Microstory 2060: Of Opium Floating

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Finally got a call from the garden this afternoon. My boss tells me she can’t pay me very much, because of my lack of experience, but she’s sure I’ll start getting raises after I prove myself. Unfortunately, the place is a little strapped for cash at the moment, so they’re going to make-do without the help until the end of the month. Still, I’m not going to complain, because I’m pretty grateful for the opportunity. In the meantime, I’m learning more about the history of this Earth. A lot of it sounds pretty familiar, though I was never good at history, so any number of details could be wildly different, and I wouldn’t know the difference. If you told me that Monroe was the president before Madison, I would believe it. And if you told me the opposite, I would believe that too. I’ve still not yet figured out what went wrong here, though. Why is it so boring? There’s no war, but I think that’s because nobody cares enough about anything to fight over it. The poor stay poor, and the rich aren’t all that wealthy. They spend it on whatever they need, and when they die, their assets usually end up with the state. You don’t seem to have the concept of charity or inheritance. It’s all very strange. I’m beginning to worry that there’s something in the air that makes everyone so chill, and not in a good way. I read a book and watched a TV show adaptation before I came here where they went to a magical land that had a little bit of opium floating in the atmosphere all the time. I suppose if something like that were the case, I would be feeling the effects. I’m no longer immortal, but I feel the same as I did before all of this, so that doesn’t necessarily explain it. In at least one universe, men don’t have scrotums, which is not something that would be immediately apparent if you met a native. There are so many possible differences that I couldn’t even hope to detect a small fraction of them. Will do more research, and get back to you, but will probably just assume for now that dudes here have scrotums.