Exit West (Redux)

Summary  (I want to make three points)

“Confessions of an Opium Eater”

What are the doors?  Is the cell phone a door?

We murder those we leave behind.

Talking Points

“Confessions of an Opium Eater” by de Quincey, 1821, London.  This book wrote of travels thru space & time presaging dystopian Sci-Fi.

The doors are barriers, welcoming or hindering.  Walls, gates, passwords, front doors, laws, back doors, and side doors, representing all the myriad ways that have contributed to the modern world of nativism versus migratory lifestyles.  Nativism is an Imperial hangover: having taught the world that Europe was the best; now everyone wants to come there.  The modern solar-powered, cell-based telephone has severed connection with physical wires/cables; receiving its power through batteries rejuvenated magically by the sun, just as is man himself.  Messages, communications in a myriad of forms; voice or visual, transmitted through mysterious, unseen, unheard, electromagnetic waves, like in an ethereal séance with incorporeal beings, ghosts from all over the universe of time and space.  [See Phone Future * next page].

I am from Detroit, a WASP family: mother (Omaha 700 m. from home), Father (Cleveland 200 m. from home).  They migrated to the BIG city after college.

We all migrated after WWII to California (2400 m.).

My Mother died at 100.  At her funeral, I spoke of her extended family, which had grown to members from: Viet Nam [Vong: Foreign Exchange 60’s, CIA 70’s, Reeducation 80’s, Tourism 90’s Immigration 2010], Germany [My 1^st Ex, Gisela], Guatemala [My Grand-daughter’s Father, Melvin], Britain [My 3^rd Ex in England and her child, Marisol], Chile [My Ex’s Ex and her child’s Father, Gregorio], and Mexico [My sister’s grandchild’s husband, Jose, & Family].

We left Detroit when I was nine.  I had dozens of childhood friends, and well knew my parent’s friends, relatives, and co-workers.  I never saw, spoke or wrote to any of them ever again.  Detroit was dead to us all.  [see ** Memoirs next page].  The family all developed new friends, relationships, and co-workers. 

I am an immigrant, from East to West.

No one migrates to the East;

is that why the title Exit West?

* Phone Future    I fully believe that before I die (and I have turned 81 this month), I will be able to “dial” a number on a smart phone and view, speak or text with an AI version of “My Mother”, “My Sister”, or “My Self”.  All for a reasonable price.

WHY DISAPPEAR ONE DAY?

Your FB legend account can represent you forever.

Talk about legacy!!!

The more you give us, the better your image will be.

Don’t Spare the Bits & Bytes.  Tell ALL.

We use voice, video, DNA, pictures, writings, memoirs.

We will infuse you with character and charisma.

Users will be able to specify age when calling you up.

** Memoirs    Never again is not quite true.  After fifty years, while my father’s generation was dying off, I wrote a memoir, spanning 1935-1950.  This encompassed my parents’ marriage, pregnancy with me and my sister, moving around Detroit, the war years, and the move to California.  It was an elaborate memoir containing photographs of all those friends, co-workers, and family, maps; and pictures of all our houses; letters, back and forth during the war, and back and forth after the move; interspersed with a few memoir stories that I had written about those times.  It was a treasure trove of memories.  But like most amateur memoirs, few are interested in the details of one’s life.  I did find two people, to each of whom I sent a copy, and received a teary-eyed thank you letter from both.  One was the son of my father’s boss in Detroit.  He was a few years older than I and relished those years.  The other was my father’s business partner, who also moved from Detroit to California, and was also in his seventies.  Both served in WW-II.

We all traveled extensively after California, but never to Detroit.  I only visited Detroit once; I took the train with my father just before he died.  Detroit was dead; only half the population of the war years; and scary for WASPs.