One More Week
Most authors will cite other books or short stories as their main point of influence for a new novel. I guess there are hints of “I, Robot” and “Brave New World” in the way I explore a dystopian future with a misbehaving technology. For these short stories, however, my main influence was the TV show “Black Mirror”. I loved how each episode focused on a new technology or futuristic dilemma – I guess these stories can be my audition for the show!
Of all the stories in this collection, “One More Week” is the most like an episode of “Black Mirror”. There was an episode called “Playtest” where a man jumps into a simulation via a VR headset rig and the simulation becomes like that of a horror movie. In “San Junipero”, people live out the remainder of their lives in a simulation. Their holiday is infinite. In the case of “One More Week”, the protagonist’s holiday is limited, and it turns into more of a horror story than he could have expected.
I decided to put this story as the final one in the collection for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s quite substantial – it’s the longest one alongside “The Soul Box” and I wanted to give readers three shorter stories in a row before delving into another major one. Secondly, and more poetically, I see it as a culmination of the previous four stories: It has the soul-crushing grief of “The Soul Box”, the betrayal of “The Assassination of Valentin de Renard”, the desire to escape the tedium of life as seen in “Ennui”, as well as the helplessness of being trapped in a closed system like in “The Future Problem”. It’s as if the protagonist saw the flaws and dilemmas presented to the previous four protagonists and chose to adopt them all simultaneously.
This is easily the most dystopian story in the collection. Alongside “The Assassination of Valentin de Renard” it’s the only story set beyond ten years in our future (which constitutes my definition of “far future”), which was a requirement for the advanced holiday / AI / VR technology presented in the narrative. I take time at the beginning of the story to paint a bleak and desperate world to give the reader a better understanding of why our protagonist needs to escape the eyesore and embark on the holiday of his dreams. We completely sympathise when he doesn’t want his vacation to end. I wrote the bloody story and I didn’t want it to end for him. No human should have to go back to the world of earthquakes and smog when a better reality is only a click away.
I can’t remember exactly why I started writing this story. Maybe like with “Ennui” I was lamenting a quiet, rainy day, wishing I was someplace else where I didn’t have to deal with the boredom of everyday life. It might’ve come about during a long flight to Japan when I wished for an easier way to travel abroad – perhaps from the comfort of my bedroom. I don’t know how I came up with Virtual Vacations, or the various holiday locations, but I do know why I wanted to write this story. This is about a man who flies too close to the sun. He doesn’t appreciate what he has in the moment. All he wants is more, more, more. Like with all of the stories in this collection, “One More Week” is a cautionary tale – life is to be earned and lived, not given and squandered.
The answer to my “will this technology exist in some capacity in the future?” question is more definitive this time around – I’m certain it will. It’s only a matter of time before our need to unwind is weaponised by major corporations and travel companies. Gone will be the expenses of plane fuel and pilot’s wages. Airports will be reserved for the super wealthy. Time is money, so for longer holidays we’ll have to pay more. And we’ll need to take longer holidays to account for the increase in workload.
Soon our free time won’t be so free.