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A New Look At LIFE

He went nowhere, he spent nothing, and yet he barely got by.

He was having a harder and harder time making ends meet. His minimal expenses kept increasing. His social security check wasn't keeping pace.   Any tiny little unexpected expense and he had to dig into his meager savings.  It was shrinking fast. He was one tiny mishap away from disaster.   If he got sick or injured  he wouldn’t be able to pay for it and he would die.  If he got evicted, he’d be on the streets.  At his age he’d probably die shortly afterwards. One serious expense and he was done.

One day he got spammed. It was a new type of spam and it actually caught his interest. A new kind of nursing home.

HIGH FIVE Rest Homes.

And they were FREE!

He KNEW they were lying.  He was a master at detecting lies and these people were lying. They had to be….had to.   No one would provide room and board AND free medical care for old folks for nothing. No one could.  There were too many poor old people and their numbers were booming.  The Baby Boom had detonated.   It had to be a scam.

Yet he was intrigued, interested, curious and getting desperate.  His finances were insufficient.

“HIGH FIVE”…it said.

“the newest, cheapest, safest method of living on the planet.”

“Do you have a limited budget.. no budget?” it went on to say.

“Check us out…” and it gave a website…

Damn Liars.   No one could do that.  He knew basic economics.  Either a company made a profit or it went out of business.  It was bull shit.  It was a waste of his time to even look at it.

Time….all he had was time. He might as well check it out.  He did.

Interesting.

Cutting thru all the BaffleGab, TechnoJabber and GeekSpeak it boiled down to a new way of Warehousing Old Folks.

Except that Instead of being in a nursing home these folks are REALLY warehoused.  They are in what might be confused as mortuary cabinets.  Science fiction fans might consider them to be cold sleep drawers.  They are neither.

Inside the cabinets they experience typical wake/sleep cycles similar to any other people. The cabinets are HIGH FIVE.  That is… they are  Holistically Integrated Graphically Haptic.. Full Immersion Virtual Enclosures.  

“The enclosure provide nourishment,  physical therapy, sanitation,  a secure environment, and Full Sensory

communications.” The website said.

He thought about it.   Those old farts can access anything from their HIGHFIVEs.  They can watch TV, surf the net, go virtual or connect to any of several telepresence outlets in real time They can even mind-meld with certain cybernetically prepared animals.

He thought about it for a second.   No...more like a nanosecond..

“Where could he sign up?” He was asking the HIGHFIVE sales  representative over the phone.  He’d not used a phone in a long time and almost sprained a finger punching in the number.

Yup...he could deal with that.  Dog Food and beer was getting a bit old anyway….even if he did use Tabasco Sauce.