By and copyright of Owen Quinn
Left Unsaid was never meant to be part of the When Angels Burn & Other Stories anthology book.
It wasn’t ever going to be a monsters from space story. Every chance I get I like to add to the characters and their backgrounds. The label Time Warriors sound like the Thundercats or He-Man crew were about to arrive. But that is the point. The Time Warriors are you and me. They are ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. Like all of us, they have flaw and weaknesses which are universal. They look like us, they live like us and life treats them just as good and badly as it does everyone who has ever walked this planet.
We all grieve and miss our loved ones. Something I saw on social media disturbed me. You’ve all seen these apps which take photos and bring them to life. I tried one and using a photot of me, I was singing and dancing in it.
I was so disturbed by it I didn’t go any further
There was something totally unnatural about my movements and yes, I know it’s AI but still, it was looking at a stranger. It was like something had taken my body and was using it as a puppet to make me a parody of myself.
I’ve seen so many advert where old pictures are brought to life and know people are flocking to them. I got to thinking what if people were bringing photos of their deceased loved ones to life. Social media is so addictive as it is, without people becoming hooked on this fake slice of life where their loved ones are animated again.
That disturbs me on many levels and I recall David Bowie talking about the arrival in the internet and saying it will impact us in ways we could not even imagine back then.
He was right, so right.
Grief is something that can grip people and keep them down in a dark pit. They may need counselling. They may be alone and no one to speak to. Or they could be surrounded by family and still not have anyone to talk to. But if they had an app in which they could animate old photos of the dead is an incredibly terrifying thing. Addiction can come in many forms and this one is one that can destroy a life.
With advancing technology, how long before these apps become VR environments where the grieving can go and pay to interact with their deceased ones as fully fledged holograms. Privacy laws and their adult status would ensure this isolation would continue. Who knows what the consequences would be if that grief took them to the edge of suicide.
That is not a healthy scenario so I choose Michael to be the one to suffer from untapped grief. I chose him because Michael is the positive person that will keep going when life is shit. He is the one that has lost the most but gained the life he wanted with rachel and his daughter, Sarah. He had lost two father figures in his life, his father and grandfather, so I thought it was time to meet his grandfather whom we learned in the Wolves of Chernobyl & Other Stories had died from leukaemia when Michael was a teenager.
Left Unsaid is not a long story but it is an important one for anyone dealing with grief or mental illness because of people they have lost. It is a dangerously slippery slope at the best of times but when technology gives us a forbidden fruit then the serpent strikes.
If you have issues like discussed in the story please reach out to the likes of Samaritans who will always be there on the other end of the phone for you. Michael is lucky. He has the people round him that know him and love him. So are you; you just don’t realise it becausse grief is eating you up. No matter what you think, there will always be someone there for you. All you need to do is pick up your phone and dial the number. Or if it helps, leave your story below. I wanted the Time Warriors to always be somewhere to inspire and make people feel like they can come any time.
I’m not an expert. I’m just someone that has lost too many people and wish every day that I could have just one more minute with them. I was tempted but these apps are too disturbing.
Please don’t be alone.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 