“The Chairman says we can start in on the challenges we are going to face in the new year tomorrow. There will only be three “2’s” in the date, and he thinks that is going to be something useful going forward.”

“So we can’t talk about any of the three bubbling crises in the world, or the domestic stuff until tomorrow?”

“Nope. None of them look like they are going to happen today, and it is at least the second day of the new year that feels like a Sunday.”

“Which, technically it is.” Loma was determined to be accurate today, since it is entirely possible that accuracy this year is one of the challenges we are not supposed to talk about yet.

DeMille produced his iPhone and waved it in a lazy arc around the Fire Ring, stopping directly in front of Splash. “We have a last day of transition today, and can start with the conspiracy theories on Monday. You can wear any headgear of whatever metal you can fold to meet your mood.”

Splash nodded and smiled. “Can we just have a casual mention of a technical challenge today?”

DeMille looked at Melissa to ensure he was not ranging too far off the reservation. She nodded and produced a battery-powered keyboard to take notes on whatever Splash wanted to say and which might place everyone in the crosshairs of the Legal team. “I will keep an accounting of this discussion in case we stray too far.” She smiled, brushed a strand of rich golden hair over her shoulder and poised her fingers over the keys.

Rocket and Loma leaned forward to appear interested, not having brought any story ideas forward themselves on a Sunday. Splash pointed at Melissa’s poised keyboard. “There is one part of it right there. A keyboard.”

Four pair of eyes looked back at him blankly. “See? You all understand keyboards, and when you communicate you send each other email notes.” There was no sudden shimmer of understanding, just a couple sips of Chock Full o’ Nuts coffee. “Have you tried to communicate with the Interns when you need a Footnote sign paraded past the audience to ensure that the readers know you have actually thought all the way through some of the lunacy we generate here?”

More nods. “Yes,” said Melissa. “But I normally text them on the phone. They carry the phones with them all the time and some of them don’t use the internet for anything except Amazon Prime.”

Splash threw his shoulders back and rose from his preferred stone. “My point exactly. There was a recent controversy about Christmas boxes. There was no record of receipt, and there were some objects in the box that were of both family value for history and actual cash if someone ripped it off.”

“So?” Rocket was clearly not interested, since it wasn’t his box.

“The box was receipted for by text, the Chairman doesn’t carry his phone. He was wondering if the gift had arrived, and he asked about it in an email, which his family only reads when they actually sit down at a computer. It took a month to sort out. It is a generational computer and phone disconnect.”

Loma waved his hands. “I think I ought to go look at the computer before the first trip of the year to the Belmont Farms Distillery. There might be something in there I should be aware of.”

“Like these Fireside Chats. See? Generational communications.” Splash sat down again. “But it is already on the way to making the kids old timers, too. The one that will make them feel old is already here.”

Melissa frowned. “You mean the chips people are getting implanted in their bodies to show their vaccination status?”

Splash almost stood up again, but thought better of it. “Yeah, some places are making them mandatory. They say the things are not powered, so there is no danger of all sorts of stuff being transmitted. Places visited. Questions asked. All sorts of things that are going to be possible that will make phones as clumsy as computer keyboards.”

DeMille shook his head slowly, this time side-to-side. “It is going to be routine, it will offer all sorts of advantages, and you can never forget things.”

Melissa gave the group one of her slow smiles that conveyed a certain sensual ambiguity. “Which will, in essence, make the next generation one composed of cyborgs who need no phone or computers, since we will be carrying them around inside us. It is going to be a new world.”

“Imagine how many boxes us old timers are going to miss that way.”

“But we are going to make a whole new species. One never seen in this world.”

“It isn’t anything we have to worry about this year though, right?”

“We are not going to worry about anything until tomorrow. Chairman said so.”

“Did he say that in a text or an email?”

There was a titter of laughter and then silence. Splash was looking on his phone to see if the Belmont Farm opening hour had changed. Then he realized it was Sunday. And that was a real problem. The hours were on the calendar, a printed thing in several sheets held together on a ring binder. Loma laughed. “An older form of communication, like those rectangular things. What did they call them?”

“Books. You know, paper antiques.”

There were some confused nods, two smiles and two frowns. DeMille did neither. He raised his right hand in a sort of benediction appropriate to the first Sunday of a new year. “Bless us all in the world we are going to be living in. And if your right or left arm calls, don’t fail to answer it.”

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