No.

(For details, see Terrible Minds – Flash Fiction Challenge: An Uncharted Apocalypse.)

I arise to consciousness. My sleep was for an undefined amount of time, and it now an undefined time in the day. For me, now, there is only the day, and sleep. Somewhere there are clocks, times and dates; I never see them. I choose not to.

2013. That was a defined year, back when we did such things. The bionic eye was first trialled, and was a success. A machine, hooked directly into the brain, provided the information our failed senses could not.

I’m not hungry, but I know I need food. The sun shines from a clear blue sky as I wander to a glade, and sit on a table next to a lake. A few notes are rummaged, and placed on the table. They disappear in a soft fade, and I wait patiently a few minutes before my food fades into being, as graceful as a mist parting in the dawn, back when it used to.

In 2018, programmers began to find ways to adjust the bionic eye. Augmented reality. Selective perception. Look at a product and see the price. See train timetables floating over the platform. Later that year, the first elective surgery to replace healthy eyes with bionic ones was carried out.

My meal is perfect as ever, and fills my stomach completely. Yet something in the back of my mind troubles me. Something is wrong. I walk down the street; it is empty and clean, free of distraction. Some time and distance away, I enter the room where the sky is kept. A sun floats there, imperfect. I reach for my stick, and draw it along the sun, pulling forth a rainbow. But the rainbow has too much magenta, so I quickly reach for some cloud and stuff it along the rainbow. The sun rests, and the rainbow is now in balance. I pry the sun apart and find a storm cloud within. Removed, I fold the sun back up, and send it on its way. Money fades into being, and I take it.

It took until 2024 until we were able to more seriously alter our perceptions; interfaces to work with the brain itself unlocked the potential. By now, the bionic eye was no longer bionic; Genetic engineering had created a biological analogue. Children were born with bionic eyes, passed down from their parents. The interface was a small device, implanted at the base of the neck, that connected to the spinal cord and the internet. Now, we could create anything we wanted. Programmers wrote apps for it.  We could have the world we wanted.

And more than anything, we wanted to ignore people. Why wouldn’t we? It was the primary appeal of social networks. Don’t like someone? Block them. They’d never even know, after all. Intelligent filtering made it possible to simply remove the angry drivers from the road. You didn’t hit them: The app spotted them, removed them from your vision, and subtly guided you on a path that didn’t cross their own. We experienced only a peaceful morning drive to work. At work, you could ignore your boss, seeing directly what needed to be done, without the need to be told.

I leave the room with the sky. There is nobody here now. The street is clear, clean, and well maintained. Above me the sun shines bright and golden. I am happy, and peaceful.

If hell is other people, then I live alone on a shard of paradise, just like billions of others.