2645. Landon enters Paradise

Landon was ninety-four years old. “I’ve had a good innings,” he said. “My life has been satisfying. I believe in the afterlife and am looking forward to it.”

He had a little time to go on the final leg of the race. “I’m eager to meet up again with everyone I knew in life; family, friends, and acquaintances. What a reunion it will be! It’ll be great to catch up with my wife Eliza and I’m especially keen to see my daughter and the two grandchildren and the great grandson who have all predeceased me.”

It took about a year, but eventually he did pass away. His excitement was palpable. “At last! At last I’m almost there!” were his final words.

When he got there, everyone was preoccupied with their cell phones.

2533. The treble voice

Samuel was eleven years old and sang with the most crystal clear treble voice. In fact he was in the cathedral choir. Last Christmas they sang Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and Samuel was a soloist.

His was a single parent family. His mother was industrious – she cleaned motels – but life was still hard and they always had just enough to make ends meet. For example, all the kids at school had mobile phones and Samuel didn’t. When you can’t afford something the desire increases.

Locally, Naomi and Levi were getting married. It was a society wedding. Anyone who was anyone was invited. Last Christmas after they had attended Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols Naomi had said to Levi, “We’ve got to have that boy sing at our wedding!”

Samuel wasn’t very keen to do it, and at first said “No”. Naomi saw Samuel’s mother and asked if there would be anything that would persuade him to sing at their wedding. His mother said, promise him a cell phone.

Samsung.

2391. The marvels of technology

It was indeed a marvel of modern technology that so many people were able to capture on phone the falling of Avery Brown from 400 feet up in the Ferris wheel. He hit a few steel bars on the way down. It was a pretty bumpy flight. Neville Noonan reckoned, watching his video frame by frame, that the kid must have bounced around eleven times on the way down.

There were thirty-one recordings of the fall handed in to police. “This is an overwhelming help to discover exactly what happened,” said Police Officer Barney Meldrum. “Unfortunately there are five or six videos that are practically worthless, having recorded not the fall but simply the mess on the ground. We all know what that looked like. But generally speaking the public support has been amazing.”

Nana Vilovsky is an investigative journalist. She read about the incident online. She was able to get a snapshot of the fall from one of the witnesses to put on the front-page. Facebook is fortunately a veritable gold mine of what people are saying. It always produces information that is newsworthy, although Nana Vilovsky had to make a bit up because Avery Brown’s mother refused to be interviewed and was apparently distraught. “At least she has a video to remember her son’s last moments,” wrote Nana Vilovsky.

Someone called Kerry Johns or Jones was able to point out that the tragedy of Avery Brown’s flight had little to do with anything serious. “If you want to get serious just think how many people will be tempted to jump off the Ferris wheel once global warming takes effect,” commented Kerry on Twitter.

Ngaire Pinkum said it was a shame. She had the sound turned on to record but the screams of onlookers in the fairground, drowned out the loud splat he made when he landed.  “I can still hear it in my head;” she said, “the splat. If the sound had been clearer a lot more people would’ve downloaded it.”

Noddy Barberon, a sixteen year old visiting from North Dakota, spoke for everyone when he said, “I hope they are not going to shut down the Ferris wheel for an hour or two. I’m only here for a short stay.”

Finally, Elsie Styvenberg was able to point out that because of the hub-bub over the kid on the Ferris wheel, hardly anyone took any notice of the toddler later who got run over by the bumper cars.