THE YEAR 1778
(Fictional Writings from the Book “The Katia Stories.” (published in 2011)
I have used computers for more than 40 years. The first was a room size IBM box at Princeton University where we had to plug many wires from input to input to tell the monster what it had to do. It was an amazing piece of equipment: in something like 34 minutes it could calculate what a cheap second hand portable can do in milliseconds today. Later, I owned several Apple II’s and early IBM PCs in my lab. I still own and use a number I-Pads, laptop and desktop computers. The machines were and still are very useful. To me, computers have always been useful tools. Just as you use a hammer to pound a nail into a wall, you can use a computer to calculate answers to technical questions. I don’t need to know what kind of steel or wood is used to manufacture a hammer as long as I know that it is of good quality. Similarly, I don’t need to know how a computer is constructed or how its software works.
True, years ago, I was able to make minor modifications in DOS based “basic” software to adapt a program to my own needs. I can no longer do that: today’s programs are far beyond my capacity. Nonetheless, computers are an essential part of the 21st century and they have become an essential part of my life.
Just as I grew up with a typewriter, today’s kids grow up with computers. They understand those systems much better than I do. For that matter, many are able to write sophisticated programs. David is one of them. His parent tell me that he wrote simple
programs when he was only three – today at nearly nine years of age he is a computer genius. One day he asked me whether I would like to take a computer generated trip
into the past.
“You better explain what you mean with that,” I responded.
“Well, computer these days are advanced.” David spoke to me like the teachers in school must speak to him – with confidence and a bit of superiority in his voice. “See, people have written programs where you can walk into a building that doesn’t yet exist. You can see what the inside of that structure will look like. You can choose the time of day and you can see where the shadows fall; if it is night you can turn on the lights to see how that looks, and so on. I started with those programs. Then I wrote a program where you can look how buildings or even cities looked in the past.”
“But that does not really take you back into the past,” I interrupted.
“I’m not done with what I am saying!” he complained. “See, I have improved on those programs. We can now not only see what it looked like, I can let you talk with the people that lived then. I’ve tried it. It works.”
“But if you talk with the people of that time you might influence them and – consequently – have an impact on history. That, in turn, may change the present. For that matter, if you by chance or intent generate some major change, we might not even exist when we return to the present! I don’t think that it is a good idea!”
He looked at me with tolerant disdain. “Of course, I’ve thought of that too. After all, everyone knows that. But my computer trips into the past don’t have an impact on history. You don’t understand modern technology,” he added. “These are virtual trips into the past – but they are nonetheless real. Interactions you have with people are exactly as they would have been if you had gone there and talked to them – exactly in the year you chose to visit!”
Can I select any year I like and any place I like?”
“Yes. The year is easy. The place works ninety-nine percent of the time. You are willing to try it?”
If it would be harmless – why would I not want to try it! It would be fascinating after all. I had always wanted to know what Mozart was really thinking in his early twenties – after he had become of age and out of his father’s control. So I said: I’d like to spend a day in Vienna – how about 1778. I don’t know for sure that Mozart will be in town just as I arrive. But I’d like to try to find him. Can I have an entire day to look him up?”
“Sure. For that matter one day is optimal. My program does not allow more time right now. Want to do it?”
“How about now?”
David walked to his computer. “I just need to put in a few details about you – and then I will start the program….”
* * *
I felt a bit strange for a couple of minutes – as though I had just woken up from a deep sleep. I looked around. I was lying in a meadow. Mountains rose in the distance. Birds were singing in a nearby tree. Two uniformed soldiers on horseback were riding toward me.
When they stopped they stared strangely at me. The older of the two asked: “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“Why are you so strangely dressed?” the other wanted to know. I guess my 21st century clothing seemed weird to them. Actually, if I had not seen pictures of uniforms that were used a couple of hundred years ago, I would have considered their clothes to be
strange as well.
I tried to explain that I came from the future, but they just laughed. “You must be crazy”- They shook their heads in disbelief.
“Where am I?” I wanted to know.
“You don’t even know where you are? You are indeed crazy! This is Bohemia, of course.
It may have been ‘of course’ to those mounted soldiers, but it wasn’t to me. I was supposed to end up in Vienna – not a couple of hundred miles to the north-west. Was this the one percent of the time when David’s program failed, or was his computer
system generally flawed? Would I even get back to my own time? And what would I do in Bohemia for an entire day?
The soldiers solved that problem for me. “We’ll take you to the General. He sometimes seems to like it when strange things happen…”
It was a good thing that I understood the two of them. They spoke German – even though the accent and their use of words was
a tiny bit different. Thank God, a language I understood! If they would have spoken Czech, something I would have expected in parts of Bohemia, I would have had a problem.
I was taken into the temporary headquarters of a Prussian general who commanded the troops I had encountered. He looked at me with a mixture of surprise and interest:
“Who in the world are you and what are you doing here?”
I told him that I came from the future. He smiled forgivingly. “If your country is called ‘Future’ I might accept that. But let’s face it: we only live right now, in some part of what we call ‘today’. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow may not happen – we may not survive that long. As soldiers we know that well. We remember the past – albeit often a bit erroneously. We can hope for the future, but we can’t go there yet. So you can’t come from there. But, I will grant you that you may come from a country called ‘Future,’ wherever that might be. You certainly wear clothes that don’t fit the dress of any country in Europe. The place where you claim to live certainly isn’t on European maps. Maybe I will recognize which country you are talking about if you tell me what life there is like.”
I told him. He shook his head and seemed bewildered when I spoke about highways, cars, trains and airplanes. He probably wouldn’t have believed me at all, but fortunately I was able to show him my wristwatch, my palm organizer and my portable phone (of course the phone didn’t reach anybody in the 18th century, but I could play a few stored messages for him). After all that, he had to accept that the technology I spoke about might just be real.
“With all that technical advancement in your Future country, have your social relationships advanced as well? Do you live in complete peace with other nations? Have people finally become completely tolerant?”
I had to disappoint him. I told him that we had abolished slavery, but that prejudices remain. I admitted to the holocaust. I even told him about the religious fanatics who turn into terrorists, and I described the world trade center attack.
The Prussian general was shocked. “A building that tall is hardly possible,” he thought, “maybe the biblical story of the Tower of Babel applies. If you build a structure into heaven, God will punish you.”
“It did not reach heaven at all, I responded. After all, those airplanes of ours fly much higher – and they don’t even reach heaven.”
He seemed bothered. “Your Future country seems to be fabulous in technology, but very backward when it comes to civilized behavior!”
This time I was bewildered. Were we backward compared to their time?
“Quite backward!” he answered. “Let us first take religion. Our king, Frederick the Second, was recently told by his interior secretary: ‘Your majesty, there are people living in your country that profess a different religion than you do. What should we do about them?’ After all, in various countries in Europe citizens are normally required to belong to the same religion as their king.
But Frederick answered ‘In my country everyone becomes a saint in his own fashion’. That, it seems to me, is a tolerance that your Future country has not achieved.”
“And you speak about the destruction of thousands of civilians in your ‘world trade center attack’ as well as the death of millions of people who were murdered in camps by some people you called Hitler and Stalin. That sounds just like the crusades of the dark ages hundreds of years ago! – Except that, by comparison, fewer people were killed during the crusades. No, we have advanced far beyond the slaughter of civilians. I am a general. My king requires that I fight wars fairly. My soldiers fight other soldiers. We don’t plunder, we don’t rape and we don’t kill civilians like the Romans did. Roman soldiers were rarely, if ever, paid. They got their rewards by pillaging and raping. Even our own ancestors, hundreds of years ago, never did anything like that. I would be court-marshaled if I did not pay and feed my men and keep them from pillaging. They
get their food, they get their beer and brandy, as ordered by his royal highness. No civilian is ever harmed by us, except by unfortunate accident!”
“Then you spoke about the weapons your people use. Those weapons kill you without your seeing the person you are fighting. That does not give you a chance to be better than your opponent. Again, I don’t think that is a fair way of fighting wars. No, instead of abolishing wars, your country has made things worse. I would not want to live in your Future. Your technology seems advanced – but your people are completely uncivilized!”
I found it difficult to argue with him. How could I defend our 21st century civilization? I expressed my appreciation for the conversation and decided to take a walk through the countryside until it was time to be called back to today by David’s computer. The flowers were blooming, birds sang and a couple of deer were bouncing across the meadow. It could have been a scene from today, from my own time. Indeed, the world did not change that much in more than two hundred years. Then, did just human beings change?
* * *
When I got back to the 21st century and to David’s house, he asked me whether I had enjoyed my visit with Mozart.
“I ended up some place else,” I said without regret. “It was nonetheless interesting. I don’t know how I feel about it yet. I have to think about it. Sometime I’ll tell you about my thoughts.”
I was thinking: – would it have been better to live in the late 18th century?
(Frederick the Second, later called Frederick the Great, was not only successful as a political and military leader. He was close friends with a famous French philosopher. He supported the arts and music. He played the flute and composed beautiful baroque concertos and a symphony. Even in the United States there are statues of him in public places.)
If you want to continue reading storied and other entries to this site in the way they have been entered into this site, plese click on “Next Page.” If you want to select which entry you want to see next, please click on “Return to Glossary.”