Melissa was in full voice at the Production meeting when she arrived for the Wednesday Daily production meeting with a platter filled with pastries and a jug of coffee Mate creamer to peoduce her Flat Yank coffee and fished in her purse to pull out a glowing tablet.

“Sorry I’m late, but this image has been lingering almost as long as we have. Vic’s Dad has been in the ground since 2012. He drew it at his drafting table at Nash-Ramber in 1955. Vic was four years old, his brother was a toddler and sister was a new-born, so there was a lot going on in that household and at work, his Dad was designing a future that is now jammed into our past.”

Vic had the little 8×10 picture leaning against the wwall to his cubical and passers-by often stopped to comment. Vic said his Dad liked itt so much that he had the photocopy mounted on foam with a hangar on the back suitable for office decorations.

Miles told him to get a decent frame, since that “idea” was seventy years old.

The actual impetus to digging through vic’s stuff was a comment from TAHE, the AI computer the Chairman bought to harness a digital solution to some ofthe half-baked ideas submitted by the creative section. That was a full Tueday of activity that only succeeded in moving a file from the camera in the iPhone to the Macbook Pro he used to mock up the draft dailies for submission to the Socotra Head Shed.

This is what started the flurry of activity on a brilliant blue Autumn Day, temps in the 40s to start at dawn and settling into a comfortable low seventies by the tie lunch was done.

The point of this, according to Rocket who had shrugged off his old flight jacket and plopped into a chair at the conference table. “So you guys are making a story about something they thought was the future around the time your parents were planning your futures. And you published it today when you wanted to generate something about all the Old Boomers who claimed they were overthrowing the King who has occupied the White House. He is already tearing it down.”

Splash scowled and looked across the table at Melissa who was fixing Snidely’s Flat Yank coffee. “The image is from this morning. The President has been busier than you guys. You needed an advanced Artificial Intelligence program loaded on a big machine across town to know what to do. And you answered the machines direction by fooling around on the computer instead of writing something creative.”

“What did the machine think?”‘ asked Rocket, looking at the dark white swirl in his mug.

This time Splash smiled. “Dunno. Said it would get back to me once it figured it out.”

Miles nodded. “It is all about how you design a Future.”

Copyright 2025 Vic Socotra
www..vicsocotra.com