Flashpoint (working title)
an excerpt

Let me tell you what I remember. It was all so different then. I thought we were invincible, I thought we were still reaching for the sky. It's funny how the stronger you think you are the harder it is for you to believe you are not.
We had it all. We had everything you could possibly ask for but we still wanted more. We still yearned for more. At the time, it didn't feel like it, but now, looking back, that's how it was.
I wonder if you can imagine at all. I'll try and tell you anyway.
Our cities stretched for miles and miles, our waterways were controlled, no water spilled where it wasn't supposed to spill. There was rain, of course, we didn't control the weather that much, but we manipulated it enough that it only rained at night and supplied us with wonderful, blue, sunny days with fluffy clouds year round. Snow? Oh, we had snow. Plenty of snow - right where it was supposed to be - in the alps beyond every town we could manage it. We had cities that never saw rain, we had tropical islands, we had winter getaways. It's all gone now.
Life was a struggle for most people, even then. But, we didn't realise we had quality of life. We didn't realise that it didn't get any better. We thought we could do better, that just around the corner would come the cure for all ills, the way to build robots to do the menial tasks to free our minds for imagining and creating a better world. But, it never came. It never came.
You want to know how we lived, how we loved. I don't know how to talk about that - how much time do you have to sit and listen? Our lives were complicated, full of everything except what was important. We had aeroplanes - oh, we flew in the sky, we sailed on the water, we drove in cars. You probably don't know what that means. But, you will. By the time we have finished, you will.