We can set the point of divergence somewhere in the 80s. Up to that point, everything has been familiar?how about 1985, that's a nice round year. But after, elements got mixed, and we've got to set this parallel timeline and consider it much as we observe the frozen, mute beauty of butterflies in the case. They are beautiful, yes, but would be even more so?if they were in motion.

Imagine now. The gated drumbeats and syncopated bassline of a band called Hard Cell, taxis that look like gumdrops with eyes, all this in crowded streets of a city which I'll perhaps a name for later. This is living, this is the gripping pulse of moving forward while an electric trumpet solo nudges you to carry a?torch. There's a lot of color, for it's a very well-lit city, neon signs are commonplace and it's the dull paper ones that are used to "stand out".

I'm on a bench. It's not aluminium, but it's similar. And I recall the city's name is Traeyes. Why, I don't know. Traffic is packed but fluid, coiled around the round skyscrapers with their dorsal fins jutting out of bases, scope ascending into arched bridges and fountains, and many beautiful city parks. Lunchtime is a popular pastime in the park, as is the microculture of showing off decorative lunchboxes and not only the taste, but the presentation of the food within.

A bubbletaxi jets by and almost musses my hair, and it doesn't. No fuss there. I look up at one of the curved towers, and there's a giant, wrapped?what you'd call a billboard?and there are robots, four of them, on it, animated in some form of vectorgraphic solution. There's flicker time to time due to the limited refresh rate of such a majestic display, but there's one element on the silvery screen that does remain constant: a harsh, klempt "K" in a circle. There's intervals in which the circle spins in 3D fashion and rotates away and back towards the viewer, and the robots do a dance. Not graceful, but it's a dance.

In this timeline, I've still got my book. It's a red book, not little, so I'll call it Torley's big red book. I've written down my ideas in this book with a stylus (love that word). I don't have a blog in Reality-2086, but the book is wireless (without reception problems), kind of cartoonish, and definitely networked. The pages have dynamic content, although "normal" paper fits in there too if you want layers of antiquation and obscurity bundled around your new smartpages.

There's a melody that sort of chimes in the background, announcing the time of LUNCH. It's a plainitive synthetic cry, but feels almost celtic and sung by a grieving mother?or perhaps merely a hungry one at that.

Big red book's under the arm, and?

There's a lot of warm tones in this landscape. Lots of oranges, yellows, some lime greens, it's very tasty. There's the occasional blue for windows and ad lettering as well as purple for butterfly decals emblazoned across roadstops, sort of tip o' the wing to "The butterfly effect" of R-2086, as it were. I'm hungry now and don't want to write just yet, although I do amuse myself watching some streaming videos of cats smiling. I know I've seen this before!

I've packed a simple lunch. Four eggballs which are technically meat but didn't come from any animals, as it were (and not vat-grown either), and a cup of instacoff?a type of what we'd know here as "coffee" but far more acidic and bitter, leading to sinus-clearing hacking fits… hence the name. It usually has a minty aftertaste too, although I've picked more of an Irish cream route today. There's watermelon licorice and some marshmallows on the side as an added attraction.

Off in the distance as I'm munching, it feels like there's a distance pounding of tribal drumming coming nearer?some sort of savagery in the city. It's not literal, but there was a time when none of this?advanced, emotional technology?was here. A flatlands, a marsh, lots of ducks. Fear not, they've not lost their home; in fact, they have become modelling superstars for a fashion studio down the holoroad, called Chicks With Chicks. The park I'm benched on does have a lot of authentic presence to it: there's varieties of bamboo sloped down to the pond, including an esoteric variety that is tough yet as flexible as certain rubbers. The pond itself has a frothy ingenue to it, and there are ice cubes because of a temphenomenon that enables one end to be more like a hot springs, while the other end is sometimes used by travelers-by to collect those very cubes for their drinks. It's popular.

I've done it on some occasions, and 'cubes have a pleasant clink, but right now I'm drinking what's hot and making me cough the irritation out of my core, so it'll wait for another day.

And I'm dipping out.