around the centre's office complex - eavesdropping on the conversation of the staff. This confused him because the words were familiar but not in the way they were now being used.

Words such as file, memory, mouse, windows, cache, disc, drive, explorer and vista, were all being used in ways that made little sense to Casper. Actually, half of them don't make much sense to me either!

Then there were new words - broadband, download, Bluetooth, SMS, hard drive. He also heard words being used that were around in his day but not with such frequency. Words like sustainable, road map and empower, (as far as I am concerned anyone who uses that word is either selling some dodgy self-improvement scheme, or camouflaging the fact that they haven't the foggiest idea what they are talking about) and many more that have become fashionable communication accessories.

He came across a door that said "Staff Room" and he decided to take a look. Thank God he didn't light a cigarette!

On the far side of the room was the biggest, flattest TV he had ever seen in his life - and it was in colour! (this is Australia remember, we have always been slow with entertainment technology and colour was not introduced until 1975). The poor bugger looked everywhere for the knob to change the channel but to no avail.

The news was on so he decided to sit down and see what was happening in this brave new world.
There was talk of famine, poverty, hunger and pictures of starving children. An American was asking Australia for more troops, while another was talking about bringing US soldiers home from a war the US started but could not finish. Yet another was asking for 20,000 more troops to get the job done.

He sighed and quietly said to himself.

"Some things never change".