short

(From Nisha’s blog, one year before the events in book One of the Vargen Chronicles)

Autumn Colored Memories

15 October 2031

I remember a time when late October was cold and rainy, before the oceans rose. I was young, but I can still recall a certain scent to the air as we walked home from school. It was the crisp scent of turning leaves and ghost stories. To me, October was the time of settling into a new school and getting used to a new family. One year I’d landed in what seemed like everyone else’s reality, a.k.a my dream world. My latest foster family was new to the system and they tried to make life grand. Oh it was for a while. I remember cider mills and donuts, pumpkin picking, then carving. It was the type of October I’d only dreamt about. Unfortunately, the family suffered a “severe setback” and I was back in the system by the middle of November. I think I was about nine.

October is much warmer now and that crisp scent has almost disappeared. It comes to mind though every time I’m designing a new interface with an Autumn color scheme. Today’s scheme is for a new line of refrigerators that can change hue to fit the decor of your home. How’s that for innovation? Want to redesign your kitchen and tired of the same old appliances? Now you can change them without worrying about the Usefulness Depreciation Tax. The range of colors is limited, but as the tech gets better, I’m sure they’ll figure out how to expand it. My job is to worry about how it looks and feels to interact with it. According to market research, Autumn is a very popular color scheme for home electronic interfaces. So here I am, more than ten years later, thinking of that special scent of fall while picking shades of oranges and browns.

Yeah, I know. It’s funny how the brain skips from one thing to the next. I came here to write about the new color technology but I’m caught up in the memory of that brisk October where my nine-year-old-world seemed like it just might level out. In truth, it wouldn’t be long before it finally did level out. But to the kid that I was, it was the end of the world when Social Services picked me up from school instead of my foster mom. It was the shortest time I’d spent with any family, but damn it was good. The next family was wise in the system and life there was more like indentured servitude than being part of a family. Maybe it’s that contrast that makes the months with the Slater family so much more sweet. Wherever they are, I hope they’re well. They let me peek into the world of “normal” and “good”, which helped me recognize it when I landed with Aunt Beck.

Sorry to ramble. If you want more buzz from the latest tech, stay tuned to the next post, dear readers. I’ll bring more insights from the world of high technology and human/machine interfaces. Next time I’ll stay on topic, rather than ramble over my crazy life. I know you can relate though, as you peer through your screens into other worlds sometimes much removed from your own reality.

Cheers,
Nierán