generations balance end

Ricky Montalban was a goofball. Somehow he survived puberty and eventually, woke up in his studio apartment in some city at the age of 30 and realized he had achieved something special, a sustainable lifestyle with the barest minimum of responsibility.

Ricky wrote books, he did not own a television or a radio, occassionally the police would visit, claiming he must pay his radio taxes. He would invite them in to look around and predictably, they would not find a radio and go away again, but they would be back, in case he changed his mind.

Ricky had his food delivered, although he did not own a computer or have something as sophisticated as an internet address, his neighbour one level down kindly set up the service for him and Ricky simply paid the delivery boy in cash once a week. Ricky did not vary his purchases.

Ricky was not a recluse, he wrote all over town, in libraries, museums and when the weather was good, on park benches, he would take his handwritten notes to a typist who worked for a percentage of his sales. Ricky was good enough to work as a stringer for many magazines as a supplemental income in addition to what he earned off his own respectfully successful books.

Ricky kept many plants in his apartment, the air was always fresh.

Ricky did not believe in the examined life, his writing was outward directed, pragmatic, relevant, topical, observant.

Ricky did not write about himself.

One day, nobody noticed it, but Ricky had been replaced by an android.