On our street of many-gabled Victorian homes, real estate developers are building several Lego-looking domiciles. Flat-roofed, angular blocks of plasticated timber more suited to new fangled Silicon Valley than quaint New England. And this tech-bro curb appeal is no doubt the reason for their incongruous architecture, clearly designed to accommodate rootless individuals instead of families. After all, who else can afford such characterless "machines for living" except the lead programmer for Prometheus Data Solutions with his lucrative stock options?
Standing on the corner by the redundant old blue mailbox, I glance up the road at these out-of-place oblongs being wedged into a row of curlicues. The lovely old kinks of our neighborhood are getting ironed out as the street gets streamlined and decluttered. That empty plot which was once a two-story house will soon be an interactive loft-style duplex featuring fully networked appliances. Meanwhile, the Wilsons at number 38 have been replaced by an anonymous hacker in Unit 2A, who's hoping to move to the planet Mars whenever Elon Musk provides the opportunity. He is sleeping in a crash pad now but dreaming of a landing pad in the stars.
In fact, all the new arrivals around here seem like they're practicing for years spent in suspended animation. I only ever see them when they're picking up packages and food deliveries from their porches: sweat pants, hoodies, flip flops and blue, computer screen tans. Are they even flesh and blood or just virtual reality simulations of people next door? Where have the actual neighbors in my neighborhood gone? I'm suddenly a stranger in my own backyard surrounded by human machines hiding out in machines for living. "Be seeing you," as the Prisoner said.
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