In the mirror, a grotesque image of humanity writhing in the chains of a technocratic holocaust is interrupted by the guard checking his rearview.
The minds of the future are being force-fed sugar-coated K-Pop and the glitz of smart-tech adorned by androgynous models who have long removed their genitalia in exchange for virtual real estate.
This version of the truth was revealed to me in a Kafkaesque nightmare that is the Road Test Authority in Seoul, South Korea.
It began with a love tap.
The human exited her vehicle and began taking pictures and so I did the same. There was no mark or damage. I didn’t know what we were taking pictures of.
My international license was expired. Due to a panic-stricken smuggling-fest involving felony quantities of Pfizer, the prospect of flying from South Korea back to New Jersey and visiting the local AAA office was off the table. I would have to get authorized to legally drive the hard way.
So, with the attitude of, “When in Korea, do as the Koreans do,” I abandoned all other pursuits in life, prepared for the exam, and contemplated suicide.
A few days later, an insurance company’s rep called me in a friendly assistant’s voice. He seemed sympathetic until he discovered that I wasn’t covered by his insurance policy, at which point he immediately transformed into a Yakuza-like loan shark. The phone calls were never-ending. I suspected I was being followed.
“You think you’re going to just walk in there and get your license because you’ve driven for 20 years, huh?” some Korean-American Youtuber who was helping me study gloated. “This is the hardest driving test in the world. If you don’t speak Korean, you’re screwed. Fortunately, I’m bilingual and took the time to break down the test for you!”
There are one thousand possible questions which may appear on the written exam.
Here is an example question which appeared on the study guide:
- According to the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Settlement of Traffic Accidents, which of the following is a speeding related accident?
- An accident caused while driving at 110 kilometers per hour on an expressway where the speed limit is 100 kilometers per hour.
- An accident caused while driving at 95 kilometers per hour on a six-lane (three lanes in each direction) general road where the speed limit is 80 kilometers per hour.
- An accident caused while driving at 100 kilometers per hour on a motorway where the speed limit is 90 kilometers per hour.
- An accident caused while driving at 82 kilometers per hour on a two-lane (one lane in each direction) general road where the sped limit is 60 kilometers per hour.
The answer is 4.
Fortunately, I’d sacrificed a pig and ate its intestines wrapped in flesh-casings swimming in a peppered soup prior to taking the test. This may seem completely irrelevant, but I’m sure peak sodium levels helped me pass.
The next step was the road test.
I thought the worst was over. But I was wrong. Wrong about this, and wrong about everything. Wrong every time I used any application on my phone volunteering biometrics, patterns of interest and algorithms of sexual deviancy, not to mention consumer-habits, mapping out a duplicate avatar to enslave my soul and likeness in some videogame for no other purpose than to become another NPC diversifying a digital landscape filled with existentially forsaken characters.
The applicants and I were each given a number. Our numbers were called and we were made to present ourselves before a watchtower from which the human overlords would observe our progress on the road course.
We were to pull down our corona masks to prove our identity. In the future, they’ll ask us to pull down our underwear, for no other reason than to subject us to the humiliation of having a need to procreate through physical movements and sensory stimuli. How long will it be before this test involves the tattooing of barcodes on our wrists?
As we waited nervously, the tension began to mount. Driver after driver was stopped mid-test upon a succession of little failures to obey the commands. Drivers were ripped from behind the wheels of taxi-orange colored Hyundais and shoved into the backseat. What happened from that point remains a mystery.
Will they be forced to take the test again after a year sweating in some midnight cram school? Sadistically beaten and abused by their instructor until the thought of driving to the movies with a future potential spouse just seems like one more thing to struggle for to ultimately sacrifice soul and body for the continuation of a people, a history, and the late-capitalist fiefdom of some shadowy globalist superpower, which perhaps begins with the letter “C”?
When my turn came, I sat in the driver’s seat. A screen, like the sort you might lovingly touch or harshly poke at (depending on your level of road rage) while driving to pick up your kids began talking to me in the chipper robotic voice of a feminine sort that knows what it wants and will take no shit. I had chosen to take the test in English. This only increased my despair when it began giving me instructions that seemed clear but weren’t.
“Ding-dong,” a bell rang, indicating nothing except the hyperproduction of perspiration in my armpits and on my palms.
Your test will begin now. Test the wipers to see that they are working correctly. Switch them on, then off. You have five seconds.
I switched the wipers on.
Point deducted.
“What?!” my mind screamed. I spiraled into catatonic shock behind the wheel. I had a few seconds to reconduct myself before the next task was given, but of course by this time my mind could only think about the two mistakes I had left before I would be forced to repeat the hours of waiting in line, the driver’s school that had been recommended to me over and over–me, an American who’d been driving for twenty years–the anger and humiliation, the shame! The rage! The unfairness of this stupid system that expects you to click once, or click twice, or click right, right, left exactly like it is programmed to accept as a valid response like some 1980’s videogame cheat code.
You will now test the headlights. Switch the lights on. Then turn on the high beams before switching the lights back off. You have five seconds.
Gritting my teeth with the emotion of a cow on the conveyor belt, I clicked on the headlights.
Point deducted for prematurely turning on the headlights.
***
As I furiously type these last words into my Android from the backseat, the view of the watchtower grows smaller and smaller in the distance.
“I switched the wipers on,” I thought to myself. “What did I do wrong? It said I had five seconds to turn on the headlights. Was there a beep I was supposed to wait for? I don’t understand!”
And then it suddenly hit me: This is the future.
To live in a world of bots, you must do exactly as the bot says. You must do as the bot does. You must become the bot.